If Russia stopped its "special military operation", then its oil refineries would still be intact.
Why would they?
Russia literally invades Ukraine so any territorial concession is just giving up your position for nothing. They will just continue from their new position.
This is their house and they are attacked by robbers. Luckily they are armed.
The UK famously has the sea, which has helped it for a thousand years. Its no conincidence that the boundary of Spain and France are the Pyrenees or France and Italy are the Alps or China and India have the Himalayas.
Powerful countries like natural boundaries like this because they are always worried about the other side. Russia for all its size has mountains or water stopping others. Putin wants Ukraine because he wants to push RUssia back to the USSR boundaries which were mountains in Europe. WHen Russia controlled and had roops in East Germany the open plains were narrow, today they are thousands of kms. Yes Im not defending Putin his violence and aggression and changes to Finland are all his fault, but thats not whwat im discussing.
He wants the boundary to the sea and mountains. Unfortunately he doesnt care how many millions die, all he cares about is his imperial amb itions.
And Moscow being threathened or conquered by Swedes, Napoleon and Hitler
But since when did Ukraine, Poland, Finland get to choose their neighbors? I am sure they would also love to pick and choose.
Is the world going to just give up and lie down because Dictator is paranoid? I know who's got to go.
PS (is Serbia)
So, so wrong. Putin himself made it clear it's about territories. His admiration of imperial Russia isn't a secret. He wants more territories. It's not that deep.
There have been many examples of their delivery vehicles blowing up most of the time in recent tests as confirmed by satellite photos.
No one wants a war with Russia, even now. The whole "the West will invade" trope is just a way to keep Russians from focusing on their own situation. If the populace paid even knew a little of what Western media said about a potential conflict between the West and Russia, they'd realize this... "The Day After", etc.
Year after year the west issue attacked. How many times has Russia attacked its neighbours?
Unfortunately this is how dictators think. Nobodies die for their ambitions and tahts what we see.
Putin believes he needs the boundaries to be what Stalin took after WW2 from the old and sick Roosevelt who gave him too much of Eastern Europe.
Im sorry your home country cant be left in peace but those are the facts.
Putin has said the dissolution of the USSR was the greatest political tragedy of the 21C.
Every single Russian citizen is scared of Putin, because they know he owns everything including their lives.
They also know that most of the dead and fighting are not even European white Russian, most of the unfortunates are from the many other cultures and peoples that have been conquered.
Neither side is willing to lose face, there's only three ways out:
1. One side achieves total military victory (unlikely and would drag on for years)
2. A new president takes office on either side and opens a fresh diplomatic path
3. Outside mediators broker a truce
For Ukraine, losing means the end of their existence as an independent state, so they truly have no choice but to fight. For Russia, losing means one dude being embarrassed. They can stop whenever they want.
My point is that he has to go, or Zelenskyy, or some external diplomacy that makes everyone look good.
That said, even if replacing Zelenskyy gave Putin a face-saving excuse to negotiate, Russian ultra-nationalist pressure means Putin still won't settle without keeping the occupied regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson.
With Zelenskyy refusing any land concessions, peace is virtually impossible while both remain in power.
We’re all sympathetic to the Ukrainian cause, but they won’t win this war.
It’s easy to say you don’t want to make any concessions when you’re not the one actually sent to the front by force (conscription).
Essentially the elites are arguing, people from abroad are watching (sometimes amused by it), and citizens who are not sent to the war on both sides say they don’t want to concede.
Sure, everybody could sit down and agree to stop, but both sides have already many times vehemently denied any possibility of a compromise on their core issues, so what do you expect to happen? Both Ukraine and Russia view this war as existential. Both have red lines they refuse to bend on and which they demand the other side to bend to. Where do you see a non-military path to peace?
I don't think what happens to Putin personally matters that much in the grand scheme of things. His country was a murderous regime before him, and will remain one once he's gone.
> Where do you see a non-military path to peace?
I never claimed there is one, just that Russia has no say over whether Ukraine stays militarised or not. We should not normalise the demands of mad men as if they are legitimate.
Russia demanding to limit our army size is not assurance Russia demanding us not to join any defensive alliance is not assurance Putin demanding we give up well equipped defensive positions even before any real negotiations start is not assurance either.
There will be no non-military resolution. Either Russia wins by subverting Western governments - which has been a partial success so far, but not the knock-out Putin was expecting - or Russia implodes.
If you look at what Putin actually writes and says there's no comparison at all to anything Lincoln-like.
Dictators have always been paranoid about everyone else, this is why they are always extremely careful about personal protection.
What you dont appreciate is that Russia is a multi tiered society. Im not denying a small number of thousand European Russians have died, but the only cities or peoples that Putin fears are Moscow and St P. So far only a few thousnad have died from there and basically everyone in those cities knows they are effectively spared from being forced into the army.
Most of the dead and fighting are from places you and me have never heard of, that is cities and towns and regions filled with the many other non European peoples that are under Russia. Russia is a land of over a 100 peoples, there are dozens if not more different cultures and languages. Those are the people being killed.
The European type Russians in Moscow and St P know this, and they wont dare protest because they are not the wons dying.