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Comment by nradov | Hacker News Reader

That's such a naive comment. Any negotiated "settlement" that Russia would accept would leave Ukraine effectively defenseless and no longer a sovereign state. It would be only a temporary truce, which Russia would use to rebuild their military and then renew the invasion in a few years on some other artificial pretext.

The only possible way to bring the conflict to a lasting peace is to kill enough Russians (including civilians) that they simply no longer have the capability to conduct war. That is the reality.

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You base this assessment on what evidence?

If Russia truly wanted to conquer all of Ukraine, they would have made their move in 2014, when the Ukrainian army was far weaker and the front far less fortified. Instead, they stopped at Crimea, and provided only limited support to the breakaway provinces in the Donbas. (To this day, many hardline Russian nationalists resent Putin for this! They think he was "too soft")

Putin invaded in 2022 because he believed his hand had been forced. It wasn't, he was (and is) delusional and wrong, but there is every reason to think that he really believed it.

You really should read Putin's 2021 essay on why Ukraine should be Russian

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_Historical_Unity_of_Ru...

I have read that essay. It does not contradict anything I wrote above

You claimed that Russia invaded because its leader felt his hand was forced. You have offered no explanation of how it was "forced" to invade a sovereign neighbor.

I contend that it chose to invade because its leader wants to integrate Ukraine into the Russian Federation, and offered this as evidence of that desire. I think that contradicts your statement as to the true rationale for the invasion.

That essay demonstrates that Putin believes that Ukraine is closely linked to Russian civilization. That doesn't mean he believes Ukraine should be part of the Russian Federation, just that it should have close ties to it. The essay very explicitly advocates for the latter, and blames the West/NATO/"Nazis" for driving a wedge between the two countries.

(Of course, Putin's invasion has driven that wedge much further, and destroyed the relationship much more thoroughly, than the "Nazis" ever could. That's why I called him delusional)

There is also every reason to believe Putin is doing this to restore Russia to former size, influence and glory.

> Putin invaded in 2022 because he believed his hand had been forced. It wasn't, he was (and is) delusional and wrong, but there is every reason to think that he really believed it.

Then please name those reasons. As for the "negotiated settlement" you've brought forward - one could be forgiven to think that such a settlement would not be worth the paper it is written on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum .

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