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Comment by otherme123 | Hacker News Reader

Maybe Zelenskyy doesn't like thousand of Ukraines dying for some inflated ego, potentially millions. That solution, and specially if acompanied with guarantees of no further agressions if Ukraine doesn't enter NATO or EU, is a win for the country, and a pyrric victory for Putin: his credibility is gone forever, and all he got is a small piece of terrain. Enough to sell internally as a win, but hardly anywhere else.

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> if accompanied with guarantees of no further aggressions

Which Russia cannot provide since they already promised not to invade.

They can agree on a DMZ, like in Korea. Remember that Putin negated the invasion while amasing an army at the border. You can't invade if your troops cannot be piled up near the border.

A DMZ is a good idea, but it doesn't address Russia's demand that no nukes be stationed in Ukraine (or other countries on its border) either.

I'm not sure how much that matters in practice, since nukes can be delivered by submarine or through ICBMs, but regardless, that's what Russia wants and a DMZ won't address that demand.

After how this one went, it seems very unlikely they'd try again unless Ukraine was somehow disarmed first.

(Disarmament was one of the Russian asks during yesterday's negotiations. It was rejected ofc.)

It was "unlikely" when Ukraine had the nukes it handed over. Now nothing is unlikely.

In terms of human lives, it's the right deal. Past that, it's the worst possible scenario: Ukraine's territory is not rightfully and completely restored while Russia's economy is nearly irrecoverable, leading it to become nothing more than a resource vassal state to China.

This war has dire global economic consequences. China's not going to get away unscathed either, as demands for its own goods will decrease as the rest of the world's economies get hit by an enormous increase in energy prices and decreased profits as companies around the world stop doing business with Russia.

The world is connected like never before and there are no unipolar winners or losers any more (if there ever were, considering the squandered individual, society-wide, and world-wide human potential when people die).

At the very least this is likely to lead to a global depression.

That's if we avoid WW3, which would devastate the entire world if it happened.

This could very well lead to the end of the global economy as it exists now, and the formation of a few large, insular economic blocs only doing business amongst themselves.

"if acompanied with guarantees of no further agressions if Ukraine doesn't enter NATO or EU"

Such guarantees are worthless.

It's also clear that the rest of NATO is not willing to directly fight against Russia to save Ukraine, so NATO membership for Ukraine is just as worthless.

I think he won't be able to sell anything for a win because Russia is financially finished. The only way this can play out is by the oligarchs killing Putin, apologizing to the world, replacing the public face of Russia with a new puppet, so they can continue earning. Putin has stopped the machine. That's the only rule in organized crime (and business) that must never be violated. You don't stop the machine. If Putin were a CEO of a legit "Russia Inc" then he is directly responsible for that business collapsing. There is no universe (criminal or legit) in which that scenario goes well for the leader.

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