Nobody expects that they actually will do so willingly. Just that Russia should because, y’know, starting wars to annex territory is not something most people like. That’s why Ukraine should be armed until it can make Russia leave.
That said, Russia would absolutely benefit from a negotiated settlement right now. This war is taking a lot of Russian lives and resources, so if it can persuade either Ukraine to agree to enough concessions or Ukraine’s backers to stop backing it, Russia could benefit enormously. Even if Russia actually manages to completely overrun Ukraine in the future, actually having to fight to the end will be an extremely costly ordeal.
This take is both idealistic and ignorant of the situation on the ground.
It’s clear to anyone paying attention that Ukraine has lost any shot they had at driving Russia out in 2023, assuming they even had any shot at it in the first place. As shown by the evolution of the front line in 2023, Russia is now deeply entrenched in it’s current position and Ukraine, even back when Western military support was at it’s maximum, is unable to make them move from them in any significant way. Meanwhile Russia has had the time to adapt to western sanctions and the economy not only stabilized but is even growing quite a lot, especially the arms industry.
You need to come to terms with the fact that Ukraine won’t be getting back the occupied territory. With Russia now largely outproducing the west on military equipment and the west having pretty much depleted their stockpile, Ukraine, who is largely dependent to western military aid as their own military industrial base is far from solid, will unravel sooner rather than later. The ONLY thing sending them weapons is doing right now is prolonging the war and getting more Ukrainian killed for literally nothing.
Getting more thousands of Ukrainian killed because of the delusion that they can somehow still drive Russia out at this point is not worth whatever territory they want to get back.
Continuing to send billions of dollars of weapons to them won’t do any good to the Ukrainian peoples, and you aren’t the saviour of Ukraine you think you are by cheering for this.
What would do good for the Ukrainian people is suing for peace and starting to rebuild whatever territory they have left.
I don’t want to make Ukrainians do anything. If they choose to keep fighting, they should be enabled to do so. If they choose to make peace, great, but they should be armed sufficiently that they can actually negotiate instead of just capitulate. Either way they need to be armed, because if they don’t have the capacity to make the status quo costly then they have no leverage. There is no negotiation if we neuter Ukraine beforehand, there are only Russian demands.
Also, most of the aid is not weapons. A lot of it is, but more of it is housing Ukrainian refugees and funding the Ukrainian govenment to keep the basics of civil services going.
How may of them chose to fight in the first place, aside from the neo-Nazi ones? Many of them were conscripted and forced to fight.
How many of the women & children & old men want the fighting to continue? The Ukrainian government is a shit government; how committed even are they to its survival? This is a post-US coup government that has banned opposition parties and is auctioning the country off to foreign capitalists. All of the aid they’re getting is lend-lease, which they will be repaying for generations. This is going to be full-on neoliberal shock therapy.
To what extent does the Ukrainian government have a choice in whether to continue fighting, when the US clearly has a lot of say in the matter despite its claims to the contrary?
A pretty fair point but I still think you are neglecting a few things.
Firstly, while according to this study by the Kiev international institute of sociology most Ukrainians do still support the war it also indicate that the portion that peace at the cost of losing territory is definitely growing since the start of 2023, if I were to try giving admittedly loose and uncertain bound based on those numbers and assuming the rate of change don’t shrink, I would expect this portion to reach 50% of the population 2 months from now at the soonest, 11 months from now at the latest.
An other related thing to consider is how accurately is the state of the war depicted in Ukrainian media? A state at war that don’t plan to surrender has incentives to make their war effort as good as possible and the enemy’s war effort as bad as possible and Ukraine is obviously no exception.
Depending on how distorted the narrative about the war is, these figures could be drastically different from what they would be if the Ukrainian public got a more neutral account of the war.
So do the Ukrainian want to continue fighting? For now yes, but I don’t believe it will last.
Your leverage point is moot in my opinion.
As I said, it is a fact that Russia is winning the war and that Ukraine has decisively failed to push them back before the Russian entrenchment in their position and the dwindling military supply to Ukraine made doing so impossible going forward.
I’m not saying that Russia could just roll over to Kiev any day if they wanted, that would obviously be absurd, but the military situation in Ukraine, the state of western weapon manufacturing compared to Russia’s and the sheer difference in manpower reserve and moral make it such that even if the west threw every last weapon in their stockpile at Ukraine, it would not change significantly what a peace deal between Moscow and Kiev could look like. I repeat therefor once again that the ONLY thing continuing to supply Ukraine with weapons is increasing the death toll on both side and prolonging the was for nothing, it’s literally not doing anything more, let alone helping Ukraine in any tangible way.
You are right, though, that most of the aid to Ukraine is humanitarian and not military, and those absolutely should continue, but that’s one reason more to not prolong the war uselessly, the end of the war would make helping the Ukrainian people way easier and would allow Ukraine to start rebuilding.
If arming Ukraine does not substantially impact Ukraine’s ability to fight, how does it prolong the war? In your assessment, Ukraine would be forced to make peace at the same point either way. Could you expand on that?
If arming Ukraine does not substantially impact Ukraine’s ability to fight, how does it prolong the war?
This is not exactly what I said. I didn’t say that it didn’t impact Ukraine’s ability to fight, I said it doesn’t change the outcome of the war.
Of course, arming Ukraine adds difficulty for Russia, but it only at most delay Russia getting what they want since because of the way the war is going and the west’s inability to outproduce Russia, Russia has time on their side. Russia can largely afford to just wait until western weapon supply to Ukraine can’t keep up with theirs anymore, which is exactly what they have been doing since their retreat from the siege of Kiev in 2022, that’s why the front line has barely moved since then, Russia know they are in a position where time will do most of the work for them.
I’m not sure this holds. To me that very delay is the valuable point of negotiation I’m talking about; this war is also costly in lives and materiel for Russia. Being able to eventually outlast Ukraine on that front doesn’t negate that. But I think that’s getting towards too subjective a point for us to find common ground on.
Here’s a question nobody has been able to answer for me yet.
Why would Russia abandon a 2 year long military operation they’re winning.
Literally just because a bunch of American libs said they should online?
All reports are pointing to it not being the russians that would benefit from a ceasefire.
Nobody expects that they actually will do so willingly. Just that Russia should because, y’know, starting wars to annex territory is not something most people like. That’s why Ukraine should be armed until it can make Russia leave.
That said, Russia would absolutely benefit from a negotiated settlement right now. This war is taking a lot of Russian lives and resources, so if it can persuade either Ukraine to agree to enough concessions or Ukraine’s backers to stop backing it, Russia could benefit enormously. Even if Russia actually manages to completely overrun Ukraine in the future, actually having to fight to the end will be an extremely costly ordeal.
This take is both idealistic and ignorant of the situation on the ground.
It’s clear to anyone paying attention that Ukraine has lost any shot they had at driving Russia out in 2023, assuming they even had any shot at it in the first place. As shown by the evolution of the front line in 2023, Russia is now deeply entrenched in it’s current position and Ukraine, even back when Western military support was at it’s maximum, is unable to make them move from them in any significant way. Meanwhile Russia has had the time to adapt to western sanctions and the economy not only stabilized but is even growing quite a lot, especially the arms industry.
You need to come to terms with the fact that Ukraine won’t be getting back the occupied territory. With Russia now largely outproducing the west on military equipment and the west having pretty much depleted their stockpile, Ukraine, who is largely dependent to western military aid as their own military industrial base is far from solid, will unravel sooner rather than later. The ONLY thing sending them weapons is doing right now is prolonging the war and getting more Ukrainian killed for literally nothing.
Getting more thousands of Ukrainian killed because of the delusion that they can somehow still drive Russia out at this point is not worth whatever territory they want to get back.
Continuing to send billions of dollars of weapons to them won’t do any good to the Ukrainian peoples, and you aren’t the saviour of Ukraine you think you are by cheering for this.
What would do good for the Ukrainian people is suing for peace and starting to rebuild whatever territory they have left.
I don’t want to make Ukrainians do anything. If they choose to keep fighting, they should be enabled to do so. If they choose to make peace, great, but they should be armed sufficiently that they can actually negotiate instead of just capitulate. Either way they need to be armed, because if they don’t have the capacity to make the status quo costly then they have no leverage. There is no negotiation if we neuter Ukraine beforehand, there are only Russian demands.
Also, most of the aid is not weapons. A lot of it is, but more of it is housing Ukrainian refugees and funding the Ukrainian govenment to keep the basics of civil services going.
A pretty fair point but I still think you are neglecting a few things.
Firstly, while according to this study by the Kiev international institute of sociology most Ukrainians do still support the war it also indicate that the portion that peace at the cost of losing territory is definitely growing since the start of 2023, if I were to try giving admittedly loose and uncertain bound based on those numbers and assuming the rate of change don’t shrink, I would expect this portion to reach 50% of the population 2 months from now at the soonest, 11 months from now at the latest.
An other related thing to consider is how accurately is the state of the war depicted in Ukrainian media? A state at war that don’t plan to surrender has incentives to make their war effort as good as possible and the enemy’s war effort as bad as possible and Ukraine is obviously no exception.
Depending on how distorted the narrative about the war is, these figures could be drastically different from what they would be if the Ukrainian public got a more neutral account of the war.
So do the Ukrainian want to continue fighting? For now yes, but I don’t believe it will last.
Your leverage point is moot in my opinion.
As I said, it is a fact that Russia is winning the war and that Ukraine has decisively failed to push them back before the Russian entrenchment in their position and the dwindling military supply to Ukraine made doing so impossible going forward.
I’m not saying that Russia could just roll over to Kiev any day if they wanted, that would obviously be absurd, but the military situation in Ukraine, the state of western weapon manufacturing compared to Russia’s and the sheer difference in manpower reserve and moral make it such that even if the west threw every last weapon in their stockpile at Ukraine, it would not change significantly what a peace deal between Moscow and Kiev could look like. I repeat therefor once again that the ONLY thing continuing to supply Ukraine with weapons is increasing the death toll on both side and prolonging the was for nothing, it’s literally not doing anything more, let alone helping Ukraine in any tangible way.
You are right, though, that most of the aid to Ukraine is humanitarian and not military, and those absolutely should continue, but that’s one reason more to not prolong the war uselessly, the end of the war would make helping the Ukrainian people way easier and would allow Ukraine to start rebuilding.
I don’t understand your reasoning behind:
If arming Ukraine does not substantially impact Ukraine’s ability to fight, how does it prolong the war? In your assessment, Ukraine would be forced to make peace at the same point either way. Could you expand on that?
This is not exactly what I said. I didn’t say that it didn’t impact Ukraine’s ability to fight, I said it doesn’t change the outcome of the war.
Of course, arming Ukraine adds difficulty for Russia, but it only at most delay Russia getting what they want since because of the way the war is going and the west’s inability to outproduce Russia, Russia has time on their side. Russia can largely afford to just wait until western weapon supply to Ukraine can’t keep up with theirs anymore, which is exactly what they have been doing since their retreat from the siege of Kiev in 2022, that’s why the front line has barely moved since then, Russia know they are in a position where time will do most of the work for them.
I’m not sure this holds. To me that very delay is the valuable point of negotiation I’m talking about; this war is also costly in lives and materiel for Russia. Being able to eventually outlast Ukraine on that front doesn’t negate that. But I think that’s getting towards too subjective a point for us to find common ground on.
Well as per the article that choice is clearly not theirs, it’s the United States’. And the US says war
Read the fucking article. The US response was “it’s not our choice to make”
You don’t think the US is privately egging Zelensky on while publicly putting on a face of “oh it’s totally their choice to make”?
If I had stock in Raytheon that’s certainly what I’d like to see… just saying.
What?