OT: Putin's War in Ukraine

[Raellus]

Great analysis, Hapless.

Ukraine does not have the military power, even with generous Western aid, to retake most of its currently Russian-occupied territories. Should the Ukrainian gov't just throw in the towel, then?

Framing it as a binary choice, war or peace, oversimplifies things.

Zelensky is reasonable enough to sacrifice currently-occupied Ukrainian territory for an end to the bloodshed (but if he said so publicly, he'd have much less bargaining power at the negotiating table). However, a peace treaty that doesn't include security guarantees for Ukraine (with the USA and or NATO as guarantors), is worthless. The resulting "peace" would not be likely to last more than a couple of years, at most.

Why? Because Russia will use the respite to retool and rebuild its military forces, then try again later. Just ask Chechnya.

Putin's made it clear that he will not honor bilateral peace agreements with Ukraine. In 1994, Ukraine agreed to give its nuclear weapons back to Russia in exchange for security assurances from Moscow.

https://www.armscontrol.org/factshee...urances-glance

Russia broke its promise twenty years later, when Russian troops invaded Crimea. Less than ten years after that, Russia invaded Ukraine (2022). Putin is a neo-imperialist. He's been very clear than he believes than many, if not all, former SSRs belong to Russia. He's also shown a willingness to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of his own people to violently take them back. Let's not forget that Putin started this war by his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Framing Zelensky as the war-monger is pure Russian propaganda.

Therefore, it's not surprising that Zelensky insists that a negotiated peace settlement include robust security guarantees supported by the US/NATO. In the absence of said, Ukraine is willing to continue fighting. It's not an unreasonable or overly-sanguine position to take, given the circumstances and historical precedent.

History has shown again and again that a phony peace is no peace at all.

-