Re: Russia has invaded Ukraine
 

Ok, I think we can agree that the outcome of any cessation of war will not be Ukraine restored to pre-2014 borders.

Neither would Putin be content with just holding onto the Crimea, as he’s already had it for over a decade and he won’t give up Sevastopol.

So what’s on the table are the gains made by Russia since the war started. Which is about 1/5th of Ukraine (not sure if that includes Crimea or not).

It may be simplistic but what else would the negotiation look like?

- Russia retreats, keeps Crimea and gets a minerals deal with Ukraine? I don’t see that squaring with Putin’s dream of restoring Greater Russia.

- Or perhaps Ukraine fights on to victory, as the picture you seem to be painting has them in the ascendancy.

---------- Post added at 18:27 ---------- Previous post was at 18:24 ----------

Your point falls in 2014. The Crimea has been under Russian control for over a decade and was taken with barely a whimper.

---------- Post added at 18:37 ---------- Previous post was at 18:27 ----------


Indeed, but borders changing in Europe after wars and after the fall of the USSR, is not to be unexpected.

I may have mentioned on this thread before, but I had a conversation in Feb with an ex- Colonel and said this ends with Russia keeping some of the gains, a new border with a demilitarised Zone manned on the Ukraine side by European and or NATO Troops.

Re: Russia has invaded Ukraine
 

So the Ukrainian constitution is a red herring?! Try telling Ukrainians that! They fought for it in 2013-2014 in the Maiden (Independence Square) protestss! I kknow people who were there, thankfully I don't know any who were shot.

Without going to the people the Constitution cannot be changed, they will not cede any terrortery or surrender.

Try understanding the people first. Thankfully I made the time to do so when I went there last year and made so many friends.

They will fighrt until they die, they have no other option.

Re: Russia has invaded Ukraine
 

Putin wants the whole Donbas because it’s mineral rich and gets him closer to Kyiv, which is where he really wants to be. No Ukrainian leader with any agency will agree a peace treaty that hands it over on the basis of its present administrative boundaries because that puts Ukraine’s fortress cities and defensible high ground in Russia’s control. If any territory is ceded at all, it will be Donbas, more or less as presently occupied.

Putin also wants the other southern gains because he wants a land bridge to Crimea. He wants Crimea because whoever controls Crimea controls the Black Sea and he wants a land bridge because the Kerch Strait Bridge is vulnerable, and by some estimates so badly damaged it can no longer support traffic of any weight. All of those reasons are precisely why Ukraine will not agree to any of it, and while I think there is a deal to be had on the basis of Donbas-ish only, there’s no deal ever going to be had for any more than that. The very most we’d ever see would be a Korean-like freezing of the conflict but that would only happen if both sides could tacitly agree they’d worn out their ability to continue.

Who does, however, have the ability to continue? Ukraine is increasing its capabilities month by month and by credible estimates is suffering casualties at only a tenth of the rate of the Russians. The Russian meat assault tactics just can’t go on forever. They are going to run out of people, just as they are going to run out of Soviet era tanks. They can make lots of Shahed terror drones but Ukraine’s getting better and better at shooting them down, and in any case Russia seems unable to put them to strategic use. Meanwhile the whole of Europe is re-arming at an increasing pace and even our shameful politicians are starting to reverse the myopic underinvestment of the past 30 years. A Europe armed to the teeth and attuned to Russian military adventuring was not what Putin was aiming for.

Much of the commentariat is stuck with the old ‘Russian Bear’ mindset which ceased to be the case in the 1990s and has only crumbled further since. They have no army worth the name, crumbling infrastructure and dwindling equipment stockpiles. They are only continuing at all because their leaders have a genocidal disregard for their own people and are willing to sacrifice them by the thousand on futile daily assaults designed to soak up Ukrainian bullets. But even that can’t go on forever.

---------- Post added at 18:57 ---------- Previous post was at 18:56 ----------

In terms of which reasons actually, genuinely, prevent a peace deal occurring, yes it is. I’m not saying the Ukrainians would vote to cede territory, I’m simply saying it is untrue that a statement in a constitution forecloses even the possibility of it.

Re: Russia has invaded Ukraine
 

A useful take on recent events from Timothy Garton Ash, professor of European Studies at Oxford:

https://timothygartonash.substack.co...rumps-disgrace