I can’t wait for the Winter War-tier copium from liberals that will come after this. “Ukraine won despite losing its territory and having to stay neutral as Russia demanded because Ukraine remains independent and not completely annexed into the new Putino-Tsarist Soviet Union 2.0. Also now everyone knows that the Russian army sux because they took 2 years to win a war against a smaller country (also the US army still rocks in comparison despite spending 10 times longer in Afghanistan and losing)”.
I expect that’s precisely the narrative we’ll get as long as there’s anything left of Ukraine in the end. The secondary narrative is going to be that Ukraine would’ve totally won if not for those darn republicans blocking additional 60b spending.
Ukraine really might have had a much better chance if it could have borrowed an extra $60bn to pay for the same 84 shells, all the stores marked “illegal weapons” ‘left over’ from before the Geneva convention, and the 3 tanks left in the warehouse. Nobody wants to be at war paying pre-war prices. What will the neighbours think? Don’t answer. We already know—it’s highly unfashionable.
Right, like the elephant in the room is that the west lacks industrial capacity to produce weapons and ammunition at the rate they’re consumed. Dumping more money into this doesn’t solve that problem. Also, how is another 60b going to accomplish what hundreds of billions they pumped into Ukraine over the past two years couldn’t accomplish.
“This is a massive win for the Ukrainian spirit, because Putin actually wanted to capture Kiev before he dies of cancer and MS, but didn’t get it. Obviously we we need to record this in the history books as a glorious win for capitalism Ukraine. What is a donbass?”
somehow the russians were able to capture and hold onto a bunch of ukraine using only shovels and refrigerator parts
And to think that Ukraine could have given up Luhansk and Donetsk early on, avoided the destruction and demographic collapse. Now anything of value will be sold off in hopes that some of that money will go towards rebuilding it.
“It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”
― Henry Kissinger
The tragedy is that he lived a comfortable life without ever being prosecuted for his crimes.
Not even given up. The original plan vented was more autonomy, respect russian language and persecute who commited crimes post euromaidan. Crimea status though they won’t get back.
I suspect the ‘peace deal’ will eventually look remarkably like a ‘complete unconditional surrender’…
Tbf I suspect their definition of “neutral” is different from yours or mine. Sweden was “neutral”. Finland was “neutral”. Switzerland, Austria, many of the offshores, I’m sure. What did it mean in practice? Diddly squat.
Considering how the ukrainian regime wiped their ass off with previous deals, I’m not sure Russia is willing to believe in a “neutral ukraine”.
