if you look at the maps of who is where in Ukraine... nothing has changed in months. The Russians took back what they wanted months ago and have held on to it. Zelensky has killed off almost an entire generation of young men and boys trying to secure more funding to kill off even more.
My wife and I recently met a large group of Ukrainian boys between the ages of 14 and 17 whose families sent them abroad to keep them from being kidnapped from their schools and off the streets like so many of their friends. None of them knew if they would ever see their families or their homes again. They are well behaved good kids who are being helped by our friends who are members of a local Ukrainian Church. If they get caught, unlike other foreigners in this country who have overstayed their VISAs they will immediately be sent back and likely killed or maimed in battle and our friends might be deported as well.
Our Ukrainian friends have a different definition of “winning” than you do. Zelensky was elected after he promised to end corruption and make peace with Russia. Now approximately 80% of Ukrainians feel that he is the one most responsible for corruption in Ukraine.
The reason Zelensky has suspended elections until after the fighting has ended is because he has lost the confidence of his people and has made himself a dictator.
I doubt that you will follow my suggestion, but there is an interesting book review essay from 2021 by Peter Rutland on archive.org. This short review summary likely would be helpful to you whether you realize it or not. This was before the "invasion" of February 24, 2022. After the invasion the ridiculous amount of propaganda that accompanies any modern conflict began coloring all of our perceptions. The "review essay" is about several books and is entitled, Understanding Putin’s Russia and the Struggle over Ukraine. Rutland has been a harsh critic of the invasion.
An April 2014 Kyiv International Institute of Sociology poll of all of the oblasts of southern and eastern Ukraine other than Crimea (which was already annexed by Russia by that point) found majority opposition to secession from Ukraine and annexation by Russia in all of these oblasts–albeit only slight majority in opposition to this in the Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts).
Opposition to secession from Ukraine and annexation by Russia (the combined percentage for the people opting for the options of “Rather, no” and “Certainly, no, I don’t”) had these percentages in various southern and eastern Ukrainian oblasts:
• 51.9% Luhansk Oblast
• 52.2% Donetsk Oblast
• 65.6% Kharkiv Oblast
• 8.8% Odesa Oblast
• 81.5% Zaporizhia Oblast
• 84.1% Dnipropetrovsk Oblast
• 84.6% Kherson Oblast
• 85.4% Mykolayiv Oblast
ARTICLE
1. Militants Take Over Christian University in Ukraine
Insurgents gain control as thousands flee the city of Donetsk.
Kate Tracy|July 10, 2014 11:10 AM
https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2014/july/ukraine-christian-university-overrun-pro-russian-donetsk.html
[Image: Donetsk Christian University/Facebook
Donetsk Christian University]
Pro-Russian insurgents in eastern Ukraine have reportedly taken over a Christian university in the major city of Donetsk and are using the university to house insurgents in preparation for battle.
“They want to accommodate more soldiers, so that place becomes the number one target for the insurgency,” said Sergey Rakhuba, president of Peter Deyneka Russian Ministries and a former board member of the university. “If the Ukrainian army attacks, this Christian university would be destroyed.”
Separatists attempting to gain control of the city are using Donetsk Christian University and Gloria Christian School for accommodations, Rakhuba told Mission Network News.
Insurgents have also overtaken several other public buildings in the city. Around 20 staff members and their families were initially trapped inside the buildings but were then allowed to leave, Rakhuba said.
Rakhuba says he is concerned for the safety of campus buildings and people in the area during the ...
You mean this invasion would NEVER have started if Putin only had to honor the 1994 Budapest Declaration’s commitment to Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty and national unity.
The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances comprised of political agreements signed at the OSCE conference in Budapest, Hungary, on 5 December 1994, to provide security assurances by its signatories relating to the accession of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
These three memoranda were originally signed by three nuclear powers: the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States. China and France gave individual assurances in separate documents.
HOWEVER, PUTIN DOESN’T HONOR HIS COMMITMENTS.
The Treaty on “Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and effectively abandoning Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine nuclear arsenal to Russia and Russia AGREED to:
-Respect the signatory’s independence and sovereignty in the EXISTING BORDERS.
-Refrain from the threat or the use of force against the signatory.
-Refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by the signatory of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.
-Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to the signatory if they “should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used”.
-Refrain from the use of nuclear arms against the signatory.
-Consult with one another if questions arise regarding those commitments.
IT IS WELL KNOWN GLOBALLY that PUTIN could stop this INVASION any time by withdrawing military troops.
He won’t.
Putin just keeps letting those dead bodies pile up. It’s not like he cares about the Russian population or military.
“Regarding Minsk Agreements”
Ukraine is merely a continuation of Putin’s pattern of “Transnistrian” policy. Putin has also managed to control ‘zones’ of frozen conflicts in Moldova (Transnistria region), Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia), and now with in Ukraine annexed Crimean peninsula and the Donbas.
Putin uses this wider pattern of “created” separatist conflicts to create corruption and criminality as ‘Trojan horses’ to block progress in reform-minded periphery countries. This is the Putin tactical part of his geopolitical strategy that CREATES conflict zones to prevent countries from entering NATO and integrating into the European Union.
These CONFLICTS by Putin is part of his ‘imperialistic plan’ to regain strategic points of the LOST RUSSIAN EMPIRE.
So, for Ukraine this means Putin must fully separate occupied parts of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts from Ukraine and recognize them as Donbas puppet republics just like Georgia’s Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
“Regarding Minsk Agreements”
The MINSK-2 merely was a second attempt to force Ukraine to accept Russia’s Transnistria for the Donbas, a “peace enforcement” to push both occupied regions back into Ukraine as Russian-run enclaves to expand Russia’s control over the internal and external affairs of Ukraine.
President Zelenskyy ran on a reform platform to remove gov’t corruption [deep-state] much like President Trump. David Arakhamia, described the survey as “manipulative”
• All of Ukraine’s recruitment chiefs were fired after an investigation revealed widespread corruption.
• Officials who recruited troops accepted bribes up to $10,000 to help people dodge the draft.
• President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the actions “treason” and has initiated criminal proceedings.