They can try once one of the two sides exhausts all of their military options. Until then, both sides are incentivized to continue fighting because neither are remotely interested in capitulating to the other's demands. They are light years apart and the Ukrainians are correctly not falling for the native trap of the illusion of negotiations.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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I don't think it's a trap. If mediators confirm that Russia is the one who breaks a tentative de facto ceasfire, then what does the world look like from a Russian perspective? They've just lost a lot of political capital. No one is winning here. All sides losing and it doesn't matter, in the end, who blames who, because this has been done for so long, so many times, that it all just becomes a footnote in history which says "it was a bad idea, I wonder why we keep doing it".
If you're right, though, and it goes the way of exhausting military options then I would assume a worst-case scenario. War goes on far longer and the same outcome when all is said and done.
Mediators also observed that Putin brushed off the so called Minsk Agreement, using it as a device to appear diplomatic while continuing to foment violence behind the scenes and now in 2022, brazenly in public. This is why it will never happen. NATO, Europe, and Ukraine know Putin is against the ropes and are not going to remove their boot off his throat until he is finished
It was also said by an interior minister that Ukraine used those agreements to try and buy time. I have no particular interest in terms of personality or nation here. It's a universal problem. This is just one iteration of a broader evil called "war economy" which has gone on far too long and needs to end. Insofar as it ends here, the ceasefire route, verified by mediators, including Turkey as an example, alongside the Germans and French (and possibly Israelis depending upon Bibi's relationship with Putin), is the only way forward.
I can see why it might not happen but it has nothing to do with logic. It's just ideological entrenchment of one nation or a group of such playing the same old game. They're all playing it, as it goes, which is the entire problem. I just find it bizarre how talk of an off-ramp, the only sensible talk all along, has faded away entirely. Not because of the war, for it was spoken about during the worst atrocities and until very recently, but because I doubt it was ever sincere. Same old idiots playing war-as-game all over again. And this isn't an anti-western thing, it includes Russia too. And China. And every other nation which partakes of war but pretends not to.
War economy is worth 2 trillion dollars globally. The rest of the world's GDP, the other 98 trillion or 98% of it, is contaminated by that 2%. And it's not hard to see. Take a look around the world and you easily see states using terrorist groups as "pawns" against other states, and so on and on and on. When the world decides to grow up and stop normalizing mass murder and calling it by a different name, by wrapping it up in fetishized talk about "strategy", who knows. If it doesn't soon, though, then the world is fecked. There will be no binding agreement on climate change until war economy is brought to an end. The human project, or experiment itself, dies with war economy or lives with peace economy. Hegemony is dead and a multipolar world isn't replacing it. It will be replaced by a true economy along fusive lines, or it will die in the pits of war-economy which a select few people of all nations are too stupid to let go of.
Someone wake me up when we get to the enlightenment, please, because until war economy is no more, then enlightenment has never come but has only ever been promised.
I’m guessing the world should send you as the main negotiator. Russia isn’t interested in peace talks — Putin has only been escalating the scale of the conflict, throwing hundreds of thousands of new people and all of the available resources in, spreading the message that this war is of existential importance to the entire Russia (and “Russian civilization”). Ukraine isn’t interested in peace talks because they know that it won’t lead to anything — they can only ensure their future safety by defeating the enemy. This “let’s start with a few days” policy seems both naive and wildly ignorant of the actual context of the conflict.
I appreciate the humanitarian approach but what’s the point of discussing it when it’s clearly not an option for any of the sides?
This is all spot on. Putin burned the figurative boats when he annexed more Ukrainian territory and again when he called up his "partial" mobilization. Any ceasefire will be used to reinforce and resupply Russian forces, not to negotiate any long-term settlement. While Ukraine has some initiative and can force Russia to focus on it militarily, Russia can't take the time to fully address the manifold issues the Russian military has. As long as they have to fight the Ukrainians, they have to fight while attempting to fix their dwindling stockpiles of weapons, etc.
Additionally, in any ceasefire, Russia will be asking for sanctions relief that some European/NATO nations (Hungary, maybe Germany) will be only all too willing to push for. If Putin gets some sort of ceasefire or operational pause along with sanctions relief, it will greatly improve his ability to prepare for the third major offensive into Ukraine.
Because the people dying are humans and it will end with a peace whether it's tomorrow or two years. It will not end, however, with a total defeat of either side. Isn't possible anymore and hasn't been for a long time. What other approach except humanitarian is there when dealing with mass murder called "war"? The one which would paint it as something other than that? I'm not interested in that approach.
On the contrary, the "let's not even try it despite there being no risk of losing anything" approach is the one which gets is into positions like this time and time again. I read an article yesterday which said Putin would go for a de facto ceasefire. I read one a month ago which said Zelensky was willing to consider the same. What do you lose? By a de facto ceasefire wherein mediators ensure that neither side breaks the terms upon which it is founded, for seven days or so, and if the terms are broken... then what? back to where we already are? zero sum. nothing lost except when nothing is tried.
Which would be easily spotted by everyone watching and break the very conditions upon which the behind-the-lines negotiations are enabled by resuming frontline warfare as it already is, thus losing nothing.
Anyway, not trying to argue with anyone here. I just think, know, that it makes logical sense. Nothing is lost. If anyone tries to exploit it, it will be spotted and the frontlines spark into action immediately. I also know how the world works, unfortunately, and that corresponds to everyone directly and indirectly involved. So, even though it should happen, when you see the big picture, which includes an exit ramp for Putin and reformation of Russia longterm, the very off-ramp everyone has wanted, it's entirely up in the air. That's a shame.
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"I don't have an agenda"
*Proceeds to expose his agenda*
The problem with your approach is that it has been tried over an over again. In particular in this case in Ukraine. And it hasn't worked. It usually causes exactly the thing other posters have said: the attacked fall into a false sense of security, the agressor regroups to proceed more effectively a little later. It happened in 1938, in 2014 and it would happen now. That (plus decades of having Putin as a neighbour) is why Ukraine is not falling for that. And since it's their lives the ones actually on the line, I can understand their decission.
This may be a good time for the Ukrainians to pause and invite Putin to negotiate
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Nah, only when Crimea will fall in late spring or in the summer.
For the record, it took the Eastern Russian forces being driven out of Manchuria after the Battle of Mukden and then the decisive naval defeat at Tsushima to get the Russian Empire to negotiate the terms with the Japanese in 1905. I guess Putin will only stop when he ends up in the same corner as Nicholas was at the time.
For the record, it took the Eastern Russian forces being driven out of Manchuria after the Battle of Mukden and then the decisive naval defeat at Tsushima to get the Russian Empire to negotiate the terms with the Japanese in 1905. I guess Putin will only stop when he ends up in the same corner as Nicholas was at the time.
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It’s a crying shame 
At some point the Ukrainians will have the ability to hit Russian targets deep inside Russia time and time again but it seems like up to now they’ve been judicious about it, focusing, naturally, on the imminent and nearer threats.
At some point the Ukrainians will have the ability to hit Russian targets deep inside Russia time and time again but it seems like up to now they’ve been judicious about it, focusing, naturally, on the imminent and nearer threats.
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What article?
I am here for the Solovyov Christmas special!
If you think Catholics were at war with Protestants in Northern Ireland or that conflict was in any way comparable to Russia's invasion of Ukraine then you should probably not enter into a discussion like this one making such bold claims.
I think it should be fairly obvious at this point that they couldn't care less about that. The only reason Putin is mentioning negotiations is simply because it suits them, they are losing ground and desperately need more time to prepare the next batch of cannon fodder. It's not because he suddenly wants peace. Their demands for "peace" are completely unrealistic and proving that they are not serious about it. If we bully Ukraine into signing a treaty, you and I and everyone else knows that it will be broken in a few years, just like we have seen 10s of times before. Can't believe people actually fall for it.
I said structurally. Two groups of people hating each other. Pretty similiar. The reaction is expected. Not so many South Africans here, but would have expected them to say the same thing.
btw, it was literally a sectarian civil war. catholic became shorthand for repulican and protestant for unionist. the contrast i was making was the consociational peace deal which will be mirrored in the end in at least Crimea if not the other two states, as well.
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there were a few where Zelensky touted peacetalks. usual conditions, reparations came up. putin mentioned it the other day, was in the nyt.
The only peace treaty I see them signing is one that they would want to sign. Won't work unless they actually want to sign it in the first place, so pre-invasion positions minimally, something about Crimea, and obstacles with the EU removed plus something to do with the separatist states maybe having a locked in generational referendum 15 years down the line. When it ends, whenever that is, I'll be amazed if it doesn't end exactly like that insofar as talks go with one or two minor detail differences.
What Putin had mentioned has nothing to do with him willing to negotiate a ceasefire (which only continues the theme of you not fully understanding the underlying realities of this conflict). He’s willing to talk “peace” with Ukraine if Ukraine surrenders.
Trying to use the realpolitik logic when dealing with Putin is a mistake and Putin has been exploiting this behavior for decades now. Russia will be better off if the war was to end tomorrow, but Putin doesn't care. More so, it could’ve theoretically worked (although as a short-term solution with Putin inevitably breaking his promises) at the very beginning of this war (if we count from 2022, not 2014) when he was trying to convince his compatriots that this was just a special military operation that you needn’t concern yourself about. He had to change this approach to justify the enormous losses that Russia has suffered — I’m not even talking about people killed (that’s classified and no one in Russia truly understands the scope of those losses) but about the economic collapse, mobilization and drastic isolation from the outside world — to convince everyone that Russia is fighting for its existence against the century-long threat of European fascism… and then, suddenly, he’s making peace with them when Russia keeps suffering humiliating defeats?
All of the sudden, his most loyal followers would turn against him because not only did he ruin the economy and the social stability of his country, he did it for nothing — essentially betting all in on a losing bet and then trying to continue on like nothing had happened.
Putin doesn’t care about Russian people, their lives or its economy. Usually those are the factors that are used as a collateral in any peace talks — how can you negotiate with someone who’s willing to throw any collateral under the bus the moment it suits him?
I don't see any other way. If Putin is ousted tomorrow, the regime itself will continue in one form or another. And whatever calculations they made, I don't for a second believe Russia invaded just because Putin thought it was a good idea. It was a desperate move. The reason everyone said it wouldn't happen is because it was desperate. That being said, as it was desperate that implies a certain entrenchment within regime/military circles (prior to the war. no idea what it's like now). Just as if the US went to war, or China, and then get bogged down, think Vietnam, or Afghanistan for the Soviets, it doesn't tend to change a whole lot when a new guy comes along (five US presidents for Vietnam, four general secretaries of the USSR for Afghanistan). I'm not saying this is the same thing, this war, but I am saying that the calculus a state uses when it goes to war almost never revolves around one person. Whoever replaces Putin, theoretically, will inherit the same chessboard. Just a change of paint upon the same thing. Barring a wholesale reformation of the Russian state, which I think could happen but only if you give Putin an off-ramp and let him go the way of Franco. It's been personalized, and I understand why, but I think that misses the broader picture. It's the Russian state as a whole, or its administrative part, which is at war here, not just Putin. The US likely trying to see if that falls apart under pressure, which isn't me divining something from the air but more or less repeatedly stated on live television.
I think there was a realpolitik calculation made in the upper air of the Russian administrative state. I don't see how the war goes ahead otherwise. Whether those calculations still hold, or will hold, seems to be what America is trying to find out.
Two ways it ends, I think. The first is the idea that NATO can make the Russian administrative state collapse via pressure on the frontline and behind the scenes. I'm not sold on that. The other is giving the regime and off-ramp along the lines of Franco (the transitional part, not the literal offramp re war). Putin is 70. I think all he wants is to scuttle off with the idea that he can do so without being hunted. If he cannot do that, then he will do whatever else it takes to stay on. Only in that sense do I think it comes down to Putin and his inner core, because they, too, will be targets in such a scenario.
The longer it goes on though, the less likely it is that the next guy just says "we'll end the war" because it will veer out of control to the point where even though no one wants it to continue, the prospect of defeat will be the same for the new regime as it is for the current, in the eyes of the military establishment and the general population. See Vietnam and both iterations of Afghanistan for leaders who promised at different points to end the war before they came to power only to prolong it when they were given the "chessboard" upon installation.
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A desperate move? Desperate for what?
They are entirely unalike other than involving people dying. It's not a civil war, anyone who doesn't like being Ukrainian will be welcome to flee to Russia "for sanctuary". In this case Russia is essentially playing the role of the Brits in the occupied region in driving settlers into Crimea - the Brits being the security guarantor in Northern Ireland of course. So given this is a conventional war between Russia and Ukraine then the security guarantor would be...Russia? Both sides are (or at least were) Russian Orthodox notionally, the trouble hasn't been dragged out over a century and is unlikely to be and indeed there was great mutual respect and good feeling prior to the war amongst most Russians and Ukrainians. This is one of the most nonsensical lines of reasoning I've seen in this thread which is quite impressive, so congratulations for that at least.
And when it comes to the peace talks which will involve something very similar, structurally, to what went on in Northern Ireland insofar as sectarianism and paramilitaries go. That's the comparison and it holds. Or are we saying that there was no Russian influenced paramilitary organization in the two separtist states which fought over, however externally charged, a concept of "identity"?
If you don't think "identity" (Russian/Ukrainian) played a part in this war, however small, insofar as events post-2014 go, then how are you accounting for the separtist paramilitaries? It's a typical reaction. Again, if South Africans made up more of this board's population, I'd be makng the case in that direction, too. Everyone thinks their personal struggle is unique, and in a sense it is, but structurally, insofar as war and civil war go, with respect to identity and states playing states off states, the logic hasn't changed in a long, long, time. Anti-logic, really, because it's all a false state of being.
The "only victory for Ukraine is peace " argument has taken a bit of a knock over the last ten months.
Clearly there are still people who can't let go of the idea of Russian invincibility even with the mounting evidence that they are in fact losing. Defeat for Russia in Ukraine is not certain but its now the most likely outcome. What happens inside Russia then? It will be interesting but its not the Ukrainians problem.
Putin will be ousted if/when the defeat becomes undeniable. As strong as his position seems it will happen and quicker than people will expect.
Clearly there are still people who can't let go of the idea of Russian invincibility even with the mounting evidence that they are in fact losing. Defeat for Russia in Ukraine is not certain but its now the most likely outcome. What happens inside Russia then? It will be interesting but its not the Ukrainians problem.
Putin will be ousted if/when the defeat becomes undeniable. As strong as his position seems it will happen and quicker than people will expect.
Anybody who is a Russia apologist needs their heads checked. You’d do well by researching the Nazis foreign policy prior to WWII as there are many similarities between the Nazis at the time and the current Russian leadership.
Europe & the West does not want conflict with Russia and are not anti Russian at all. But they can’t just stand idly by whilst another European democracy is being invaded & having their independency threatened. There can be no peace deals, the only workable & acceptable solution is a Russian retreat and demilitarization of the Donbas & Crimea. The Russian people need to stand up for themselves and throw out the current regime as their country is heading in to the abyss.
Europe & the West does not want conflict with Russia and are not anti Russian at all. But they can’t just stand idly by whilst another European democracy is being invaded & having their independency threatened. There can be no peace deals, the only workable & acceptable solution is a Russian retreat and demilitarization of the Donbas & Crimea. The Russian people need to stand up for themselves and throw out the current regime as their country is heading in to the abyss.
No idea. But how else do you describe the decision to invade Ukraine? Other than desperate? A last salvo which many never thought would happen.
I never had that idea in my mind at all. They are fighting a war against Ukraine which is armed to the teeth by NATO which group alone accounts for something like 75% of all military spending upon the planet. It still doesn't change the fact that the only victory anyone ever achieves in any war (to ever have been fought) is peace.
A territorial conquest. Which has been happening since the beginning of human civilization. Similar to World Wars, or another million other wars.
Russia was desperate for nothing. They have more territory than the remaining part of Europe and US combined, and a shitload of natural resources, and have a few thousand nukes which means that no one will try to invade them. They chose to go to war so they can further increase the size of their empire.
I don't think anyone has figured out the motivation yet for sure. It's why I ask, difficult to speculate about what peace agreements without knowing why he did this in the first place. I lean toward the idea he couldn't have democracy blooming in Ukraine and prospering on the back of it, as that would influence across the border. So yeh, perhaps he was desperate to stop that, or he was just bored...
if you mean a "war game", then I'm inclined to agree but I'd need someone more disciplined than myself to trace the outline going back a few hundred years.
which is arguably what "nato" meant in the context of invasion. just war-games imo. but this one was desperate. it was an all in move, that's why I call it desperate.
Meh, I've not seen yet any expert saying this was for territory. Most seem to conclude that it was to conduct regime change in Kyiv.
Or you can just listen to Putin, why he decided to invade.
It was not an all in move though. He genuinely thought that Kyiv will fall within 3 days, and with no war going on, EU (especially Germany) won't set harsh sanctions. A bit like Crimea 2.0.
Btw, are you Indian?
I mean, there are talks of Putin drawing it for you. 'Ukraine is a fake country, created by Bolsheviks. Ukraine is Russia, yadda yadda yadda'. It doesn't necessarily mean that it would have been a full annex, could have easily been a partial annex followed by a puppet regime on the remaining part of Ukraine.
Putin planned for this war for more than a decade, it’s only desperate in a sense that he’s realized that he’s getting old and needs to act now as he dreamed to be written in the history along the great czars of Russia. Heck just a week ago he compared himself to Peter the great because he managed to get Russia an access to Azov sea. He always considered a fall of USSR to be the biggest blunder in Russian history.
No.
But he had to also think that even if this was the 95% chance, the one he was expecting, that there could also be a chance it wouldn't work, as it didn't. There's no way that wasn't factored in before imo. Ukraine in 2022 was not Ukraine in 2014 and if the world knew that there's no way Putin's regime, which had been financing the separtist war effort directly, also didn't have an idea of it.
control more than territory, i think, is exactly correct.
i just don't fall into the line of absolute personalization. of it all coming down to putin's psyche. there's an entire state apparatus built around him and levels within levels which he may control but which he also has to take account of. not even Stalin was certain of his position in the USSR except post-War. When he reacted too slowly to the German advance, he thought his inner circle had come to kill him. so there's a dialectical thing going on there. of course Putin is important, but the regime is not just Putin alone (the reason he takes care to cultivate it).
Underestimating of Ukraine (and the Western response), overestimating of Russia forces *. Miscalculations happen all the time.
* To be fair to him, everyone did that. Russia was a paper tiger after all.
sure, i just still think that Ukrainian resistance, of it all not going exactly as Putin wanted, was taken into account. has there ever been a war which just supposed "it'll go like this and there's no way it could happen differently"? even going back to the Romans, I don't think that's true (read Caesar's commentaries).
Annexation of Crimea and the Russia-Georgia war? That was the blueprint for this war.
It just was a completely wrong blueprint.