Why on earth would Ukraine agree to this? The separatists represent a minority of the Donbas population. Something like you are suggesting would only happen as part of a peace settlement in which Ukraine has been militarily defeated, and that is not happening - quite the opposite, in fact.
One thing’s for sure. The Ukrainians are not going to accept ethnic cleansing.
Zelensky and his spokespeople have recently stated repeatedly that they will not accept any loss of territory.
Why on earth would Ukraine agree to this?
Oh, I’m just spitballing here, and I freely admit I have no significant knowledge of the history of the region.
Negotiations always have to include compromise. This would let Russia claim “victory” and get them to cease hostilities. Ukraine would definitely “lose” in the short term, but I think they’d come out waaaay ahead long-term (which wouldn’t actually take that long, in my opinion).
‘You pull out of Ukraine and pay reparations, and we won’t invade Russia.’
it seems the war is now moving more into a attrition type of event - with russian rockets as main weapon (since they are often too far out for artillery to do the heavy destruction).
Do we have a feeling how many rockets the russians have (I seem to recall conflicting accounts, that they are running low on those - or were those just the smart ones?) …
Just trying to get a feeling for how “sustainable” russian rocket attacks are in time…
Except that Putin has already said ALL of Ukraine is part of “Greater Russia,” so giving him Donbass, or for that matter Donbass, Luhansk, and Crimea won’t be enough.
Bellingcat can confirm that three members of the delegation attending the peace talks between Ukraine and Russia on the night of 3 to 4 March 2022 experienced symptoms consistent with poisoning with chemical weapons.
Putin is really like a comic book / movie villain, isn’t he?
The story about Ukrainian negotiators and Abramovich being poisoned with chemical or biological weapons (a typical tactic of the FSB) is utterly despicable.
If this is true then why would Ukraine send anyone else to negotiate with the Russians ever again?
And it could also signal that Putin is going after a leading oligarch as an example to the rest. As I’ve said before, if you want to guess what Putin is going to do next, imagine what a gangster boss would do.
There is not a single reason for the West to withhold any form of non-nuclear aid from Ukraine by this point.
If the West is too chicken to intervene directly because of nukes, fine. But there’s not a single reason we should withhold this or that conventional armament (that the Ukrainians can easily use), or food, or fuel, from them at this point.
We need to stop this “Sending Stingers and Javelins is okay but bigger SAMs, fuel and food is too provocative” inane logic.
It appears to be not a matter of returning to doing business, rather, the FSB seized watches that were stock on hand in the warehouse or jewelry boutique inside Russia. Wares that the company was going to take back out of the country. but the federalskis got to them before they could.
And completely unsurprising. I was worried that they might try this.
The logic behind that is that anything more complex than an infantry weapon would require more training than the Ukrainians have time for. That logic held a few weeks ago, I don’t know that it does at this point.
Damn! How could I have missed an Arnold movie?
Yeah, I admit I was trying to think of a younger generation, I just couldn’t come up with any names.
Argh! Shut your mouth. If that get’s traction we know who to blame.
I agree. Ukraine should not need to cede land to appease Putin. I mentioned this way back at the beginning, but if Russia had only attacked the Donbas region successfully and stopped there, they probably could have kept that land with little in the way of sanctions. By attempting to take Ukraine as a whole they totally fucked up. And every day makes it worse.
Holy fuck! I hope they have something in the way of medical proof for this. Russia seems to be determined to disprove the old “poison is a women’s weapon” all by themselves.
it was on march 6th when the ukr. negotiator Denys K. was killed the the Ukr. as a double-agent …
makes you wonder if there are any links …
Full thread from Bellingcat:
According to two consulted CW experts and a doctor, the symptoms were most consistent with variants of porphyrin, organophosphates, or bicyclic substances. A definitive determination was not possible due to the absence of specialized laboratory equipment near the victims.
Shaun Walker of the Guardian has separately verified the poisoning incident.
Good spot. The poisoning was two days before his death and not all the negotiators were affected.
The very paradigm of biting off more than one can chew.
The victims blamed the suspected attack on hard-liners in Moscow who they said wanted to sabotage talks to end the war. A person close to Mr. Abramovich said it wasn’t clear who had targeted the group.
While the Kremlin says it is interested in pursuing a negotiated solution, presenters on popular talk shows on Russian state TV have said in recent days that any agreement with Mr. Zelensky would be a humiliation for Russia and said that Ukraine should be absorbed into the Russian state.
I hope the opposite of this meme does not happen.