For the sake of peace, yes, I think they should be willing to make concessions. That’s how negotiations work.
If you refuse to offer anything you aren’t really negotiating. You’re just issuing demands with no exchange.
If the alternative was that they would rape, kill, and kidnap my people for the next 20 years without end?
I’m not willing to fight this war to the last Ukrainian.
Say they do negotiate peace, what do they do next time Russia wants to invade?
Give more up?
See you have an issue in that argument. Without support (as that is what I assume would be the threat here) Ukraine has very clearly stated that it would fight on. You seem to forget that the west just lost a war in Afghanistan, who had no real foreign support.
All that cutting support off would do would drag this conflict out and make it mostly partisan action.
Thing is the only thing Putin wants is the education of all Ukraine.
This is a war of annihilation. There are no concessions.
Here’s what I’m getting from their comments:
“US bad, Russia good. I love Putin and anything that I can pretend is a communist nation, despite not even being slightly close”
I hear Putin eats small children and doesn’t believe in washing his hands!
I love making things up. It’s so fun!
Oh I’d probably be dead or worse.
That doesn’t make endless war a good thing.
Oh yeah that worked so well for them in 1997 and 2014. Did people forget that peace negotiations have happened before and russia has broken the agreement every time?
Why would Ukraine or anyone for that matter take anything the russian federation says as not a lie? Also I think that in this case it would be stupid for Ukraine to allow russia any ability to regroup.
NATO broke the 1997 pact when it bombed Yugoslavia in 1999, in violation of the UN Charter.
In 2014 Ukraine’s legitimate government was overthrown by the Euromaidan coup.
Before you screech your revisionist history at me, answer this: are you willing to fight this war until no one is left?
NATO is not Ukraine (yet), that makes about as much sense as say China getting to invade Iran because the UAE bombed north korea.
I would think popular uprisings like in 2014 against rich oligarch rule would be more up your alley. Really though that also does not work as much of an excuse to invade another nation state.
I think my screeching is quite pleasant compared to whatever mental gymnastics are needed to eat what you are selling.
Oh and as I said above, Ukraine gets to make the call on when they are willing to stop fighting. Not myself, not you.
“Popular uprisings”
i.e. western backed color revolution
Ukraine isn’t allowed to make that call. If they do, America will stop supporting them.
Viktor Yanukovych
Well russia could not be that bad, at least not to Viktor. korrespondent.net/…/3312452-yanukovych-kupyl-dom-…
Yes because they cannot win on the battlefield and have lost an enormous amount of lives. Just because Russia is adversary to the US does not mean we should send 100,000’s of young people to grave. (Meanwhile safe over in the states we wave Ukrainian flags and call them heroes as we leave them dead or mangled)
So yes reaching a compromise even if Russia was the aggressor is in the best interest of the people left in Ukraine.
Would you rather use our weaponry and intelligence and money to prolong this war for 10 years … just to have the same outcome but 20x the number of casualties?
Sorry for the assumption but my comment still stands in terms of what is a realistic beneficial outcome for Ukraine at this point? Clearly China, India (probably others) are helping Russia keep its ammo stocks and munitions filled.
Other than a negotiated settlement we can have either world war 3 with NATO intervening … or we can just drag this out for 5-10 years at an enormous cost and literally 100,000’s of dead Ukrainians.
They don’t, they just get ready to clutch their pearls and say “well, I never…” when it happens again. These people are from the same stock that let Hitler rise to power, and thought appeasement was the best way to deal with aggressive authoritarians. Anything short of full liberation of Ukraine’s territory only encourages Russian belligerence.
You want to save lives? You make it clear to Russia this kind of shit will only leave them bloodied and empty handed.
Also not in the states and hey getting sick of explaining that Ukraine is the one who gets to make that call. And they have made it clear they will fight on. This conflict might have some years left but seeing as the (probably others) is north korea I think most know how it ends.
Oh and China, India are bending russia over right now laughing and saying “cheap oil go burrrrrrr”
Because otherwise the war never ends.
Are you willing to fight to the last Ukrainian?
Uh, the war can still end without peace negotiations you know
That’s… That’s what war is?
For you to make a valid point?
Good call
If I were Ukrainian, then fucking yes. As an American, also yes, because with proper support, Russia won’t win and it won’t come down to the last Ukrainian. If Mexico invaded the US, killed thousands of Americans, and occupied a bunch, you think just giving some of that up would be acceptable? Fuck that. Not only does sending munitions to Ukraine help them, it both hurts Russia which is great, and boosts the US economy and refreshes our arsenal. War sucks, but since it’s happening and we can’t stop it, we might as well help the good guys and benefit ourselves.
All of this ignores how past negotiations with Russia have taken place, and they reneged anyway. They can’t be trusted to hold up any sort of deal, so fuck em. Best case is that civil unrest ends the war first, but until then, the only good Russian invader is a dead Russian invader.
Well that too, it’s why America is supporting Ukraine. They want Russia to bleed itself to death.
It doesn’t seem like it’s happening. It’s just an endless burning pit for everyone’s money.
Russia is contractually obligated to shoot itself in the head right now, according to a treaty they signed declaring they are bound to Ukraine’s defense should an armed force invade it. I’m not really sure what Russia plans to bring to the table when they have broken every promise they have made and stolen from Ukraine.
You’re asking Ukraine to barter with the armed robber who claims ownership of your house.
They removed him illegally! They didn’t impeach him because he didn’t actually commit an impeachable offense, they just voted to get rid of him. It was an unconstitutional move that had the fullthroated support and backing of the EU and NATO, hence, a Western-backed coup. Russia saw a Western backed coup on its boarder and saw its geopolitical rivals getting ready to plant their flag right against its border, so it reacted in an extreme and unjustified (though understandable) way. Russia was provoked into overextending itself and now the US/NATO strategy is to bleed Russia dry by forcing them to spend all of their resources on this war while hitting them with sanctions.
Except that isn’t happening, and now the war could last for years. Decades. Maybe forever, and it’ll be like the Korean War with a demilitarized zone but no peace agreement.
How many Ukrainians are you willing to sacrifice to defeat Russia?
I don't have to be willing to sacrifice any Ukrainians because it's not my call to make. I can't make them fight. If they want to surrender, they can. Sending them guns and ammo doesn't stop them from doing that. The guns do nothing without someone to use them. For so long as they don't want to surrender, I say we should support them. How many Ukrainians are you willing to abandon to Russian imperialism? All of the Ukrainians of Crimea, Donbas, and Luhansk? The whole country?
Yanukovych's removal was debatably unconstitutional, but it's an important point that it was done by parliament and not by violence. The parliament's position is that Yanukovych abandoned his post.
Tell me, if it had been Zelensky in power in 2014 and he was removed by parliament in the same manner following a big protest, would you be as understanding if Romania marched in to Chernivtsi Oblast and annexed it? Or is Russia just special enough that it's allowed to decide the politics of its neighbours?
If they want to surrender, they can. Sending them guns and ammo doesn’t stop them from doing that.
Peace negotiations aren’t “surrender”
If they try to move towards peace they risk losing America’s support, which would turn peace negotiations into a surrender
I prefer peace negotiations over war. That’s all. It’s not about what Russia “gets” to do, it’s about saving lives.
So in your own description, if international support ends, Ukraine will be forced to surrender without a negotiated peace. On that basis, it is either "keep supporting them" or "Ukraine surrenders". Again, that's the situation as you have just described it.
Considering the total failure of both Minsk agreements, the fact that the pre-2014 borders were already based on a treaty with Russia that included security guarantees for Ukraine, and the fact that Russia has no right to anything out of this war, I don't expect Ukraine to really have a lot of faith in any negotiation in which they don't hold an extremely strong hand. The Russian government has demonstrated with Crimea that even if it takes something, it will not be satisfied there, it will be only be emboldened to try to take more. Following that, I say we should give them that strong hand.
I don’t expect Ukraine to really have a lot of faith in any negotiation in which they don’t hold an extremely strong hand.
They already have a strong hand because of international support, but international support could end if Ukraine tries to negotiate peace without demanding total surrender. It’s a Catch-22 that Ukraine has been forced into by the West, because they are not allowed to negotiate for peace. They are only allowed to “win”, and that isn’t going to happen either.
So the war will never end. Either it ends up like the Korean War or the War on Terror - endless war forever.