Posted on 04/03/2025 5:40:56 AM PDT by MtnClimber
A Ukraine-Russia ceasefire looms, with Trump pushing deals, Zelenskyy negotiating leverage, and Putin weighing risks—while the West quietly concedes it never had a real plan to win.
Aside from the rhetoric, there is a growing consensus among Western diplomats, military analysts, military officers, heads of state, and even much of the media about how to end the endless Ukrainian war.
A proposed peace will see a DMZ established somewhere along an adjusted 1,200-mile Ukraine-Russia border. Tough negotiations will adjudicate how far east toward its original borders Russian forces will be leveraged to backstep.
Publicly in the U.S. and covertly in Europe, all accept that a depleted Ukraine will not have the military strength to retake Crimea and the Donbas.
In 2014, both were absorbed by Russia during the Obama administration. Neither that administration nor any since has advocated a military effort to reclaim them.
Loudly, the U.S.—and again quietly Europe—concedes that Ukraine will not be in NATO—a confirmation that Russia will use to justify to its people its disastrous invasion, and even many Ukrainians will accept.
How will the West deter Putin from his inevitable agenda of reclaiming lost Soviet territory and Russian-speaking peoples? For now, his army is exhausted, its arsenals depleted, and its reputation shattered.
In the future, a commercial corridor, anchored by concessions to American and international mining concerns, will supposedly serve as a tripwire to deter Putin from attacking in-the-way noncombatant Americans.
More practically, Ukrainian forces will be kept fully armed. They have already inflicted perhaps a million causalities on Putin’s forces—possibly five times the dead, wounded, and missing that the Russians lost to the Taliban over that entire decade-long misadventure in Afghanistan.
If Trump can coax even a ceasefire, the oddly bellicose left will still rail about “Munich” and Trump as “Putin’s puppet.”
(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...
The leftist globalists probably still don’t think that the Ukraine Maidan Revolution in 2014 was a very bad idea.
VDH ping
Since when did the anti-war left prefer an endless and horrific war to a difficult, messy peace?
People all over the place are reaching conclusions based on embracing propaganda from one side or the other.
This guy embraces the pro Ukraine propaganda. His consensus about how the war ends is a consensus of those embracing the Ukraine propaganda. You can read other blogs that don’t embrace that and will not reach the same conclusion about the inevitable outcome of the war.
There is way too much of this sort of thing that all has agenda and seeks only view counts not accuracy.
VDH is out in left field on this one. He believes that Russia is going to accept a Korean DMZ for some unknown reason. Mostly he seems to think that it well happen because we really want it and we will get it and achieve our war aims and shut down all the Russian war aims
He has a blind spot on the Ukraine war and is in the “unprovoked invasion” camp.
He’s typical of that camp. Not a word about sanctions ending, SWIFT, repairing Nordstream, returning the confiscated Russian gold and currency, and a neutral Ukraine with no western alliance.
And not a word about how secondary sanctions on India, China, Turkey, Brazil Singapore etc would work out for us.
Lots of holes in his opinion. Not typical for VDH.
"Lost in such criticism is that the Biden administration did not even try to end the war. Instead, in the LBJ-style of 'light at the end of the tunnel,' it parroted the great 'spring offensive' to come. And when that gambit disastrously failed, it resorted to the banal blank check of 'as long as it takes.'Rather well sums up some of the opinions one has read on many similar threads these last years."Western leaders simplistically thought that sending more arms, money, and Ukrainians into the cauldron would eventually break Russia—30 times larger than Ukraine, 10 times richer, over four times more populous, and far less bothered by the mounting toll of its greater losses."
One should not ignore the Biden connection back to the time of Burisma and through the last disastrous Biden administration. It's a tale of the Bidens and their associates and "friends" like the Obamas.
Putin always preferred to exploit the Obamas and Bidens of the world. And he did so in 2014 and 2022, rather than the mercurial, unpredictable, and ultimately dangerous Trump, during whose tenure he stayed put within his borders.
Another excellent article by Prof Hanson.
FR Index of his articles: Victor Davis Hanson on FR
Town Hall: Victor Davis Hanson on Town Hall
American Greatness: Victor Davis Hanson on American Greatness
His website: Victor Davis Hanson
Please let me know if you want on or off this new VDH ping list.
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So if Russia invades again, seizing additional Ukrainian territory such as Odessa, we will do what? Go to war because we have some mineral rights?
That's a serious security guarantee?
We know the ukraine is nothing but a money laundering operation for US politicians.
Russians were making maximum demands before invading Ukraine. From Ukraine they were basically demanding Ukraines surrender; recognition of Russian-occupied Crimea, independence for separatist-controlled Luhansk and Donetsk, and "de-militarisation" and "de-Nazification". Putin demanded NATO withdrawal from eastern European countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, etc.
After three years of disastrous losses, Putin still refuses to agree to a ceasefire, Russian demands have not changed, so arguing that somehow a reasonable deal could have been made before Russia's invasion is a myth.
Russia did not want peace, only the capitulation of Ukraine. Jakub Kumoch, former Secretary of State of Polish President Andrzej Duda, who accompanied the Ukrainian delegation to negotiations with Russia in Belarus and Turkey in the spring of 2022, told the newspaper The Polish Times.
https://i.pl/jakub-kumoch-ujawnia-kulisy-negocjacji-rosja-nie-chciala-pokoju-tylko-kapitulacji-ukrainy/ar/c1p2-26324503
I wonder if DOGE, or possibly the IRS can find the Ukraine funding kickback paths to the politicians? I also wonder if Ukraine is selling off some of the arms we ship to them.
Very good piece. His opinions mirror mine on this conflict.
No, such claims are without evidence.
(CNN) — Criminals, volunteer fighters and arms traffickers in Ukraine stole some Western-provided weapons and equipment intended for Ukrainian troops last year before it was recovered, according to a Defense Department inspector general report obtained by CNN.
The plots to steal the weaponry and equipment were disrupted by Ukraine’s intelligence services and it was ultimately recovered, according to the report, titled “DoD’s Accountability of Equipment Provided to Ukraine.” CNN obtained the report via a Freedom of Information Act request. Military.com first reported the news.
But the inspector general report noted that after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, the Defense Department’s ability to track and monitor all of the US equipment pouring into Ukraine, as required by law under the Arms Export Control Act, faced “challenges” because of the limited US presence in the country.
If I recall correctly, about half of the monetary aid is unaccounted for.
"Peace is always the end of war and wars are generally accompanied by peace talks. Nothing is impossible. I'm just showing why those negotiations were a dead end. And I think the answer is simple: room keys are not in Kiev but in Moscow. Moscow did not want a lasting peace."
Seems about right. In war, combatants have opposing goals. And -- as we all know -- wars end. The opposing goals will be hammered out, and how that happens is still very much up for grabs. Unlike Kumoch's words, I think all sides will end up with peace. What remains is merely to see which "end" is the end.
So one of the credible reports of stolen weapons, was committed by a Russian official.
There are NO credible reports of military aid that was sent to Ukraine ending up in another country.
In late June 2022, an organized crime group overseen by an unnamed Russian official joined a volunteer battalion using forged documents and stole weapons, including a grenade launcher and machine gun, and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition, the report says. Ukraine’s intelligence service disrupted the plot, according to the report.
The Pentagon inspector general wrote that some larger items like missiles and helicopters were easier to track through intelligence mechanisms
ping
“I wonder if DOGE, or possibly the IRS can find the Ukraine funding kickback paths to the politicians?”
Elon stated he is looking into those money laundering pathways. I once saw some evidence that was real easy to follow. They only had 3 or 4 exchanges before the money made its way to an American politician.
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