That’s a start. Ukraine does need a navy to protect its shipping.
He will if he can. Just like he’ll make a counterattack after any negotiation. Which is why the only end to the war consists of the brave men and women of Ukraine, with as much help as we can give them, rendering him incapable of making counterattacks. A goal that they’re already well on their way to.
I do not think that is possible.
That may well be the case. But won’t that threat ALWAYS be the case? I mean assume Ukraine pushes Russia entirely out of pre-2014 Ukraine and peace is declared. Isn’t the risk basically the same? Ukraine is always (or at least for some substantial period of time) going to have to watch their back and it is going to be an armed truce. Basically Ukraine is going to have spend heavily on defense for the foreseeable future to guard against another Russian attempt. It would be the new, more localized Cold War.
I don’t think it matters much what scenario happens. If Ukraine beats up Russia and Putin dies, they still can’t trust that some other revanchist populist might take over at some point. Barring the basically impossible feat of conquering Russia (nukes are the ultimate deterrent), nothing changes this.
At that point, Ukraine could apply for NATO membership. I think they’d be accepted unless Turkey balks (which a few judicious defense contracts with Turkish suppliers might fix).
Ukraine in NATO is as safe as Poland or the Baltics are now.
Even better if, somehow, in all of this, Transnistria is cleansed of Russians as well and Moldova applies and is accepted too.
Absolutely - that would be ideal. But Poland for example is going to be increasing defense spending as well, NATO or not 
. Ukraine is not getting a peace dividend anytime soon. Which is unfortunate, because they’re going to need a lot to rebuild.
But regardless how this war goes, NATO membership should be their consuming goal in the future. It makes sense for everybody (excluding Russia).
I think there’s a clause that you can’t join if you’re already engaged in a war with someone. Otherwise it’s like for applying for fire insurance when your house is smouldering.
People arguing for the Ukrainians to capitulate always seem to forget that millions of Ukrainian civilians have and still are opposing the Russians and are willing to put up with considerable hardship to do so.
Unlike Putin, Zelenskyy is not an autocrat. If he decided to surrender (unlikely, but let’s say for the sake of argument) he might well be deposed by his fellow citizens. The Ukrainians are not fighting because of Zelenskyy’s oratorical skills, they’re fighting because they don’t want to be under Russia rule. Many seem willing to live without electricity, modern heating, or reliable sources of clean water and food in order to avoid Russian rule.
This is not about just Zelenskyy. Most of Ukraine seems to want to continue the fight. Quite likely, if the Russians did manage to kill Zelenskyy the war would continue under someone else because Ukrainian resistance is not the desire of one man, it’s the desire of the Ukrainian population. As opposed to Russia’s involvement, which really is driven mostly by one man and who, if eliminated, might bring this mess to an end.
Who’s in the line of succession if Zelenkskyy were killed?
Don’t you mean “how many Ukrainian civilians will Putin watch die when he keeps killing them as the war grinds on to its 3rd year”? Zelenesky is not the aggressor - Putin is. Ukrainian civilians are being killed because Putin is killing them.
Exactly. And some piece of paper labelled “Peace Treaty” isn’t going to get Putin to stop killing them. It’s just going to make it easier for him to do so because the Ukrainian side will be less prepared due to following whatever restrictions are placed on them in the treaty.
Any “peace treaty” that Russia signs should just be named the “Give Russia time to re-arm and build more missiles treaty”
It’s those pesky Ukrainians support by their western allies that is causing the destruction, not the Russian aggression according Putin.
Putin tells Germany’s Scholz Western states’ position on Ukraine is “destructive”
Again, how can the Onion stay in business while stories like these are put out by Putin.
I hope you are right. But I wonder how true this is, after all the suffering.
Most people are average…they aren’t heroes. A huge number of Ukrainians have discovered that they can be heroic–and those are the people we see on the internet in English.
Every single youtube video shows proud soldiers and civilians. And on forums such as reddit ,every single post is full of optimism.
But I wonder about the other half of the population.
Of 40 million Ukrainians, I’ve seen estimates that 7 million have fled the country, and 14 million others have become refugees within Ukraine. And now, it looks like some 20 million have no electricity or running water. And every day more missiles destroy more electric lines, as Putin tries to bomb them back to the stone age.
How long can this go on? How long before Ukrainian society breaks under the pressure? What are people saying to each other privately in Ukrainian? What are they posting on their “friends and family only” pages of social media?
I’m imagining a Ukrainian mother of a new baby: She needs water to mix infant formula every 3 hours, and electricity to sterilize the bottles. When she talks to the baby’s grandparents, what does she tell them? That she wants to keep fighting so that the baby grows up in a free and independent Ukraine? Or that she is at her personal breaking point of no sleep, no heating, no way to keep her baby healthy, and no hope for the future?
I hope she is braver than I would be.
Does anybody have info, (even if only anecdotal), about how the average citizens are holding up? (ie. the people who do not post on the internet in English)
It’s like saying a rape victim is to blame for her injuries, since she should have just lain back and gotten raped and murdered.
In 2020, seemed like the Onion was some of the most reliable reporting around, as crazy as “reality” was.
I’d say it also makes sense for Russia, though I don’t expect them to realize that, or admit it if they do.
Anything that puts pressure on the next Putin-wannabe to not attack a neighboring country will ultimately be better for Russia, the country, and Russian citizens, if for no other reason than they won’t lose thousands of lives and billions of dollars in equipment in another useless war.
This is predicated on a crucial assumption: that Russia can, however ineptly, continue to fight at its present level more or less forever; until Ukraine either negotiates/surrenders or is turned into a corpse-strewn field of rubble. IOW, it presumes that Russia’s strategic depth is so huge that it cannot be exhausted, like the WW2 Red Army.
This is far from certain. Expenditure of munitions stockpiles, the impact of western sanctions, the loss of expensive air and armor assets, all mean that the war is bleeding out Russia. How quickly no one outside the Kremlin knows; but a machine gun is a pretty formidable weapon until suddenly the trigger is pulled and it goes ‘click’.
Do you remember ‘Star Wars’, Reagan’s ‘impenetrable sheild’ against Soviet missiles? It was a bluff, but it forced the Soviets to spend so much money trying to come up with countermeasures that it helped cause the collapse of the Soviet Union.
No idea on the factuality but, just to be completist, TASS is reporting that the government of Russia is saying that Ukraine is shelling the non-military, public town centers of Donetsk:
TASS, I note, doesn’t endorse these statements in any way.
What range would Team Ukr need to be in, in order to even functionally do this?