Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin – the Russian mercenary leader whose plane crashed weeks after he led a mutiny against Moscow’s military leadership – shows what happens when people make deals with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
As Ukraine’s counteroffensive moves into a fourth month, with only modest gains to show so far, Zelensky told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria he rejected suggestions it was time to negotiate peace with the Kremlin.
“When you want to have a compromise or a dialogue with somebody, you cannot do it with a liar,” Volodymyr Zelensky said.
So you think it’s all or nothing for Ukraine?
If someone invades your country and kills your countrymen you don’t negotiate with them. You tell them to get the fuck out or we’ll kill every one of you motherfuckers that decides to continue being on our land. Why? You going to advocate being like Chamberlain? Or Quisling? What do you suggest someone does if their country is invaded?
So we’re fighting to the last Ukrainian then?
They are, mate. You act like the West is standing behind Ukraine threatening to shoot anyone that retreats. We’re sending em guns and money, if they wanted to stop fighting they could make that decision tomorrow.
You haven’t seen the video of the Ukrainian lieutenant throwing a grenade into the trench of the Ukrainian soldiers who disobeyed an order to charge the front. Or the daylight kidnappings of Ukrainian citizens by the recruitment officers.
I sure haven’t
How do you show you’ve never heard of the war of the triple alliance or of Paraguay, without saying war of the triple alliance or Paraguay.
Weirdly specific
Sorry, I was on a long canoe trip without internet access.
It is specific for a reason.
It feels good to say that you will support a country that wishes to fight to its last inhabitants. It sounds good. It sounds macho. Very few people actually think about the actual consequences to a policy like that.
But, we have a real life example, and it is horrible beyond description. Sometimes, if you can make people see the horror and blood of a macho pithy saying, maybe you can get them to see the actual cost of that macho pithy saying.
Sometimes, sadly, giving up is the right thing to do.
I get it, but if you are just trying to make the point that, if a country thinks they’ll eventually lose, it’s better for everyone if they give up quickly … then this historical example doesn’t seem relevant.
Given that Ukraine already gave up quickly once (in Crimea) and that Russia simply waited until it was convenient to invade them again, I’m sure you can understand why Ukrainians think it’s necessary to fight this one out.
Now, the war of the Triple Alliance is often held up as an example of how a minority of belligerents can create massive devastation by continuing a guerilla war after losing the conventional war; if Ukraine seems in danger of losing the conventional war, I’ll admit it’s a relevant parallel, otherwise it isn’t terribly relevant.
Do you think Russia will unconditionally surrender and stop fighting when Ukraine reaches the Russian border?
Do you think Ukraine is going to invade Russia after they push them to the border?
I don’t think Ukraine is about to conquer Russia or capture Moscow, even if they wanted to or if we want them to.
Do you think Russia will unconditionally surrender and stop fighting when Ukraine reaches the Russian border?
I have no idea. Even if they don’t, Ukraine just has to defend their territory, which they have proven more than capable of.
The only one party that can end this conflict is the aggressor.
The only thing they’ve proven is that the West really wanted to get rid of their old weapon stock.
More likely there will simply be no peace and they’ll technically stay at war, with a huge minefield in between the two countries, until one of them runs out of money.
A safety buffer zone of a few kilometers, on the Russian side, past the Ukrainian country, sounds reasonable. Depending on how far they still keep shooting.
You don’t negotiate with terrorists.
The UK negotiated with the IRA.
The US negotiated with the Japanese.
The allies negotiated with the Nazis.
I’m pretty sure the negotiations consisted on total surrender and heavy controls of power in the three cases, which Zelenskyy agrees on. Just giving more territories to Russia is not what they want. That would only mean a new offensive in a few years.
In other words, even Zelensky knows there’ll have to be negotiations somewhere down the line.
It’s just a question of when and under which circumstances.
It’s in Ukraine and Europe’s interests, that these negotiations occur when Russia has been pushed back to the border. Otherwise they’ll have been rewarded for their military adventurism.
And obviously Russia can’t be trusted, so the moment a cease fire is signed, it’s imperative that Ukraine gets defacto NATO membership (or something approaching it) and is armed to the teeth.
They had been open to negotiations in the past, and surely are open now, but the first step is for Russia to get the fuck off Ukraine and stop the aggression. It’s not a negotiation of your have a knife to your neck.
You know both these groups surrendered unconditionally, right?
Yes. The terms were harsh, but ultimately both parties agreed to them. A negotiated settlement.
Note also how the reality is slightly more nuanced. For example, Hirohito remained in power and all members of the Imperial House were spared criminal prosecution. That was an unfortunate but necessary compromise. If the world was fair, they’d have hanged them all, just like much of the Nazi establishment.
This also why at one point Japanese officials, basing themselves on the Potsdam Declaration, argued to MacArthur that Japan’s surrender had in fact been contractual and conditional. Obviously he told them to go fuck themselves, and because the country was by now occupied, there wasn’t exactly much they could do about it.
It’s unfortunate, but this is almost certainly what will happen with Russia. A ceasefire will be agreed under conditions both parties accept. The better Ukraine does, the worse the conditions will be that Russia is forced to accept. With a bit of luck, the conditions will be so bad that Putin falls out of a window and is replaced with someone slightly more sane.
Once the ink is dry, the west will hopefully arm Ukraine to the gills, perhaps institute a no fly zone, give them NATO membership or something approaching it, etc. etc.
But before that happens there will still need to agree to a ceasefire, hence all wars end with a negotiated settlement, unless you engage in genocide.
I’m fine with the Japanese solution, which Russian cities should we delete?
The German solution seems awfully similar.
I hope the ghosts of hundreds of thousands of murdered Japanese civilians haunt you for the rest of your life. thank fuck even the post-1945 US government isn’t as bloodthirsty for war crimes as you are
They didn’t surrender, they wouldn’t surrender, the alternative of murdering them slowly by starvation wasn’t magically better.
Sometimes you just have to explain how hopeless things are.
what if we had records of contemporary US top military leaders saying the exact opposite, would you stop cheerleading for mass slaughter then?
because, in an amazing coincidence…
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-08-05/hiroshima-anniversary-japan-atomic-bombs
You’re really ignorant and it’s sad to think people like you still exist.
I really don’t like how often I see people ok with the idea of nuclear war. I like Fallout as much as the next person but I don’t think it’s an accurate representation of nuclear apocalypse.
I’m fine with winning the lottery. That isn’t likely either.
Ukraine doesn’t have nukes, so the Japanese solution is off the table.
Ukraine isn’t about to conquer Moscow, so the German solution isn’t feasible either.
North Korea has nukes, you’re honestly telling me ukraine, the ones who figured it out in the soviet union, can’t figure it out too?
Ukraine is the smart remnant of the soviet union, Russia needs to surrender out of sheer terror.
No, but the US does. I, for one, as an SSBN sailor, am ready and willing to set condition 1SQ for Strategic nuclear launch at any time. Slava Ukraini, HOOYAH AMERICA. Kill the Bear!
That worked out really well lol
Either you give them land from which they can prepare their next attack or you show them that they’re unable to take and hold land. So yeah. Pretty much.
Literally yes. If they capitulate it’s only a matter of time before Putin tries again, either by fomenting a revolution and installing another pro-Russia dictator, or restarting the war. This is a fight for the very survival of Ukraine.
Survival of human beings 👎
Survival of the nation 👍
Putin is trying to kill both. Those human beings deserve to live and they deserve a country too – the country they are dying to defend.
I think them conscripts would rather do something other dying for their country. I know I would.
Have you ever read Catch-22? Yossarian likes to go on about how everybody is trying to kill him. If you’re a Ukrainian soldier it’s not just Putin who’s out to kill you. It’s your own government too, and apparently the average western lib on this very internet forum.
If you believe this why are you not advocating for the Russian conscripts who are forced to fight a madman’s war of aggression and territorial expansion? Like sympathizing for the Ukrainian troops forced to fight is fine but I think you fail to realize the alternative for them is to die at the hands of the Russian military.
Only one side here is engaged in a purely optional war of territorial expansion. And it isn’t “the west” or Ukraine.
Oh I do consider the Russian soldiers victims that should be helped to escape their situation.
No need to figure out how or why this war broke out, Putin is simply mad. It follows from that also that you can’t reason with the guy. Do you think this is a children’s cartoon?
You gotta explain this. Last time I checked, the civilians casualties in this war weren’t that high, and civilians can and do usually stay clear of the front lines. They might even leave the country if the men were allowed to. So if they weren’t soldiers, they almost certainly wouldn’t die at the hands of the Russian military.
The war broke out because Putin covets Ukraine and always has. He is a kleptocrat and dictator with no interest in his own people’s happiness or their rights; he seeks personal enrichment and power and that is his goal here as well. I think “madman” is a perfectly acceptable way to describe him, and we haven’t even begun to discuss his army’s conduct in the war.
Russia is targeting Ukrainian civilians specifically. It is even targeting children.
Given this, why do you believe if the Ukrainians lay down their arms Russia wouldn’t continue doing exactly what it has been doing — trying to kill their civilian population and deport their children?
There’s absolutely no evidence Russia would let anyone leave and quite a lot of evidence they would continue committing war crimes against them.
Edit: and this article literally just got published today: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/10/world/europe/russian-ukraine-torture.html
Always has? They didn’t start talking about annexation till well into the invasion. In the Minsk agreement he wanted the Donbas to remain part of Ukraine, didn’t even recognize the DPR/LPR right until the start of the invasion. Maybe, just maybe, they actually feel threatened by NATO encirclement, like they’ve been saying since basically forever, and which even prominent US politicians and foreign policy experts have been warning about. But I guess you prefer pseudo-psychological explanations to realpolitik ones. Fuck reality we got vibes!
Why would they? “His army’s conduct” is about par for the course. You should read about how much civilian targets the US hit during the Iraq invasion. Of course the civilians will be a lot safer once the fighting stops. The goal of this invasion is not to kill as many civilians as possible, that would look way different. The Nazis had extermination squads trailing the front just committing one huge massacre after another. They had death camps. This is not what’s going on in Ukraine. Fighting age civilian men get imprisoned and “filtrated”, but are usually released after a while and then allowed to get Russian passports. “Harmless” old people and women and so on aren’t even filtrated. Ukrainian children are returned to their parents if/when they show up. This isn’t some extermination campaign.
Ukrainians would disagree; they’re the ones to want to fight and if their government tried to give up, they’d throw them out and find someone willing to keep going
If they all want to fight so bad, why are the men not allowed to leave the country? Why has Zelensky recently announced a crackdown on draft dodging? Why are there so many videos of men getting dragged kicking and screaming into vans by military
recruiterskidnappers?Is this a serious question? The existence of exceptions doesn’t negate the trend. The crackdown on draft dodging is part of Zelenskyy’s anti corruption measures to bring Ukraine in line with EU and NATO standards. Do you think about your questions at all before asking them?
Why is Putin waging a war of territorial ambition and spending innocent Russian blood to do it?
Your perspective here is backwards. One side could end this war immediately by calling back their armies and forfeiting their territorial ambitions. And it is not Ukraine.
I mean at the current pace it’s just all or all, nothing doesn’t seem possible anymore unless something big happens.