Yes, Ukraine is suffering. And obviously, they want the killing to stop. But Russia’s negotiating position here is absurd. Their talking points are just being parroted by U.S. stooges. But - no serious minded person thinks Russia is likely to abide by any agreement anyways, especially one without HARD security guarantees for Ukraine’s sovreignty. U.S. and Russian pressure to sign a bad deal seems on it’s face desperate, given their obvious original war aims of complete national conquest and annhiliation of Ukrainian society.
Russia only neogtiates when they think they can’t simply seize more by force. They appear to be at that point, and post-war russia is going to be a chaotic mess. The reward of Donbas and Crimea, territory they’ve already essentially controlled for a decade, hardly seems worth all the losses they’ve taken militarily, economnically, politically and demographically
So what should Ukraine do? If they care about a lasting peace - stalling and continuing to bleed the Russian army might be the better option. These are not good peace terms. Yet.
Right. But - in real terms - that’s not happening. The West’s salami slice strategy of giving Ukraine increasing capabilities has tapered off. It would be great if we blinked our eyes and Russia went away. But - given REAL options, from Ukraine’s perspective, you want to degrade their war capabilities as much as you can for as long as you can, at a reasonable cost to your own. Given the options of a bad peace that will inevitably ensure another invasion in 3-5 years, or just keep fighting and keep the russian war machine bleeding until Russia experiences a major economic collapse, or Putin dies and the country descends into a power struggle… where do you go? Hard to say. But it it’s the latter, then Ukraine’s seemingly impossible goals of regaining lost territory suddenly become less impossible-looking.