Yeah, that’s fair. What I’m clumsily trying to say is actually optimistic - that if things were going better for Russia, they would be further west and there’d be no talk of peace, even on ludicrous terms.

And in cold calculus knowing full well it prolongs the suffering of innocents - if this was a board game, the smart thing to do might be to keep fighting and letting Russian hubris bleed itself to death. It kind of makes you think North Vietnam’s strategy against the U.S. is the way to go. Keep bleeding them until they decide it’s no longer militarily possible or politically worthwhile to keep fighting. Anything less than that ensures Russia will try again the first second they’re able.

Totally. Zero chance Ukraine agrees to this. They would be giving up 250k citizens and 7000 sqare miles that has hundreds of billions in resources in them. You want it Russia? Come and take it.

While this is a historic and devastating tragedy for Ukraine, it’s helpful to remember this means Ukraine has already won the war. Russia can never do this type of invasion again, their Soviet stockpile is gone, the war chest is spent, they are a pariah for the next several decades. They are in terminal demographic decline, and they will not be able to re-arm before Putin dies to fight a war of this scale again. It’s all blackmail, corrosive misinformation and political mischief for them past this point. Their primary export market for oil and gas are dead, they have become China’s vassal, and have assembled a crappy coalition of corrupt allies who only run on bribes and are of limited diplomatic use. They lost Syria, they’ve lost Iran’s proxies Hamas and Hezbollah. They’ve lost the Black Sea Fleet. They’ve lost much of their strategic bomber fleet. Once he falls, there will be infighting, as there ALWAYS is when Russian emperors die.

It’s kind of comforting to know Putin will die before he sets foot in Kyiv. In many ways, you can consider this the last war of the 20th century. The great, if not-quite-as-envisioned revenge project of the dead idea of the Soviet Union.

Find it helpful to remember this is all noise-making frmo an increasingly irrelevant US administration. Trump always overplays his hand and imagines he has more leverage than he actually does, because he’s an idiot. But that’s for another post.

Ukraine hasn’t REALLY pushed itself to existential levels yet, haven’t drafted 18-25 year olds, and can probably resist Russia for many more years just on European support, for whom the issue isn’t some petty political jagoff to play for the rubes at home. For Europe - while they havent re-armed as fast as they should have before or after the war, they at least intellectually understand this isn’t a game. Stop Russia now, or they WILL be on your doorstep next. Ukraine may or may not be getting stronger - but Russia certainly isn’t. If they were, they wouldn’t be asking for peace, even on ludicrous terms.

Russia is, through it’s proxies, asking to be given something for a ceasefire. If they could be doing better on the battlefield, they would, full stop. The goal was always complete conquest. That ship has sailed, right to the bottom of the Black Sea, and now they want something in return to pause their indiscriminate butchery. The fact that they are the ones tabling even ludicrous peace narratives is a positive thing to anyone pro-Ukraine. It means Russia knows they can’t win. There will be many sad days up to and after a ceasefire - but while it is a massive tragedy - Ukraine endures, and has survived.

Now watch the tankies’ chest thumping replies.

Barbarian Terrorist Petromafia negotations 101.

Reuters lacks my comic sensibilities

Kind of obvious that this was always The Plan. And they will probably go much further than logic/reality justifies, because there is no going back. This is an all or nothing gamble by the black hearted, petromafia gangster ghouls in charge of Russia. They will never again have the remotest element of surprise that they would actually do this type of naked imperial land grab against sovreign European states.

But - the landscape now is way beyond the likely most pessimistic estimates they had in their 2022 war plans. Primary o&g export markets destroyed. The majority of their soviet military stockpile ineritance destroyed. 1 million+ war casualities that will be a burden on the state going forward in terms of pension, disability, and military usefulness. A stable of third-rate allies of limited diplomatic use who only run on bribes. The implosion of their most pugnacious allies (Wagner, Syria, Iran and it’s proxies Hamas and Hezbollah) who had been most useful in creating mischief among Russia’s western enemies. Terminal demographic decline pushed into hyperdrive by this manically stalemated war. The critical loss of power projection into the Baltic, Black Sea and Mediterranean. The depletion of missile stocks. The implosion of their arms export industry due to the crap perforamnce of their second rate ‘good enough’ weapons systems compared to commercially available drone technologies. Their new vassal status as the junior partner to China, to whom they can refuse no requests for resources on favorable terms going forward. The declining strategic importance & increasingly large extraction costs of their only real exports, oil & gas + minerals, made worse by their willful destruction of their own labour force.

Hell - the very abupt obsolescene of their entire way of war. Their philosophy since the 1950’s was that it didn’t matter that NATO had better gear - their stuff was good enough as long as you had enough of it, and that they could push from Poland to Portugal before NATO even started to think about being able to respond, because the Euros are a bunch of feckless pussies who won’t fight…right? Tanks, artillery and crude, inhuman mass have proven to be NOWHERE near as overwhelming as they assumed, even in a flat, relatively poorly equipped country right next door.

It’s maddening that Russia continues to insist it’s winning but - in the big picture…they’re getting absolutely obliterated, at the micro and macro level. It’s not necessary for them to admit it for it to be objectively true. The war ends when Putin dies, full stop. How that happens is the only thing left to ponder.

? nobody mentioned Israel. Well - you did, but not sure why. I take that back - I have an idea why. I’m sure I’m going to regret responding to a 2d old burner account - but, here we are.

Curious whether a spectacular attack against Moscow during this period would be beneficial to Ukraine or not. Ukraine could always have fought a ‘dirtier’ version of this war, like how they blew up Dugin’s daughter early on. They undoubtedly could be doing more terroristic type attacks in Russia, but one of Ukraine’s supporters’ valued concepts is the moral high ground. Since the Dugin bombing, they have only targeted high level military officials and a prominent Z Blogger with assassination attacks here and there.

The irony of the orange Moron withdrawing most support is that he has little remaining leverage to make either side do anything. The Art of the Deal, you see. 4D checkers.

If Ukraine launched a wave attack on Victory Day, is it more likely that would trigger a vicious response, demoralize Russians into believing this war isn’t worthwhile, maybe both? It would definitely trigger a harsh response - but like the Tet offensive…which was a tactical disaster for North Vietnam…it did shock the U.S. so much that the war was seen as unwinnable afterwards. But - that’s not a perfect example, because there is no Walter Kronkite in Russia, and public opinion doesn’t count worth a sack of rotten beets.

Hard to say whether Ukraine should respect it and hope it translates to a ceasefire, or whether to really go for it and show the Russians and their leadership that they not only cannot win this war, but that they cannot protect themselves from embarrassment, and that it’s not going to get better until they get serious about fucking off.

No serious minded person expects Russia to respect any truce anyways, in the short or long term. The only way to ensure long term peace is to destroy Russia’s long term capabilities. Even with European support alone, they can probably continue to bleed out and degrade the Russian war machine for a long time yet. Funny, all Trump’s bullshit bluster about how Ukraine ‘doesn’t have the cards’. They absolutely do. They have a lot more cards to play than Trump does.

This is a great way to call Trump’s bluff and expose his true allegiance. Of course, Trump refuses this out of hand even though it’s completely in-line with his talking points about wanting Europe to buy American arms and invest in their own defense. Yet - it’s a flat no from him. Zelensky could have done this offer behind the scenes, but he does so publicly because he knows what the answer will be, and that it exposes Trump’s true motivations.

This is a basic lying tactic he has used his entire life. Just keep repeating a complete and obvious lie, until people’s brains break it down into “yeah that sounds right, I’ve heard that before”. At that point, it’s as useful as actually being true. He is the richest, most successful, winningest winner that ever won. Everyone except him is wrong, corrupt or a loo-zah. There’s nothing magical about this demented toddler’s mindset.

There’s been traitors for as long as there’s been warfare.

Flapping your arms and gums about WHAT he’s done is less important to think about than WHY has he done this. It’s ridiculous and irrational on it’s face.

But - it makes perfect sense if you start from a place that this is a colossal distraction. But why? Well - ultimately, if you accept that Trump works for Putin, then consider that the Russians are unable to defeat Ukraine right now on the battlefield, given the support that they continue to get from Europe. Putin and Trump have collaborated to remove US support - mission accomplished. But - they don’t have direct leverage over Europe to try and erode European support for ukraine as well. So - if you’re starting from a place that you wanted Russia to win and that’s the ONLY thing you care about…what would you do? How can you erode Europe’s ability to support Ukraine?

Initiate a devastating global recession to destroy governments’ ability to focus on supporting Ukraine, and hope that they crawl back to supporting their own economies.

That’s the answer. This is ALL happening

a) because Russia is starting to lose, and will lose very bigly and very quickly…soon b) Trump is 80 years old, and his window of being able to help Putin is closing with every Big Mac and Diet Coke he eats c) Putin himself is in advanced age and probably declining health d) Russia’s equipment reserves are passing replacement rate levels, which leads to a MAJOR degradation in their offensive potential. Things don’t get a little worse - they’re getting EXPONENTIALLY worse e) Since they can’t directly stop European aid, they are trying to do it indirectly by initiating a global recession and trade war.

Just opinions, you’re under no obligation to agree. But - what else makes sense? The only other thing I could reasonably accept if it wasn’t 100% that Trump works for Russia, is that somehow along the tarriffs chain, that he is skimming a percentage, like a classic Mafia casino scam. He may well be doing that as well as aiding Russia. But he’s certainly not doing all of this - and excluding Russia, Belarus and Hungary from tarriffs - for no particular reason at all. The reasons are fairly damn obvious.

This story comes out every year, when russia announces their normal conscription process. These enlistees a) go to basic training - which for Russians is totally insufficient to make a difference on the ukrainian battlefield, b) can’t and haven’t been used for offensive operations, c) Mostly cycle back to civilian life when they’re done. This isn’t special, it isn’t news, and if he were stupid enough to rush these guys from their jobs as delivery drivers, baristas, IT support and tire shop technicians into the battlefields, the entirety of them would be chewed up in about 3 months. This isn’t a story. This is their normal conscription process.

As is usually the case, Trump has badly overplayed his hand without actually having even a fraction of the leverage he assumes he does. The US is rapidly making themselves utterly irrelevant to the process. Ukraine seems to clearly understand that the only way for a lasting peace is to erode Russia’s warmaking capability permanently. They can continue to fight at this intensity with drones and small territorial exchanges for a long, long time yet, even if the US fully withdraws all support.

Trump going further and actively aiding Russia is a) insane b) not implausible and c) would result in American deaths that he would then have to explain a justification for, in a war that is allegedly none of america’s business anyways. No serious minded person expects Russia to abide by ANY peace deal in the long term, so from Ukraine’s perspective, it makes much more sense to keep fighting. It’s fight for your lasting freedom, or wait for another round of attempted enslavement.

The frantic speed run to try and strong arm Ukraine into an unjust peace is failing. It’s very telling that they’re turning the crazy up to 11, because he is nearly 80 years old, morbidly obese, lives on KFC and insane hatred. And if Russia could do any more than they currently are, they would have already done it. It’s a ridiculous bluff, Ukraine and their European backers have called it. For Europe, the degree of danger is not abstract or a partisan issue to score cheap political points off of. They’re going to give Ukraine what it needs to continue bleeding out Russia, at least long enough for Putin, Trump or both to die off.