He's also dropped his demands for a demilitarized Ukraine.
It's a good deal. Putin will never cede Crimea. The Russian navy depends on it. And Donetsk and Luhansk don't want to be part of Ukraine anyways. Are they not allowed to pursue independence? We bombed Serbia so that Kosavo could achieve the very same thing that these two Oblasts are asking for. The real question is what do Ukrainians think about it?
I don't think it's going to happen though.
Our best hope is a Northern Ireland situation. It won’t be South Africa under apartheid.
Real Ukrainians will take Putin’s deal except for the installing a Russian puppet as Prime Minister part and making Zelensky an “honorary” President.
The real question is what do Ukrainians think about it?
My guess this is their “come and take it” moment
Those there who prefer Russia should be allowed to emigrate there. Putin needs more ethnic Russians and has plenty of space for them. My take on the Serbian precedent is that Clinton picked the wrong side, without proper congressional authority to act at all, and deserves to be considered a war criminal! We should have let the muslims stay back in their Albanian muslim majority country, to live with the consequences of their version of a social security Ponzi scheme having reached its logical conclusion in failure under the last communist government in the Balkans. Putin was correct, or mostly correct, that time.
As far as Crimea if the Ukraine and Russia were good neighbors, on friendly terms, the former might be willing to lease the latter a base. They could use the money! Terms will likely be much higher now than could have been accomplished 10 years ago.