I wouldn’t mind 1191 borders either (Volga to Urals or thereabouts…)
Not disagreeing with your assessment of Russian motivations, but no one ever needs an excuse or any other reason to stop violence.
I’m curious-how many Dopers thought it would turn out the way it has when the invasion started? Or did you sadly assume (as I would have) Russia would just steamroll Ukraine until someone stepped in to stop them?
To end the war. I mean, at some point, saving the lives of your people is a consideration that might involve swallowing a bitter pill.
Another aspect is that being a stand-up comedian requires enormous self-confidence. There’s nothing worse than the “ugggghhh” feeling when you crack a joke on stage and nobody laughs but instead regards you with scorn. The difficulty of delivering jokes or on-the-spot comedy, and quick-wit, is extreme. Possibly the hardest stage job of all stage jobs.
I’m utterly flabbergasted at how incompetent the Russian armed forces are. (And extremely pleased.) While no plan survives contact with the enemy, this plan just didn’t do anything they could’ve expected except kill people.
On the other hand, it’s better to overestimate one’s foes than underestimate them.
As the Russians, themselves, found out.
“Know yourself and know your enemy…”
I said some rather nasty - and in retrospect, fundamentally incorrect - things about the Ukrainians’ apparent willingness to fight, which I now regret.
Complete surprise here. I was expecting three weeks or so for Russia to have more-or-less established control of Ukraine. Part of that was psychological preparing for an undesired result, but even in best-case scenario, I would not have predicted Ukraine maintaining its position as it has.
I hope Ukraine is negotiating from a position of strength. They should insist on regaining their borders from Feb 1 (before the invasion).
Imho Russia will rebuild their military quickly. They’ll be more dangerous a year or two from now.
Ukraine has to get reasonable concessions now while sanctions are in place. Crimea is already lost. Russia has invested heavily there since 2014. The same thing will happen in the Donbass region. Ukraine needs to get some of it back. Let the Russians keep the parts that have a large Russian population.
I predicted it. Most of my friends laughed at me and said Russia would steam roll Ukraine. Now, I’ll admit I figured it would be the urban combat that would do them in. I knew Russian logistics and morale were bad, but they turned out to be even worse than I figured. But I’ve had quite a few messages and emails the past couple of weeks saying “I guess you were right.”
To be clear, I was not 100% certain. There were some open questions that became clearer in the opening few days. But from that point on, I highly suspected Russia would lose.
By that logic, any time a country invades another country, the country being invaded should cede land to the aggressor to avoid civilian casualties. The aggressor therefore gets stronger and the defender gets weaker, at no cost, with no guarantees that the aggressor will not do the same thing again.
The Ukrainians do not believe they are losing the war, so giving up their land to the invaders is, at this time, out of the question.
If Putin starts bombing Canada, what parts of Canada should we give up to maintain peace?
Alberta?
And we’ll throw in Mississippi.
I’m surprisingly ok with this. 
I figured it would end up as Iraq or Afghanistan equivalent: fast Russian military victory followed by a long, bloody insurgency. I thought Ukraine’s military would have high morale but be steamrolled by Russian firepower. I suspected the Western Alliance would hold together but not as well as it has.
It’s still possible that it ends up an insurgency, but more likely that it will be an outright military defeat of Russia. I am happy that I was wrong on the other counts.
Right. I thought they would pretty quickly surround the border cities, even surround Kiev within weeks, and possibly make some preliminary assaults that would be rebuffed, and settle down for a siege in which they bombard the cities from afar. I predicted that this war would not be over yet at this time, but had expected it to be a lot more one-sided.
The long range missiles are Russia’s strongest bargaining power. They could withdraw troops to the areas they already control. Then make life miserable for Ukraine with a few missile strikes every week. That could last for several more months. Maybe even a year?
Ukraine has no choice. They have to give up some territory for peace. It’s a terrible reality.
To that, I’d say “Fat Chance.” It will take them years to rebuild and retrain. It isn’t just taking tanks and other equipment out of storage (which, BTW, has proven problematic due to extensive looting over the years) but getting competent people into the military and providing them with the training they need to survive the 21st century battlefield. You don’t do that overnight. Then there is the on-going problem of training. We won’t even start to examine where all the money is going to come from since Russia is going to be commercially isolated for as long as Putin is alive, plus a few.
Nope, I don’t see them as an offensive threat (other than nukes) for at least a decade after this is over.