I get your point, but those circumstances amount to a Russian surrender.
I think if Ukraine makes some further concessions, there could be a deal there: Ukraine promises to remove all Satanists from their government as well; all existing NATO biolabs in Ukraine are to be dismantled; Ukraine must promise not to build military bases in other NATO countries along Russia’s border.
And…? It’s not as if they’d lose any Russian territory.
See? Plenty of concessions they can make!
I hate to admit it but IMHO the Russian mobilization has changed things. They’re untrained and undisciplined. Probably useless for a counter-offensive against light armor forces.
Russia has added at least 50,000 to 75,000 bodies with weapons that Ukrainian forces have to fight through. A spray and pray schulb can still kill you. They can still terrorize civilians.
That means a stand still with both sides digging in.
Ukraine can still win with long-range, offensive weapons. It doesn’t seem like NATO will provide them.
Any other terms amount to a Ukrainian surrender.
Well, yes, but maybe they can negotiate their way out of massive reparations to Ukraine. Even a complete surrender of territory may come with benefits in the form of other negotiated terms.
I mean, maybe not for Putin, but for Russia as a whole.
Disagree. It amounts to a Russian ceassation of illegal occupation. Russia does not have to surrender a single hectare of Russian land. They just have to go home, and stop invading other countries.
Telling Russia to stop invading other countries and killing their citizens is not the same as asking them to surrender. We’re not asking their army to lay down their arms and give themselves up. Just asking them to GO HOME.
Right. But it would still be losing the war by means other than defeat on the battlefield. IMHO that amounts to surrender. It would be no different than what happened to the US in Vietnam and Afghanistan. We were in no position to dictate any sort of terms to the North Vietnamese or the Taliban. If Russia were to simply pack up and leave, they would be in the same position.
Exactly. Ukraine has no room to offer any sort of concession to Russia. If they do, it would amount to admitting defeat, since Putin has no interest in anything short of making Ukraine cease to exist as a nation. That’s why I don’t get why anyone would call for “negotiations.”
Even if Ukraine were to have a total victory on the battlefield, they would be in no position to demand any sort of reparations from Russia.
As I mentioned above, the situation would be similar to how the US wars against North Vietnam and Afghanistan ended. I think it could be said that in a certain sense we surrendered in both of those wars. The underlying problem, as I see it, is that there are no carrots big enough to convince Putin to just pack up and go home, and so negotiations that involve offering Russia any carrots are pointless. Threatening Russia with sticks is just as pointless due to the MAD scenario. If both carrots and sticks are off the table, what is there left to negotiate about?
Eventually can be a long time coming. Even if they emerged from the war with all four oblasts intact (not going to happen), Russia would be a basket case for decades. Before the war Russia had a lower per capita GDP than Turkey or Greece. They are not gong to magically rebuild their shattered army and shaken economy for a decade or three - the money won’t exist to do so. And those Ukrainian territories would be a massive economic sink for decades - there is nothing but fragments of their old industrial economy left. They’re battle-torn basket-cases.
Even if they did rebuild who exactly are they going to threaten, even at pre-war strength?
Here’s the thing. In this thread I see some wild exuberance that Ukraine has already won, it’s just a matter of time. Simultaneously there are dire warnings that if Ukraine doesn’t win, Russia will become an existential threat to take over all of Europe.
Realistically, both of these scenarios cannot co-exist. Because if Ukraine can plausibly beat up Russia, Russia is not a existential threat to Europe. And if Russia were an existential threat to take over Europe, they’d be beating the shit out of Ukraine.
Russia has nukes. That’s plenty bad, but that’s the only trump card they hold. It renders them sort of uninvadable in any serious way, but that’s about it. Sure they can render Europe uninhabitable, but they’re not taking over anything - they’d be a nation of cinders as well in that timeline.
We did this back in 2020, with a lot of debate about just how threatening Russia is. This war has answered some of those questions - they’re rather less dangerous than feared. If Russia had invaded Poland instead of Ukraine in 2022, NATO would have eventually steamrolled them. End of story. If Russia invaded Poland in 2024 with their current, heavily-damaged military, Poland might be able to push them out themselves.
None of which should be taken as a suggestion that Ukraine should trade land for a quick peace. Just that Russia ain’t the mighty bear that the U.S.S.R. once was. It’s an old, arthritic, rheumatic bear with kidney, prostate and heart issues. Also diabetes. And it needs a walker. And is half-blind.
ETA: That said I’m not on the side that thinks Ukraine is inevitably going to come out of this a total winner, either. If by winning we mean a return to the pre-2014 borders. I’m a little too cautious to join the wildly exuberant camp. Might happen, but a settlement of less than that is also possible. The only thing that is clear is Ukraine is not getting conquered in toto.
Russia planned to go as far as Portugal, eventually. We (including Putin) have now learned that those plans were unrealistic. But if they had time to lick their wounds and figure out what went wrong in Ukraine, and fix it, the plans could become realistic. That’s the scenario we need to worry about, and make sure it doesn’t come to fruition.
No, they couldn’t. There is no plausible scenario, at all, where Russia could ever pull off such a thing. Not before this war, definitely not after. There is no Russian Napoleon and even if there were the difference between 18th century and modern warfare renders it impossible anyway. Russia just doesn’t have the resources.
ETA: I mean NATO has ~6.5x the population and ~18-19x or more the GDP of Russia.
I must have missed it. Where did you read this? Not disbelieving, just curious.
I hope these aren’t the typical 5,500kw from Home Depot. 500 generators is less than FEMA would send after a major Tropical Storm or hurricane.
Guardian
Nit pick, wouldn’t 5,500kw be 5.5mw? Then those would be decnt generators.
your right Home Depot sells a lot of 5,500W generators. Not kw
I was thinking of my Generac that is 15kw. Powers the entire house. I doubt it would last very long running continuously for a year. It’s really intended to run a few weeks while normal service is repaired.
Nit pick. You’re right, not your right. Damn, nit picking is fun! Or is it nitpicking? 
I need 
.
Getting back to the topic, the Ukraine needs coffee to.
Ahh, enjoying a nice latte over a burning Russian tank. How relaxing.
I hope ISW studies the videos and reports of mutinies within Russian forces.
It’s not just money. They’re upset at the number of losses and direction by the officers. This could be a big help to Ukraine.
The Guardian or BBC needs to verify the information.
Russia denies they took heavy losses in a recent battle. So, it’s probably true they did take losses?
In my job, I see a lot of paperwork concerning backup power generation at our area healthcare facilities. For points of comparison:
The newest and largest local hospital operates a pair of 3,000 kW generators (with two more on standby for redundancy) in case of utility power failure. That covers four immense buildings and several out-buildings over a nine city-block campus. The footprint of the hospital’s campus is comparable to that of the Caesar’s Superdome stadium (link to map with both in the frame).
The next tier of hospitals size-wise – still huge multi-building campuses – have backup units in the range of 1000 - 2000 kW. The smaller, older hospitals - still full-service facilities with emergency departments, surgery, maternity, patient wards, etc. - employ 800 - 1000 kW backup generators for their main buildings plus scattered 500 - 750 kW units for non-adjacent out-buildings.