A Peace Settlement to the Ukraine War

[Josh]

Ukraine would have to want peace for any of that to matter, and I think even if the current offensive makes zero additional gains they are no where close to giving up. I don’t know what is driving the news cycle with regard to a negotiation (I’ve only seen a story or two myself so it hardly seems like a groundswell) but it has no bearing on reality.

[Strannik]

1 hour ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

@Strannik

Never read.  Which articles in which newspapers?

 

[Strannik]

53 minutes ago, BansheeOne said:

Actually I suspect that all the talk of 

combined with

is aimed at a Russian, not a Western audience, signaling that Russia could get out of this okay if they only got rid of Putin. Though I'd call that a rather hopeful approach.

Aha, in English in western newspaper.  DIdn't realize you are so funny. Or were you serious?

[Mighty_Zuk]

52 minutes ago, mandeb48 said:

because.....?

How many Russians have you met personally and how many of them share that idea?

Because it opened Russia to the rest of the world, physically and culturally and gave it the opportunity to stop being a shithole. Russia eventually passing on that opportunity is equally significant, albeit as a failure. For that to happen again Russia would need a coup.

 

I haven't MET Russians. I AM Russian. So is my family. So are many of the people in my life. I only know of one person who opposes this idea. The rest are very much happy living in a western country.

[Yama]

2 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

To construct this wall, first we have to reach the places where it is to be constructed. 

A "place" cannot be end in itself, it is only a mean: otherwise you will fall into traps of 'manifest destinies' or 'holy lands' which in the end only provide more trouble than they are worth it. If cost of gaining some 'place' is too much for the gain, then it should be abandoned.

International community - or Ukraine - will never accept any kind of settlement which would recognize permanent annexation of currently de jure Ukrainian territories. No matter what sort of military victory Russia could gain (and at the moment, doesn't look like it is going to be very overwhelming), such peace treaty where aggression is rewarded by territorial gains, cannot be accepted, as that would open up whole new can of worms all around. So even in 'victory', Russia could only ever gain similar recognition of de facto rule as is/was case in Taiwan, Middle East, Kosovo, Cyprus, Transnitria and so on. 

 

2 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

By the way there is a school of thought in Russia that believe that many flaws of Russian development since XVIII century are results of Peter the Great-era decisions, as he have ruined some of centuries-old traditional institutions.

Reform was inevitable, and Peter was not the first to go down that path - Sofia actually had already began some similar policies. Without reforms, Russia would have shared the fate of Ottoman Empire and Persia, slow decline and crumbling of empire when more advanced European countries gradually gain upper hand.

 

[Stefan Kotsch]

@Strannik

You wrote earlier:

'Also multiple articles in western press all of a sudden entertaining the negotiated settlement soonish.'

Sudden?? But your answer refers to old stuff from March.

[Strannik]

1 hour ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

The rest are very much happy living in a western country.

In Israel? The country you have to go outside to marry unless both parties belong to the same faith accepted by religious law.

Western is it? Riiight.

[Strannik]

17 minutes ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

@Strannik

You wrote earlier:

'Also multiple articles in western press all of a sudden entertaining the negotiated settlement soonish.'

Sudden?? But your answer refers to old stuff from March.

I don't think you understood what I wrote.  No matter.

[Stefan Kotsch]

@Strannik That is correct.  Your answer was not related to my question

 

[DB]

Reminds me of the Chewbacca defence - irrelevancy designed to deflect a discussion away from a patently losing position.

Alternatively, "Look, squirrels!"

[seahawk]

7 hours ago, Yama said:

A "place" cannot be end in itself, it is only a mean: otherwise you will fall into traps of 'manifest destinies' or 'holy lands' which in the end only provide more trouble than they are worth it. If cost of gaining some 'place' is too much for the gain, then it should be abandoned.

International community - or Ukraine - will never accept any kind of settlement which would recognize permanent annexation of currently de jure Ukrainian territories. No matter what sort of military victory Russia could gain (and at the moment, doesn't look like it is going to be very overwhelming), such peace treaty where aggression is rewarded by territorial gains, cannot be accepted, as that would open up whole new can of worms all around. So even in 'victory', Russia could only ever gain similar recognition of de facto rule as is/was case in Taiwan, Middle East, Kosovo, Cyprus, Transnitria and so on. 

 

Reform was inevitable, and Peter was not the first to go down that path - Sofia actually had already began some similar policies. Without reforms, Russia would have shared the fate of Ottoman Empire and Persia, slow decline and crumbling of empire when more advanced European countries gradually gain upper hand.

 

By international community you mean the West right? The West will never accept a powerful Russia anyway.

 

[Roman Alymov]

8 hours ago, Yama said:

International community - or Ukraine - will never accept any kind of settlement which would recognize permanent annexation of currently de jure Ukrainian territories.

It is not up to international community to recognize lands my family came from are part of Russia. By the way places i was born were once controlled by Turkey  (Ottoman Empire) - who cares....

8 hours ago, Yama said:

Reform was inevitable, and Peter was not the first to go down that path - Sofia actually had already began some similar policies. Without reforms, Russia would have shared the fate of Ottoman Empire and Persia, slow decline and crumbling of empire when more advanced European countries gradually gain upper hand.

Reforms were needed, but decisions like converting Church into more or less part of bureoucratic state apparatus, or granting nobiles excessive freedoms* while de-facto converting peasants on their lands into slaves were hardly good and resulted finally in Revolution and Civil War. Note i am not blaming Tsdar (and first Emperor) for that -he was practical man of his century, not political scientist.

*Yes it was done later, but was results of Peter the Great actions.

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

1 hour ago, seahawk said:

By international community you mean the West right? The West will never accept a powerful Russia anyway.

 

Josh is quite right, we dont really care about Russia in any way. it can be as powerful as it likes, what we wont tolerate is their trying to use that power to move their borders 1938 style. We learned where that leads, and we wont tolerate it, or accept it.

 

[seahawk]

14 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Josh is quite right, we dont really care about Russia in any way. it can be as powerful as it likes, what we wont tolerate is their trying to use that power to move their borders 1938 style. We learned where that leads, and we wont tolerate it, or accept it.

 

So the West wants to dictate what is a part of Russia and what is not?

[Stuart Galbraith]

Its rather the other way around, Russia wants to dictate what part of the West is Russia.

[Roman Alymov]

8 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Its rather the other way around, Russia wants to dictate what part of the West is Russia.

Actually, taking into consideration idea of "Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok" cheered by both Western politicians and comprador elites of late USSR/Russia, "West" ends somewhere on China border....

The End of “Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok” (besacenter.org)

[Mighty_Zuk]

8 hours ago, Strannik said:

In Israel? The country you have to go outside to marry unless both parties belong to the same faith accepted by religious law.

Western is it? Riiight.

Israel is a western country. But it is having problems right now. We're still trying to figure out how we're going to kill the members of coalition and the religious nuts when we don't even have access to firearms. Those same people, including myself, we're all fighting against the government. 

[Yama]

1 hour ago, Roman Alymov said:

It is not up to international community to recognize lands my family came from are part of Russia. By the way places i was born were once controlled by Turkey  (Ottoman Empire) - who cares....

Lot of places were sometimes controlled by someone else. It is meaningless and counterproductive to get hung up on every historical tie or connection. Finland was once controlled by Russia, before them it was controlled by Swedes, before them Finns controlled it by themselves, before them it was land of the Saami...to whom it actually 'belongs' then? And my family's from Karelia, still belonging to Russia. The guy on the left is my great-great-great-grandfather:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Inha_runonlaulajat.jpg

 

1 hour ago, Roman Alymov said:

Reforms were needed, but decisions like converting Church into more or less part of bureoucratic state apparatus, or granting nobiles excessive freedoms* while de-facto converting peasants on their lands into slaves were hardly good and resulted finally in Revolution and Civil War. Note i am not blaming Tsdar (and first Emperor) for that -he was practical man of his century, not political scientist.

*Yes it was done later, but was results of Peter the Great actions.

Peter's big mistake was failure to establish proper, unequivocal successor and rules for succession.

[Stuart Galbraith]

1 hour ago, Roman Alymov said:

Actually, taking into consideration idea of "Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok" cheered by both Western politicians and comprador elites of late USSR/Russia, "West" ends somewhere on China border....

The End of “Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok” (besacenter.org)

Yet we arent the ones sending tanks into your country, arbitrarily declaring the line has moved. Ive read the editorial Putin sent to your newspapers, that was precisely the Russian concept of operations in Ukraine. 'Ukraine is Russia now, deal with it'.

6 minutes ago, Yama said:

Lot of places were sometimes controlled by someone else. It is meaningless and counterproductive to get hung up on every historical tie or connection. Finland was once controlled by Russia, before them it was controlled by Swedes, before them Finns controlled it by themselves, before them it was land of the Saami...to whom it actually 'belongs' then? And my family's from Karelia, still belonging to Russia. The guy on the left is my great-great-great-grandfather:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Inha_runonlaulajat.jpg

 

Peter's big mistake was failure to establish proper, unequivocal successor and rules for succession.

We have been over this endless times. If the world accepted the rules Russia is attempting to change, there could be no presumed problem with Germany retaking East Prussia, or the Japanese taking back the Kuriles. China will be delighted with the excuse to take back its former territories in Russia.

He wont have it, its useless to point this out, dozens of times. Whats Russia is always acrosanct, and everyone must make way for their justified demands, or so the narrative goes.

 

[Roman Alymov]

2 minutes ago, Yama said:

Lot of places were sometimes controlled by someone else.

There is a massive difference between "sometimes" and living memory - as some of  Communist Party officials who have separated USSR/Russia into personal feuds are still alive and more or less well.

4 minutes ago, Yama said:

Peter's big mistake was failure to establish proper, unequivocal successor and rules for succession.

There was hardly any way to establish "proper, unequivocal successor and rules for succession" in situation when country's top elite was de-facto replaced by people who, while in some cases having outstanding personal tellent (but not always) were mostly ethnically and culturally complitely alien to wast majority of bot peasant mass and low level nobles. De-facto for two centuries Russia was rulled by ethnic Germans.

[Roman Alymov]

3 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

no presumed problem with Germany retaking East Prussia, or the Japanese taking back the Kuriles. China will be delighted with the excuse to take back its former territories in Russia.

Μολὼν λαβέ.

[seahawk]

19 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Yet we arent the ones sending tanks into your country, arbitrarily declaring the line has moved. Ive read the editorial Putin sent to your newspapers, that was precisely the Russian concept of operations in Ukraine. 'Ukraine is Russia now, deal with it'.

 

Please explain how Leopards and Bradley ended up in the Ukraine then.

[BansheeOne]

17 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

Μολὼν λαβέ.

Spoken like a true Ukrainian. 😋👍

[Stuart Galbraith]

6 minutes ago, seahawk said:

Please explain how Leopards and Bradley ended up in the Ukraine then.

Please show me how many there were there before Russia invaded. All that Ukraine had of the West prior to 2022 were purely defensive weapons, thank God they did.

4 minutes ago, BansheeOne said:

Spoken like a true Ukrainian. 😋👍

Well exactly.

Besides,If Ukraine is Russia, then why didnt Russian employ the deductive reasoning, as Roman has seemingly done, to figure out what it was like to take land off a Russian?

But then I guess thats where the 'Little' Russian diminuative came in, much as we used to mock the Irish for being lesser than Englishmen.

[Yama]

27 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

There is a massive difference between "sometimes" and living memory - as some of  Communist Party officials who have separated USSR/Russia into personal feuds are still alive and more or less well.

What 'living memory'? USSR was not Russia, it was commonwealth of nations, whom could leave if they desired, and in the end, they did.

 

27 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

There was hardly any way to establish "proper, unequivocal successor and rules for succession" in situation when country's top elite was de-facto replaced by people who, while in some cases having outstanding personal tellent (but not always) were mostly ethnically and culturally complitely alien to wast majority of bot peasant mass and low level nobles. De-facto for two centuries Russia was rulled by ethnic Germans.

A massive simplification. Well educated people tended to do well and gain power, and educated people were more common in Western parts of Russia, than central, much less East or South. As for the Imperial family, by 19th century nearly all European dynasties were ethnically 100% German, so Russia was hardly unique.