Love the peace talks are required now camp. Ukraine should supposedly talk about a peace deal which would include giving to on a part of its territory cause sure as hell Russia won't give up on it.
Every single Western leader with an IQ greater than room temperature now says that this war will end at the negotiation table. Last week the CIA director William Burns visited Kiev for his 10th meeting with Zelenskiy. Yesterday, back in Washington, he gave over 2 hours of testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Here is what he said regarding the push to get the $61 billion to Ukraine (my own emphasis and underlining to illustrate the point):
"With additional funding, Ukraine should be able to regain the offensive initiative by the end of this year or early 2025. Such a shift would put Ukraine in a stronger position
to negotiate with President Putin of Russia"
You see the shift in language? It's not just the amorphous "negotiation table" anymore (at which Zelenskiy has signed a law making it illegal to sit down with Putin), it specifies "President Putin of Russia". This is not accidental, this was from his scripted opening statement to the Committee. These guys are very careful with the language they use. For all you folk saying
"Ukraine will never negotiate with Putin!", the CIA director is saying they will
have to, and he's saying it days after meeting with Zelenskiy (a meeting incidentally that has now led to reports in Ukrainian media that Kuleba is about to be fired as foreign minister). Putin's going nowhere. 2 years ago the pipe dream was to collapse the Russian economy, reclaim all of Ukraine's territory, and cause the downfall of Putin's regime. In other words, the military defeat of Russia. Now the new shambolic masterplan is to just about keep Ukraine in the game until next year, when yet another 'counter-offensive' will attempt to "strengthen Ukraine's position at the negotiation table" (nobody during the hearing yesterday pressed Burns on whether that wasn't meant to be the point of the
last 'counter-offensive' that resulted in tens of thousands more dead Ukrainians).
So you can dismiss the "peace talks camp" all you like, but you'd be dismissing everyone from Biden to Blinken to (as of yesterday) Stoltenberg (his new definition of 'Ukrainian victory' is some vague horseshit about "retaining their sovereignty").
I just watched General Pat Ryder's Pentagon press briefing from today. He was pressed on his use of the term
"Ukraine must win this fight" (the question put to him was: "Do you mean win this
war?"). He of course evaded the question, as they all now do. But the shift in language from "win the war" to "win this fight" is in anticipation of Ukraine eventually giving up the regions Putin has annexed. I guess Kiev and Lviv will retain some form of "sovereignty" - if "sovereignty" means "saddled with unpayable debt for generations" - and that's what the West will call a "victory" for Ukraine. Only the delusional lunatics among Zelenskiy's sprawling network of "advisers", plus irrelevant foreign ministers like the Lithuanian and Polish guys, still talk about "Ukrainian victory". Anyone of any importance knows how this is all going to end. At this stage in the war the only people who are still fooled about Ukraine's situation are those who
want to be fooled (or else they're shameless senators like Richard Blumenthal and Lindsey Graham, whose primary interest now is getting their donors at Raytheon and Lockheed Martin one last big 61 billion dollar taxpayer-funded payday). I only wonder if the White House regrets hauling Mark Milley in for some political re-education back in December of 2022 when he said that
then would be the best time for Ukraine to negotiate.
It's yet another example of strategic incoherence from the West. "Negotiations are futile because Putin can't be trusted...BUT, this war will inevitably end at the negotiating table with Putin representing the Russian side". If it's accepted that this war will end in negotiations with Putin then my question for Western leaders is: what exactly are you waiting for? For another 40,000 Ukrainian conscripts to die 'weakening' the Russian army for you a bit more, only to then have them agree to a peace arrangement they could have got
now? For the military industrial complex to get a couple hundred more billion from the taxpayers? As I keep on asking: what on earth is the goal here? What is the strategy? Answer (per multiple Western diplomats) - there literally isn't one. They're making it up as they go along, 'led' by a total imbecile in Jake Sullivan. So when William Burns says repeatedly yesterday: "Our allies around the world are watching what we do in Ukraine", I think to myself "Yeah, I hope they are. I hope they see what a total lack of a coherent game plan you have for Ukraine, because you're up next, Taiwan".