1. The problem with Russia is not a territorial dispute. It is the ambition of a madman dreaming with an imperial Russia. If you check Russia media and even Putin, they don't think Ukrania has a right to exists. They think it is an invention that has to be assimilated. There is no hypothesis of resolution there.
2. Let's add to this a simple fact. We know it will not work. We know because it happened in 2014. Russia took Crimea, then didn't stop and instigated separatists movements in east Ukrania. Did Russia stop? No. I don't have any faith in something that is actually already failing,
3. Is it the time to negotiate peace with nazism? Ethnic Cleansing, killing of civilians, rape, kidnapping of children, a facist regime. Cheks out.
4. But Ukrania will loose... It was gonna loose in 2 days, then in a month, then in 2 months. Fact is Russia controll less territory than in march.
I have seen some ex commanders talking about the necessity of negotiations in the media, with fatalistic proyections. That contrast with current armies analysis (UK and US) adress about Russia capabilities.
5. This is the moment. Because Putin launched an invasion thinking he has 2 greatest army in the world. But Russia is sending '50-60 tanks to the war. Logistic has been a mess and there is a lack of good command.
6. Any peace with Russia won't last. This is a simple true. It will only help to facilitate the russian ocupation and preparations for a new future invation. It will bring more pain for Ukraine. It will be better for the rest of us, but not for ukranians.
To me these are the options:
Ukraine is forced to do something doesn't want, ignore the genocides, the destruction and concede more territory. Facism won (lets say it as it is) The rest of the world forget about it for some years. We all take care of our own stuff. And some years later all this repeat, again. As it happened before.
The world take the punch once, and support those who fight against true depicable evil, despite the pain. And maybe, maybe, no guarantees, something change.
If this sound as i am angry, it is true. Not with you. I respect your opinion Eirc, and i think you think it is for the best. But the world cannot let Russia won. Enough is enough, facism can't won. Genocide cannot be rewarded.
I am inclined to agree and find the comment quite moving. But a truly strong counter-argument would touch on Erik's core claims. These are as follows: 1) as the war continues Russia's advantage will probably increase, 2) if Russia starts to lose the hardliners in the Putin regime will start to win arguments and the government will start acting in increasingly crazy ways such as e.g. starting WW3 or using nukes, and 3) without a fast peace (or at least, ceasefire), the world is due for a dangerous famine.
I don't think anyone of us is really an expert on analyzing war, so I'll mostly leave 1) aside. But I think it looks like Russia has fixed the logistical issues they had during the first month of the war, which is worrying. They seem to have the capability to supply the frontlines at least with nightmarish amounts of artillery. The one advantage that Ukraine has is well-motivated soldiers.
For 2), I have no idea whether there are secret negotiations taking place right now but my guess would be no. Russia has deliberately killed so many civilians that I just don't believe there is any faith in a negotiated ceasefire (or peace) with them. In that case war will go on until one side is comprehensively defeated on the battlefield, in which case I would wish for the losing side to be Russia. I think the best way to get Russia to sober up from their war craze is an undeniable defeat (as much as I laugh at the "we only wanted Donbass all along!!!", the Russian public eats the propaganda up). I wish I could justify this with a stronger argument than this, but observe how peaceful Japan and Germany got after losing the last world war. (Germany lost WW1 as well but that defeat could be denied - Hitler's movement started out by blaming the home front for abandoning the war when not a single shot had been fired on German soil.)
As for 3) I have no idea whether Ukrainian grain can be replaced by e.g. Indian grain on the world market. As prices keep going up, the market will respond I suppose... But I have no idea how fast and how many food riots there will be before that. For that matter, even if the war ended right now, perhaps it is already too late to avoid a disaster. This question just stumps me.
It is gonna get worse before getting worse or better. That is for sure.
1) I don't think time favor Russia. The continuing shuffling of generals says a lot about their expectations and the price they are paying for each advance. In a war of atrittion all depends on the support each country has.
I have my hope in the bad shape of the russian army, as long as Ukraine recieve support. For all i have seen, NATO weapons do make a difference.
2) I don't think Russia has softliners. I can understand that people want to be better safe than sorry. All the noise Lavrov, Putin and russian TV make about their nukes is something. But the main goal of all that is to press western public opinion to fear and ask the goverments to stop helping Ukraine. Remember the video of the super wave that would flood the british islands.
1) Yep, they seem to have learned a lot. However, i am not sure to what extent, their current positions are very much based on being close to previous occupied territory and Belarus. Were they to extend in the same way than march, no idea how would they do.
2) In one hand controlling the media Putin can present anything as a victory. As long as Russia doesn't have to pay reparations i would say. But even today they are planning for taking all Ukraine, and they will go for it if the country lost western support. It is a racial cleansing operation. It is very much related to the fact Kiev is the historical craddle of russian culture.
In the best case you can get a couple of years before a new attack.
3) It is a mess. And it will be worse if Russia controls the territory. Russia is using the famine as a weapon, and surely will use it again, and again.
Sadly markets won't change anything. Ukraine is one of the few bread basket of the world.
There is also the US, Argentina, and other few countries. -As a side note i wish my country, Argentina, was better prepare to help on this crisis, but the goverment is quite more than stupid.
To me is ugly now or uglier later.
And the worst part is that this is not the first time Russia killed millons of people with a famine. It did that before in Ukraine. It is easy to understand why they want to be free.
Yes, I'm close to Russia as well and I think Russia is an awful neighbor that anyone with any common sense would want to distance themselves from. And when they try, Russia gives them the same treatment as Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968, or Ukraine 2014-now. It was a huge mistake to ever believe that Russia changed, I guess Yeltsin had us hopeful and then Putin pretended to continue Yeltsin-era foreign policy while secretly planning this nonsense.
On point 2) again: Russia has no softliners but some of the hardliners are more hard and some are more like people that you could actually work with. Peskov may be someone who one could work with, Patrushev and Lavrov probably not. Or that is my impression, maybe I am falling for a good cop-bad cop routine.
Also, another option for peace is to use some territory concessions to pay off Russia in the short term and include Ukraine in NATO afterwards, so that Russia cannot just come back and kill them off in 2-3 years or so. The EU is already beginning the process of admitting Ukraine as a member and the EU contains a defense clause which could lead to many NATO members defending them. Furthermore the UK has indicated that after the war it wants to formally ally with Ukraine to help defend from more Russian attacks, regardless of the outcome of the current war.
I will add to 3) that another indication that Russia is using famine as a weapon is that they very early started stealing Ukrainian grain and sending it to allies such as Syria and Armenia. But it's extremely worrying and Russia appears to hold all the cards on this front and all that western countries can do is hope and blame Russia for any problems. It's not clear that it would be uglier later because we could probably have some time to prepare before the next Russian famine.
Good luck Argentina! I am not sure when harvests happen over there, but I'm guessing it's not in July/August because of the southern hemisphere. Harvests next January maybe? Surely production must increase because of the elevated prices, farmers should think about the money that can be made. Hopefully government understands to suspend export taxes this year!
Great comments guys. I think the bit about territorial concessions PLUS admitting Ukraine into NATO is maybe the best possible outcome here. My problem is not that I disagree that Putin is a madman or that Russia needs to be stopped. It's that I don't see this happening in a way that avoids WW3 or nuclear warfare at this point.
I mean, sure, if we wanted to utterly defeat Putin we could. We would need to commit actual NATO forces and planes and ships and what would that lead to? There are no good outcomes here.
A very cogent argument except for a couple of points.
Erik presumes to sacrifice Ukrainian land to alleviate African hunger.
First world arrogance.
We could do much to alleviate that world hunger by not converting our foodstocks into ethanol (talk about immorality!).
Putin took parts of Georgia, easten Ukraine, and the Crimea (as well as subjugated Chechnya).
Erik assumes that if we reward Putin for his 5th aggression, this time will be different. That does smack of Munich.
The Ukrainians may be (probably are) unrealistic about their war aims, but they are adults. Their choice, their consequences. (WSJ poll suggests that more than 80% of Ukrainians want to keep fighting.)
Yes, we are spending a fortune to support the Ukraine, but we are weakening Russia. (Being snide, but perhaps we could ask the Taliban to transfer some of our $80B in weapons to the Ukraine - puts our Ukrainian support in perspective.)
I understand Erik's points, but I remain unconvinced.
I feel like your Taliban comment serves as a perfect counter to the rest of your comment saving me the need to respond! Haha
But no, it is not the Ukraine's choice entirely unless they would like to stop receiving money and guns from the US and support from Europe. Once we got involved this became our business, too. And sure there are other ways to help Africa but they are all slow. They were all options prior to this and clearly we do not have the global political will to enact these measures and certainly not in time.
Other commenters made much more thorough points, but my gut reaction was a bit different.
So if Mexico should decide to take back Texas, to which they have an arguable claim, we should just negotiate to take a piece of our own country back?
Since WWII the world has, for the most part, had an order to it . It's by no means perfect, but it was a dam sight better than having periodic world wars every few decades.
Now some pathological narcissist unilaterally decides he wants to revive the 'glory' days of a bread-less toilet paper-less Soviet Union, and we should negotiate with him?
That doesn't even account for the atrocities he's committing. Rapes. Murders. Killing children and families.
When the bully beats weaker kids in the play ground should we negotiate with him to only beat 2 and leave the rest alone?
No. You don't negotiate with monsters.
This mad man and all future mad men like him must be told no. No more. In no uncertain certain terms. Countries don't just invade other countries or unilaterally redraw borders on a whim.
Or millions more will die in future world wars.
And now we even have the nuclear capability to end the world as we know it.
Hunger and climate change won't matter if we've destroyed the world.
If Mexico decided to take back Texas we would fight them and beat them back because Texas is OUR territory. Ukraine is NOT our territory. It's not even in the same hemisphere.
I agree that Putin has committed horrible crimes, but if we want to treat Putin like we did the Nazis and Hitler then we need to commit our military to the cause. Will the US and Europe do that? Will we send our boys and men to fight and die in order to overthrow Putin's regime? If not, then what? We just give Ukraine enough money to keep fighting until how many Ukrainians are dead? We're cheering for the little guy to keep fighting the bully but we're not taking any of the hits ourselves. That rubs me very wrong.
No. Some points.
1. The problem with Russia is not a territorial dispute. It is the ambition of a madman dreaming with an imperial Russia. If you check Russia media and even Putin, they don't think Ukrania has a right to exists. They think it is an invention that has to be assimilated. There is no hypothesis of resolution there.
2. Let's add to this a simple fact. We know it will not work. We know because it happened in 2014. Russia took Crimea, then didn't stop and instigated separatists movements in east Ukrania. Did Russia stop? No. I don't have any faith in something that is actually already failing,
3. Is it the time to negotiate peace with nazism? Ethnic Cleansing, killing of civilians, rape, kidnapping of children, a facist regime. Cheks out.
4. But Ukrania will loose... It was gonna loose in 2 days, then in a month, then in 2 months. Fact is Russia controll less territory than in march.
I have seen some ex commanders talking about the necessity of negotiations in the media, with fatalistic proyections. That contrast with current armies analysis (UK and US) adress about Russia capabilities.
5. This is the moment. Because Putin launched an invasion thinking he has 2 greatest army in the world. But Russia is sending '50-60 tanks to the war. Logistic has been a mess and there is a lack of good command.
6. Any peace with Russia won't last. This is a simple true. It will only help to facilitate the russian ocupation and preparations for a new future invation. It will bring more pain for Ukraine. It will be better for the rest of us, but not for ukranians.
To me these are the options:
Ukraine is forced to do something doesn't want, ignore the genocides, the destruction and concede more territory. Facism won (lets say it as it is) The rest of the world forget about it for some years. We all take care of our own stuff. And some years later all this repeat, again. As it happened before.
The world take the punch once, and support those who fight against true depicable evil, despite the pain. And maybe, maybe, no guarantees, something change.
If this sound as i am angry, it is true. Not with you. I respect your opinion Eirc, and i think you think it is for the best. But the world cannot let Russia won. Enough is enough, facism can't won. Genocide cannot be rewarded.
I am inclined to agree and find the comment quite moving. But a truly strong counter-argument would touch on Erik's core claims. These are as follows: 1) as the war continues Russia's advantage will probably increase, 2) if Russia starts to lose the hardliners in the Putin regime will start to win arguments and the government will start acting in increasingly crazy ways such as e.g. starting WW3 or using nukes, and 3) without a fast peace (or at least, ceasefire), the world is due for a dangerous famine.
I don't think anyone of us is really an expert on analyzing war, so I'll mostly leave 1) aside. But I think it looks like Russia has fixed the logistical issues they had during the first month of the war, which is worrying. They seem to have the capability to supply the frontlines at least with nightmarish amounts of artillery. The one advantage that Ukraine has is well-motivated soldiers.
For 2), I have no idea whether there are secret negotiations taking place right now but my guess would be no. Russia has deliberately killed so many civilians that I just don't believe there is any faith in a negotiated ceasefire (or peace) with them. In that case war will go on until one side is comprehensively defeated on the battlefield, in which case I would wish for the losing side to be Russia. I think the best way to get Russia to sober up from their war craze is an undeniable defeat (as much as I laugh at the "we only wanted Donbass all along!!!", the Russian public eats the propaganda up). I wish I could justify this with a stronger argument than this, but observe how peaceful Japan and Germany got after losing the last world war. (Germany lost WW1 as well but that defeat could be denied - Hitler's movement started out by blaming the home front for abandoning the war when not a single shot had been fired on German soil.)
As for 3) I have no idea whether Ukrainian grain can be replaced by e.g. Indian grain on the world market. As prices keep going up, the market will respond I suppose... But I have no idea how fast and how many food riots there will be before that. For that matter, even if the war ended right now, perhaps it is already too late to avoid a disaster. This question just stumps me.
First, thanks for the comments adn your time.
It is gonna get worse before getting worse or better. That is for sure.
1) I don't think time favor Russia. The continuing shuffling of generals says a lot about their expectations and the price they are paying for each advance. In a war of atrittion all depends on the support each country has.
I have my hope in the bad shape of the russian army, as long as Ukraine recieve support. For all i have seen, NATO weapons do make a difference.
2) I don't think Russia has softliners. I can understand that people want to be better safe than sorry. All the noise Lavrov, Putin and russian TV make about their nukes is something. But the main goal of all that is to press western public opinion to fear and ask the goverments to stop helping Ukraine. Remember the video of the super wave that would flood the british islands.
1) Yep, they seem to have learned a lot. However, i am not sure to what extent, their current positions are very much based on being close to previous occupied territory and Belarus. Were they to extend in the same way than march, no idea how would they do.
2) In one hand controlling the media Putin can present anything as a victory. As long as Russia doesn't have to pay reparations i would say. But even today they are planning for taking all Ukraine, and they will go for it if the country lost western support. It is a racial cleansing operation. It is very much related to the fact Kiev is the historical craddle of russian culture.
In the best case you can get a couple of years before a new attack.
3) It is a mess. And it will be worse if Russia controls the territory. Russia is using the famine as a weapon, and surely will use it again, and again.
Sadly markets won't change anything. Ukraine is one of the few bread basket of the world.
There is also the US, Argentina, and other few countries. -As a side note i wish my country, Argentina, was better prepare to help on this crisis, but the goverment is quite more than stupid.
To me is ugly now or uglier later.
And the worst part is that this is not the first time Russia killed millons of people with a famine. It did that before in Ukraine. It is easy to understand why they want to be free.
Yes, I'm close to Russia as well and I think Russia is an awful neighbor that anyone with any common sense would want to distance themselves from. And when they try, Russia gives them the same treatment as Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968, or Ukraine 2014-now. It was a huge mistake to ever believe that Russia changed, I guess Yeltsin had us hopeful and then Putin pretended to continue Yeltsin-era foreign policy while secretly planning this nonsense.
On point 2) again: Russia has no softliners but some of the hardliners are more hard and some are more like people that you could actually work with. Peskov may be someone who one could work with, Patrushev and Lavrov probably not. Or that is my impression, maybe I am falling for a good cop-bad cop routine.
Also, another option for peace is to use some territory concessions to pay off Russia in the short term and include Ukraine in NATO afterwards, so that Russia cannot just come back and kill them off in 2-3 years or so. The EU is already beginning the process of admitting Ukraine as a member and the EU contains a defense clause which could lead to many NATO members defending them. Furthermore the UK has indicated that after the war it wants to formally ally with Ukraine to help defend from more Russian attacks, regardless of the outcome of the current war.
I will add to 3) that another indication that Russia is using famine as a weapon is that they very early started stealing Ukrainian grain and sending it to allies such as Syria and Armenia. But it's extremely worrying and Russia appears to hold all the cards on this front and all that western countries can do is hope and blame Russia for any problems. It's not clear that it would be uglier later because we could probably have some time to prepare before the next Russian famine.
Good luck Argentina! I am not sure when harvests happen over there, but I'm guessing it's not in July/August because of the southern hemisphere. Harvests next January maybe? Surely production must increase because of the elevated prices, farmers should think about the money that can be made. Hopefully government understands to suspend export taxes this year!
Great comments guys. I think the bit about territorial concessions PLUS admitting Ukraine into NATO is maybe the best possible outcome here. My problem is not that I disagree that Putin is a madman or that Russia needs to be stopped. It's that I don't see this happening in a way that avoids WW3 or nuclear warfare at this point.
I mean, sure, if we wanted to utterly defeat Putin we could. We would need to commit actual NATO forces and planes and ships and what would that lead to? There are no good outcomes here.
A very cogent argument except for a couple of points.
Erik presumes to sacrifice Ukrainian land to alleviate African hunger.
First world arrogance.
We could do much to alleviate that world hunger by not converting our foodstocks into ethanol (talk about immorality!).
Putin took parts of Georgia, easten Ukraine, and the Crimea (as well as subjugated Chechnya).
Erik assumes that if we reward Putin for his 5th aggression, this time will be different. That does smack of Munich.
The Ukrainians may be (probably are) unrealistic about their war aims, but they are adults. Their choice, their consequences. (WSJ poll suggests that more than 80% of Ukrainians want to keep fighting.)
Yes, we are spending a fortune to support the Ukraine, but we are weakening Russia. (Being snide, but perhaps we could ask the Taliban to transfer some of our $80B in weapons to the Ukraine - puts our Ukrainian support in perspective.)
I understand Erik's points, but I remain unconvinced.
I feel like your Taliban comment serves as a perfect counter to the rest of your comment saving me the need to respond! Haha
But no, it is not the Ukraine's choice entirely unless they would like to stop receiving money and guns from the US and support from Europe. Once we got involved this became our business, too. And sure there are other ways to help Africa but they are all slow. They were all options prior to this and clearly we do not have the global political will to enact these measures and certainly not in time.
Other commenters made much more thorough points, but my gut reaction was a bit different.
So if Mexico should decide to take back Texas, to which they have an arguable claim, we should just negotiate to take a piece of our own country back?
Since WWII the world has, for the most part, had an order to it . It's by no means perfect, but it was a dam sight better than having periodic world wars every few decades.
Now some pathological narcissist unilaterally decides he wants to revive the 'glory' days of a bread-less toilet paper-less Soviet Union, and we should negotiate with him?
That doesn't even account for the atrocities he's committing. Rapes. Murders. Killing children and families.
When the bully beats weaker kids in the play ground should we negotiate with him to only beat 2 and leave the rest alone?
No. You don't negotiate with monsters.
This mad man and all future mad men like him must be told no. No more. In no uncertain certain terms. Countries don't just invade other countries or unilaterally redraw borders on a whim.
Or millions more will die in future world wars.
And now we even have the nuclear capability to end the world as we know it.
Hunger and climate change won't matter if we've destroyed the world.
If Mexico decided to take back Texas we would fight them and beat them back because Texas is OUR territory. Ukraine is NOT our territory. It's not even in the same hemisphere.
I agree that Putin has committed horrible crimes, but if we want to treat Putin like we did the Nazis and Hitler then we need to commit our military to the cause. Will the US and Europe do that? Will we send our boys and men to fight and die in order to overthrow Putin's regime? If not, then what? We just give Ukraine enough money to keep fighting until how many Ukrainians are dead? We're cheering for the little guy to keep fighting the bully but we're not taking any of the hits ourselves. That rubs me very wrong.