Is it possible at all to negotiate, when Russia refuses to acknolwege Ukraine's sovereignty?
Does Ukraine need to give up some land (Crimea) at the end? Or is there something else for Putin to save face like what (?) they did with Wagner?
Does Ukraine need to give up some land (Crimea) at the end? Or is there something else for Putin to save face like what (?) they did with Wagner?
Russia won’t negotiate in good faith. Their negotiating starting points break from reality, there is no way to negotiate with facts that have no relation to reality. It’s like negotiating with your boomer qanon family lunatic. There is no point
Ukraine must continue to resist and attack Russia forces until the RU military breaks and falls back to 2014 borders. That is the only way to ensure that Russia’s current imperial aims are beyond their reach.
That’s what was tried in 2014. It didn’t work; just emboldened Russia to try again.
The only solution is the one where Russia voluntarily leaves.
They voluntarily leave… With F-16s, F-22s & 23s, and an assortment of tanks helping them to voluntarily leave.
Nope. It’s not. Ukraines borders should be restored to that prior to 2014. Then we shall see how Russia comes to the table to negotiate their reparations.
No. That's why Russia needs to be forced out. And the wider picture means that Russia has to be forced out of all Ukraine including Crimea, so that Russia can see their war was a massively expensive waste of time and resources.
That wider picture is that Putin's long game is to rebuild the USSR, which means that after he's taken Ukraine he's coming for the Baltics and parts of Poland and Romania, bringing him into direct conflict with NATO, but he's gambling that we won't have the stomach for WWIII. If we let him keep the bits he's invaded so far (aka appeasement), that's exactly the mistake we made with - OK I know about Godwin's law but this is directly relevant - that German bloke back in the 1930s. It didn't work then, won't work now and won't prevent the coming conflict; only pushing Russia back to the 2014 borders and getting Ukraine into NATO has any chance of doing that. And that means the USA and Europe must be willing to provide Ukraine with weapons not just to die heroically but to succeed in getting Russia completely out.
If Russia needs to save face then they can declare that they have "successfully deNazified and demilitarised Ukraine" at any time and walk away. Putin might actually be coming round to this way of thinking; he referred a few days ago to most of Ukraine's weapons as having been spent and they now mostly have NATO stuff. Maybe there is still hope for Russia, but it will involve abandoning their USSR plan.
I'm broadly in agreement with Macron's view that we shouldn't humiliate Russia, but if they insist on pushing into Ukraine at all costs then I don't see any alternative. Not humiliating them means they have to co-operate to end the war, but there's no sign of that yet.
Ukraine will not give up Crimea. It's a non-starter. They'll need to push the offensive to the point that Crimea is under siege before they can even start talking.
It is possible to negotiate in the universal language of high explosives. I don't think it's possible for Putin to "save face" at this point – he's either gonna win this war (he won't) or get replaced and/or overthrown. Russian people do not like losing wars. Giving up land is out of the question, according to the Ukrainian government.
Why would they to give up some of their territory to the invader? Right now, they're holding off the much bigger nation's aggression just fine, while bleeding Russia. Tell your country to continue supporting Ukraine!
I don't think Ukraine should give up their territory.
I fully support Ukraine. I know that Ukraine is doing their best to defend the country.
But at the same time I don't want to see more Ukrainians die from this war. I have been thinking whether it is possible to end the war sooner via negotiation instead of additional years of war until Russia is finally exhausted.
Putin doesn't care about people's lives, but we should. I want Ukraine to win the war, at the same time I want Ukrainians to live.
If Russia gets some land out of an invasion again, they will just continue until they gradually take more and more over time. They took Crimea in 2014 and that didn't keep them from trying to get the rest.
Russia must give everything back including Crimea and pay restitution to have any kind of fair outcome. Russia giving all of the land back and nothing else would be Ukraine compromising.
Russia way to negociate is "Do as I say OR ELSE" and then complains that the others "dont want to negociate".
Also only caring about treaties when they benefit them in that moment. They already had a treaty to leave Ukraine alone (actually, I think the agreement was to defend them, even, since they were giving up nukes in return).
If Russia said, "the sun will rise tomorrow", I'd wonder if they were secretly trying to destroy it. That's how little trust I have for them.
Possible? Yeah, of course.
Probability that they're going tonlisten? Pretty low, I'd guess probably below 10%.
What's there to negotiate? Gtfo Ukraine, restore their borders, pay for all the shit you destroyed. Negotiation over.
...Why should we be concerned about Putin saving face? This is his fuck up, and he was given ample opportunities to put the brakes on before he ever invaded.
Because if you humiliate a delusional, crazy narcisst, he will not just give up. He will double-down. And this crazy narcisst has atomic weapons.
Mutually assured destruction.
There's no path for Putin to use nuclear weapons that doesn't involve the utter annihilation of Russia. I would be willing to be that that will be a bright line for NATO, because once it's clear that Putin will use nuclear weapons when he's not getting what he wants, it's clear that there's no other choice that preserves independence other than retaliating with nuclear weapons.
When Macedonia became an independent country following dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1993 and applied to be a member in the UN, Greece has blocked its application for years, arguing that its name could be confused with the Greek province of Macedonia or the ancient Kingdom of Macedonia (whose historical territory spanned both countries), and could possibly lead to future nationalist territorial conflicts. For decades Macedonia was referred to as "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" in all UN documents, or FYROM for short. It was only in 2018 when its people voted in a referendum to officially rename their country "North Macedonia" that Greece relented and North Macedonia was able to finally fully join the UN, the EU, and NATO.
If Russia really wanted to negotiate without having to acknowledge Ukrainian sovereignty, they could refer to Ukraine as the "NATO Puppet Regime of the Province Formerly Known as Ukraine" (NPRPFKU) and the end result would be the same. Oh wait, you were asking morally, not practically?
If russia does not recognize the sovereignty of Ukraine, their "idea" of "negotiation" is for Ukraine to submit, and there cannot be meaningful negotiation with such a bad-faith actor, it is a waste of time and energy and resources... but sadly the charade must be performed at some level, for the "benefit" of international eyes, even when many of them are russian "useful idiots".
In such circumstances, Ukraine understands that it is essential that they not cede an inch.
EDIT: I want to put the severity of Ukraine's situation into clear terms here.
russia stole their land, and any negotiation is an attempt by russia to legalize their theft. Now add to that how russia terrorizes and brutalizes everyone and everything they touch, and the moral imperative to NOT negotiate becomes overwhelming.
This is why Ukraine will have to completely break them, beat them back to their borders & enforce a DNZ by obliterating any Ruzzian military assets that come within 100 miles of said border.