Russia only negotiates when it feels it can longer get what it wants by force. It then switches to maximalist, zero-compromise give-me-something style demands to the point of absurdity.
But what should Ukraine do? The Russians and their U.S. proxies are pushing for concessions, with zero hard security guarantees. The ‘realities on the ground’, as they’re very fond of saying, aren’t such that Ukraine should be happy to only lose 20% of it’s territory, including all the human, resource and industrial potential that that includes. U.S. material support is barely relevant to Ukraine’s ability to resist the 2025 version of the Russian Terrorist Army strategically.
Indeed, what should they do? U.S. leverage is less than Trump would have you believe. Russian capabilities are not getting markedly better by any measure. Their small, slow advances are not adding up to strategic defeat for Ukraine. Ukraine has many more ‘cards to play’ before they, and Europe, should accept that this is the best time to…well…surrender, and let the russian re-tool for an obvious Next Glorious Invasion in a couple years.
Maybe the wisest plan is to keep fighting. Keep bleeding the Russians until they howl, and their terms get better. They aren’t reasonable actors - they’re trying to eradicate Ukraine completely. Politicallly, militarily, culturally. And that’s not old news - Putin said this last week. Fight until the last Ukrainian is dead. How can you even consider negotiating with such clearly genocidal hatred.
Russia only sees weakness in negotiating. When russia comes to the negotiation table, it’s because they know their weakness. Their maximalist demands are bluster.
All the gold they have liquidated is just because putin and his dipshits are degenerate gamblers who only know doubling down or throwing people out of windows. Ukraine needs to hold on now, at the darkest of dark hours.Exactly. Diplomacy is a trick of the weak to keep down the strong. The goal was obviously complete Belarus-ization of Ukraine. And yet 4 years on, with a shattered army, terminal demographics and a shittered economy, they are reduced to demanding territory they’d already controlled for a decade.
Trump is their last big card to try and get a peace they don’t deserve. And he’s a geriatric pervert who is 40% Diet Coke by volume. His lifespan is measured in months, they HAVE to get a favorable deal out of his remaining time, full stop. Everything gets worse for the russians after this point. They need men and equipment that doesn’t exist, and they needed it months ago to make a strategic difference today.
The best option for a long term peace might well be for Ukraine to keep bleeding them. Trump and Pootz will howl and wail about ukrainian war mongering - but…what can they really do? The 2025 version of the Ukrainian Army can probably continue to resist like this with zero U.S. support. And the sidelined Europeans don’t have much incentive to stop supporting Ukraine. Russia will continue with it’s corrosive populist misinformation, but doesn’t deserve anything close to the settlement terms it’s proposing.
Agreed, all the Putin bots are out there making love memes to him…stinks of desperate times
Russia is running out of money and bodies to throw at this war. His populace is tired of it and finally starting to show cracks in support at the Duma.
Putin desperately needs Trump to hand him a win so he can claim a victory and quit while he has his most important war goals achieved (illegal annexation of Crimea, along with parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zhaporizhzhya.)
I am willing to bet he would accept the current front lines, if it comes down to that. Sure, he’d rather have the entire Donbas, but he hasnt managed that in 11 years, including 3 years of full-scale war. Now all he can do is make it more painful for the rest of Ukraine in the hopes they will capitulate. He must really not understand Ukrainians at all. They wont quit, as long as Europe is in Ukraine’s corner. Hence his renewed attempts to bait Europe.
Because he is at an impasse in Ukraine, I believe Putin wants to provoke a broader conflict in Europe, in part to serve Xi’s long-term needs. A Europe forced to send all their missiles and artillery shells to Ukraine isnt going to be helping to defend Taiwan.
You will lose your bet 🙂
And end to this war will unleash an absolute carnage in the Russia. Soviet Union collapsed largely because 70000 soldiers trained to the Soviet way of war, which consists 60% of raping and torturing human beings, returned to civilian life. They were impossible to rule and they were violent. Then, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, those 70 000 led to violence of 1990’s and the rise of an exceptionally violent kind of a mafia.
Now there are not 70 000 returning from the front but ten times that, 700 000. Plus, the Russia has half the population of what Soviet Union had. The 1990’s will be a sunny day at a beach compared to what’s coming up. And that will come up even if the Russia is victorious.
The Russia can maybe survive that if they get a very big and unambiguous victory. Then the population will be so happy about what their nation gained that they will be less unhappy about being raped (and maimed in the action).
Atop that, in Afghanistan not all that many Russian soldiers actually died or got maimed. In this war there are several hundred thousand dead orcs. And twice that many Russian cripples.
Imagine yourself as a 27-year-old woman being violently raped by a Russian veteran of the war in Ukraine, after your dear husband got killed in the same war, without your country having gained anything really useful. You will feel all the horror of what’s going on in that horrible moment, but while hoping for the situation to end soon and you maybe staying alive, you are are also very aware that this is happening to you because of Kremlin. There will be hundred thousand cases of this situation happening. Some victims will not be 27 but 63, or 14, but the story will be the same and it will repeat everywhere, and it will repeat often. To same women, by varying “men”, even. How willing will you be to do your part in holding up the Russian unity? Nobody will feel a need to be a part of the Russia.
So, if the Russia does not win big time and unambiguously (and maybe even in their beat case scenario…), there will be such a maddening amount of instability that we cannot imagine it. The Russia is much better off destroying its economy by staying in a war they know they will lose than quitting it, because each year the carnage is pushed further into the future is one year without that upcoming horror.
As long as the war continues, the Russian Federation will remain in one piece. After that, it gets impossible to rule over the various colonised regions. If the Russia gets every square centimetre it currently occupies and gets that recognised as Russian territory, that will not be enough of a victory to salvage its future. It will be destroyed by powers from within. That means, it will have de facto lost.
And it will not accept that.
He would probably accept the current front lines, for sure. But he doesn’t deserve them. Ukraine can probably continue to resist at this level of intensity for a long, long time. Longer than he can afford to fund the war.
And what works for him today - indiscriminate terror bombing and thrusting low quality infiltration teams into pockets of rubble, isn’t a good occupation strategy. The point of taking territory is that you get to keep it, and can hold on to it long term. Exploit and use it. As long as Ukraine retains the capability to bomb, snipe, mine and most importantly drone any russian occupation troops or laborers, then you don’t get the benefits of the territory, and eventually you have to retreat. Just like the U.S. experience in Vietnam. Sure - you can fight tooth and nail to take ground - for a while. Then what. When it’s a death zone, eventually even the most meek serfs or fanatically devoted soldiers either die or flee. Then you retreat, and the enemy comes back.
He has an obedient servant in Trump, an obese octogenarian with the vital signs of a diabetic house cat. He HAS to get a victory of some kind before Trump goes tits up literally, or politically in whatever passes for mid-term elections next year.
This is the endgame. They are trying to strongarm Ukraine into a bad peace that Russia doesn’t deserve. But, as always, Trump doesn’t have the leverage he would like us to believe, and Russia doesn’t have a great strategy if Ukraine just says no. For Ukraine, the smart, strategic move might well be to keep the Russian war machine bleeding, instead of giving it time to recoup and get better for an inevitable next invasion.
That’s the pathetic variable here - nobody things Russia isn’t going to just try again. Soon. So - from Ukraine’s perspective and in a pursuit of a lasting peace…the best thing to do might be to keep fighting.
I was under the impression that A.P had gone completely off script with the title. But when I clicked the link, I noticed that you had completely changed the title. A bit confusing, though I agree with your assessment.
You can always post your opinions separately and in comments wherever you want, and keep it cleaner.
You’re right, sorry. No attempt to mislead.
I believe you.
You don’t. The only way to negotiate is to force them out.
Something something don’t negotiate with terrorists…
Exactly. Give them anything, and they will be back for more. Soon.
Russia’s the type of poker player that comes to the table with 100 times more chips than everyone else and then goes all in every single hand regardless of what cards they have, hoping that eventually they’ll either bully you into folding or that they come up aces before their chips run out.
Good one. I’ve seen it said that Putin is a poker player who wants you to think he’s a chess player. And not a particularly good one. As you say - bluff every hand.
I mean - in all of the disproven myths of this war - the biggest might be their entire Way of War. Horde War is based on the assumption that it doesn’t matter that NATO stuff is better than yours, as long as you have enough of it. You can push from Poland to Portugal, before the feckless pussies in the West are even ready to start responding. Besides, they won’t really fight anyways, because they’re soft. Right?..Right, comrade? Onwards, Blyatzkrieg.
Well here we are, 4 years in, where Russia is a cab ride away from the same territory they’d already controlled for a decade. Except - that they have pissed away their entire soviet stockpile inheritance, destroyed their primary export markets, shown their defense industry to be hot garbage, become junior vassal to China in the Axis of Authoritarian Shitholes, burned through the 30 year war-chest, accelerated their demographic suicide…and for what? The hubris and vain delusions of an overpromoted gangster ghoul.
I mean, lie out of your ass, and give them what seems like concessions, but are really calculated traps, then break the deal as soon as it’s an opportune time for you, but not them.
Not sure who that advice is for - but sure. If you were black hearted enough to pick the best plan for Russia - this is it.
Try and strong arm a peace deal you don’t really deserve on basis of military terms, then triple down on insidious, corrosive populism like Fico, Orban, Wilders, AfD, FN etc and try and get a more amenable bloc of corrupted slimebag politicians to do your bidding. It’s honestly what they’re best at. They’re much better at corrupting democracy from within than they are at invading them.
