Hutch wrote:
The Ukraine taking on Russia -even with our help- is not realistic. They cannot win.
Let’s be realistic. The best one can hope for is to stiffen Ukraine’s position and then negotiate.
as one who follows the war on a daily basis, i do not share this assessment. things aren't going ukraine's way,
currently, due to lack of weapons. once that gets sorted out, we'll be back to where the ukrainians are on an approximately even footing. ukraine has attempted three large-scale offensives and the first two were successful (kharkiv and kherson). the third one yielded meager results and then sputtered out. but based on one of three we're saying they can't win?
neither russia's full-on psyops to reduce western interest in the ukraine war, nor the inevitable fatigue with something that has dragged on for over 2 years, changes what is actually possible.
Hutch wrote:
Kissinger called this a few weeks after war broke out.
kissinger called for negotiations that included russians retreating to its pre-invasion lines, and negotiations on crimea that should lead to some sort of "third status", shared authority, international monitors, etc. that's entirely different than the "negotiations" (AKA surrender) being called for by some today, so invoking some geriatric warmonger's past opinion isn't holding much weight here, IMO.
Hutch wrote:
The idea that if Russia gets the eastern part of Ukraine they will then invade the baltics or Poland is just supposition by those that want to argue that either we stand up in the Ukraine or Russia will take over Europe.
actually, it's what the russians are saying themselves (russians aren't very good at not saying the quiet part out loud). to be fair, russia is pulling a russia on this by saying both things to muddy the waters: putin has officially declared "no more invasions" (just like he said "we will not invade ukraine" in early Feb'22), while statements from many other political & military leaders and leaked documents attest to their real desire to seize the baltics and poland. there are long-standing strategic reasons why russia needs to plugs the gaps that are those two regions, i'll spare you here but lemme know if you want links to read more about it.
but what about NATO? russia is bankxing on the fact that article 5 won't be respected/enforced, something that the west has given russia plenty of reason to believe would be true. if trump is re-elected in november, you can be assured that putin will be given the green light.
Hutch wrote:
Ukraine cannot win and ignoring its in Russia’s sphere of influence, its history, the Russian speaking population in Ukraine etc does nobody any favors.
that is the defeatist attitude of someone with the luxury of being on the sidelines. "hey, you're being raped, might as well not fight and limit the damage. if you play your cards right, maybe you can keep your purse. also, please stop screaming, it's hurting my ears".
the reason why there are so many russian-speakers in ukraine is because the ukrainian speakers were deported en masse to siberia under the soviets, and ethnics russians were imported by the millions and given the resources of the deported ukrainians. this was done massively in the east (AKA donbas) due to the industrial and mineral wealth in the area. those areas aren't natively russian - they were systematically stolen. same with crimea, millions of tatars were deported and replaced with russians. their so-called historic claim to those areas are null and void.
to bring it home to you, hutch: it's like saying the
malvinas falklands are populated by english speakers, and the british have been there for a really long time, so argentina really should just stop whining and give up its claim to those meaningless islands. kind of a shitty take, huh?
Hutch wrote:
It’s inevitable
except that it's not.
