Ukraine will not surrender if that includes them ceding even more territory. Granted what’s there is a moonscape wasteland, but I don’t see it.
The only way forward there is a UN conducted (NOT observed) election for Donbass that addresses whether or not those provinces want to be part of Russia. Anything less won’t be acceptable. And just to be clear, I don’t see that happening either.
China needs to exert influence over Russia to get them talking. Right now, they are Russia’s only engine - buying as much oil at a discount that Russia will sell them. If they pull the plug on that, it’s all over.
China is stockpiling for Taiwan. They have watched this and they have learned. They are stockpiling EVERYTHING. Taiwan is the next bump in the road - it’s just when.
“China needs to exert influence over Russia to get them talking”
Ass backwards. The problem has never been that Russia wouldn’t talk. They agreed to Minsk which included elections and autonomy within Ukraine. Markel and the Frog have both said that was a mere ploy to build up a bigger Uke military.
They tried for 6 months before the war to talk with us. We flipped them the finger and said what we do in Ukraine is none of their business, but we would discuss topics WE deemed important.
They sat for talks about 4 weeks into the war in Belarus. Uke SBU summarily executed one of it’s OWN negotiators.
Then the talks brokered by Turkey, Boris Johnson came in and sunk those talks.
Russia agreed to the grain export deal. But we refused to reconnect them back to SWIFT for their export bank... as agreed.
Forcing Russia to “talk” has never been the problem. And if it is, it’s comical that you think China should do that coercion thing on our behalf. China isn’t likely to do favors for NATO these days.
Russia is creating specail untis to deal with insurgents. They know their craft well and preparing up to 250,000 additonal troops, now that they have their required combat quota to defeat Ukraine.
China transferred an A20a transport, and the Russia’s are retrofitting both Chinese and Russia Mega Transports to carry FAB9000s or 16 FAB3000s. After a few of these air strikes Ukrainian soldiers will probably start laying down their arms.
10 x FAB3000s exceed the power of the Hiroshima bomb. If they fly two - three bombs runs a day with 2-3 aircraft, this war will end in surrender with 48-hours.