Posted on 05/08/2024 3:41:23 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
As the West struggles to define its strategy in Ukraine, politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have long insisted that the only path to a “just and lasting peace” is to support Ukraine until Russia unconditionally admits defeat. They dismiss calls for a negotiated settlement as naive, dangerous and futile, claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not relent unless stopped by force of arms — Ukrainian or otherwise.
More than two years into the conflict, Western leaders remain unfazed in their commitment to Russian military defeat, even as the fighting tilts decidedly in Moscow’s favor. The West’s continued lack of interest in feeling out the Kremlin’s terms for ending the war was jarring even in 2022, considering Russia’s massive advantage in all relevant indicators of military power. It is all the more boggling today in light of Ukraine’s substantially worse and rapidly deteriorating position.
This persistent belief that there was never a diplomatic path to peace in Ukraine is inconsistent with the facts and functions as a self-imposed constraint forcing Western governments to double down on unsustainable and counterproductive war aims.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Western globohomopedo nations want war
I have always thought that Ukrainian neutrality in exchange for Russia withdrawal should be the basis for peace.
There could be a peace deal today: Zelensky agrees to step down as President, Ukraine secedes all of the Eastern Russian-speaking provinces to Russia, formally secedes Crimea to Russia, and agrees to a Russian-installed caretaker government.
At this point I think Russia has no incentive to come to a negotiated settlement that is anything like what was on the table in 2022. Ukraine is running out of men fast. Russia may well push to annex the whole Black Sea coast including Odessa which is historically Russian. That would leave Ukraine as a crippled rump state shorn of the Donbas, Crimea and its coastal strip.
Does the author, or you have any quotes to back up this extreme statement?
As the author says politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have "long insisted", the quotes should be out there.
I do not see politicians demanding Russia to unconditionally admit defeat.
I would love to see the evidence. It should not be difficult to find.
Insisting Russia withdraw to the borders which existed before the war started, is not a demand for unconditionally admitting defeat.
Zelensky initially sought to negotiate with Russia but reportedly was dissuaded after Boris Johnson conveyed to him the West’s view that Putin is a war criminal who could not be negotiated with. Zelensky has now offered a ten-point peace plan, which includes a demand that Russian leaders be prosecuted for war crimes.
The plan’s terms are, as the scholar Eugene Rumer observes, “nothing short of demands for an unconditional surrender.”
Andriy Melnyk, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, stated that the war can end only with Russia’s “unconditional surrender” and denazification: “Russia must experience what the Germans went through in May 1945.”
Zelensky has echoed this sentiment, vowing that Russia “will be defeated just as Nazism was.”
Writing in The Atlantic, Anne Applebaum and Jeffrey Goldberg argue that Russia must suffer the sort of defeat that brings about a fundamental change in the country’s political life.
They conclude: “Even the worst successor imaginable, even the bloodiest general or most rabid propagandist, will immediately be preferable to Putin, because he will be weaker than Putin.” Of course, the successor may be so weak that Russia descends into chaos.
Ukraine ping
Unconditional defeat would be for Ukraine to occupy Moscow, impose its rule the way the Allies did on Germany in the postwar era. That’s not on the list of Western demands. What the West wants is for Russia to withdraw to its internationally recognized borders.
Resource-wise, the West is matching, at least on paper, Russian war expenditures. In reality, not really, because Russian gear costs a fraction of its Western equivalent, and Western leaders are intentionally throttling both the quantity and quality of equipment offered to Ukraine. But close enough for government work. And Western equipment, even when much older than its Russian counterpart, tends to outperform.
Then there’s the fact that even when the West focuses on non-military aid to appease Putin, money is fungible. The non-miltary aid handed to Ukraine means it can shrink its welfare state budget to focus on military production. That is likely what has powered its innovation in drones of all kinds, kept Russian advances limited in the face of intense shell hunger and Ukrainian manpower inferiority.
Quotes from a "scholar" and a couple of Ukrainian politicians, are far from:
"politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have long insisted that the only path to a “just and lasting peace” is to support Ukraine until Russia unconditionally admits defeat."
Zhang Fei makes a good point about what "unconditional surrender" would actually mean.
#1 China (cheap oil from Russia and a diminution of the military power of her primary Asiatic rival). This is classic Chinese policy of "lets you and him fight!"
#2 India (cheap oil from Russia)
#3 European union and NATO, as more countries have been driven to NATO by Russian aggression, and Europe is being forced to realize the necessity of a serious defense.
Zelensky also made clear that Ukraine wants to drive Russian troops out of all captured areas.
“Ukraine will fight until it reclaims all its territories,” he said. “It’s about our independence and our sovereignty.”
It would be seriously stupid for Zelenski to say anything less. To state Ukraine would settle for less, without concessions from the Russians, would be the equivalent of "giving away the store".
At the end of the cold War, Russia and NATO guaranteed Ukraine’s borders and sovereignty in return for Ukraine relinquishing the stockpile of nuclear weapons that she inherited from the USSR. Why should Ukraine now regard any promises or guarantees from Russia as credible —even if backed by another set of NATO guarantees? Ukraine wants NATO arms and membership and EU membership, which so far Russia has declined to endorse as part of any projected peace deal.
I wouldn't worry about it. Russian is 100% in the drivers seat. Terms to end the war will be dictated by Russia. It's the west that will have to surrender by giving up on project Ukraine.
The only peace deal possible involves Russian maintaining control over all the area it now possesses in what used to be Ukraine, Ukraine remaining a neutral country with no military force.
There is ZERO chance of that happening.
Continuing this war only guarantees more dead Ukrainians, more lost territory and, ultimately, that Ukraine ceases to exists.
Only a moron doesn't grasp that.
Would like to make a bet that all the former Ukrainian territory that Russia now controls remains with the Russian Federation after the war? It's time for you to put up or shut up.
That's because the Russians ARE WINNNING.
You have to be a numbskull not to realize and acknowledge that.
Your testosterone nor that of any Ukrainians is going change that fact.
Russia has an overwhelming advantage in manpower and missile and ammo production...over the entire Western world, let alone over Ukraine.
All rambling idiots like you are doing is assuring tens of thousand more Ukrainians die and that Ukraine is either a poor, rump state without any access to the Black Sea or that it doesn't exist at all.
It should be clear by now that neither side can force its will on the other. There needs to be a compromise. The legitimate concerns of Russia are security, not Ukrainian lands.
Biden profits
What the hell about this don't you understand?
On the ground, Russian Federation forces keep advancing – just this week, they took control of the settlements of Soloviove and Kislovka in Donetsk region and Kotliarivka and Novokalinovo further north in the Kharkov region.
In the meantime, Ukraine keeps getting pounded by artillery and airstrikes, with the attacks lately focusing on power plants.
Overnight, Russia launched no less than 55 missiles and 21 Geranium (Shahed) drones, the Ukrainian air force said.
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Russian attacks have so far damaged nearly half of Ukraine’s power infrastructure since the start of the war. The mass strikes also drain Ukrainian air defenses of ammunition.
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