oh shit i didn’t know that

The war started years ago between Ukraine and the separatists, and they reached a cease-fire, and Ukraine violated that cease-fire which is what promoted Russian intervention.

I don’t have too strong of an opinion about what the ideal outcome looks like. But I believe that possible diplomatic solutions have been ignored or torn up. I believe that the US, because of the military industrial complex, has pressured Ukraine into more aggressive and intransigent approaches, to the detriment of the Ukrainian people. For example, Ukraine has staunchly refused to consider any territorial concessions, including Crimea which they haven’t controlled since before the ceasefire.

Personally, I think the most realistic scenario that minimizes casualties in the short term, as well as having the best chance at peace in the long term, would be if Ukraine cedes the disputed provinces to Russia. But mostly I just don’t want the people of Ukraine and Russia to keep getting fed into this stupid meat grinder just to move a line on a map. Maybe there’s a solution where the provinces remain in Ukraine but are given a special degree of autonomy, and everyone agrees to play nice. Maybe they can agree to a ceasefire while a referendum is held, overseen by some neutral third party. I think we’ve probably passed a point where those two are realistic possibilities, but the point is there should be some willingness to compromise and negotiate. Demanding Russia’s immediate withdrawal from all occupied territories is just not realistic. They’ve been trying to do it their way and all it’s gotten is getting a bunch of people killed and no closer to a solution. Maybe it’s time for somebody to sit down at a table.

I feel bad that nobody is really giving you a straightforward, genuine answer so I’ll try to do that. I’m gonna try to sum up the Hexbear viewpoint, stripped of any irony:

• Russia as a state is a chimera of the worst facets of the USSR and American-style capitalism, it is bad
• Ukraine has very similar issues, I would argue the problematic nationalism is stronger than you put it
• Russia was antagonized by years of violence in the Donbas region and NATO expansion
• The previous point doesn’t negate the fact that Russia has committed the crime of starting a war of aggression
• Western support for Ukraine is not motivated by any noble ideals like ‘defending democracy’, but rather because the conflict harms Russia and provides a meal-ticket program for the military industrial complex
• As with pretty much all wars, the people who will be harmed the most are the working classes of all countries involved. Any serious person who calls themselves a leftist should recognize that the best outcome is whatever benefits those people the most.

As for your question on what the ideal outcome is, I don’t really know what to tell you. I would like to see an agreement reached that minimizes the future risk of conflict, and for said agreement to be reached sooner rather than later. What that agreement entails would definitely need to be worked out through mediated talks. Do I think that is likely? No. What I think is very clear is that as things are the war is probably going to drag on for a very long time, kill a shitload of people, and end in a way that doesn’t restore any stability to the region. The reason people here spend a lot of time shitting on all the people cheerleading the conflict is because they seem oblivious to that reality.

What would the ideal outcome be according to you all? Ukraine should give up all the Russian speaking parts or cede the whole country?

Yes. It would save a ton of lives and damage NATO and the West.

As shit as Ukraine is Russia seems even worse.

NATO and the entire West is way worse.

Not the both-sides. Yes Ukraine should give up all non-Ukrainian parts and be put under an international (sans the west) force dedicated to denazification.

There’s been a few of these threads for the last couple of days. I think the propagandists are working.

The current invasion is the product of the 8-year civil war in Ukraine and Ukraine’s bad faith sabotage of diplomatic efforts at a peaceful resolution to that conflict. OOP calling Ukraine “normally peaceful” is a demonstration of their illiteracy on even the history of where the country was 4 years ago.

Are you saying that when a country is invaded that it should bend over and let it happen because war is bad and resisting means the war continues?

This is a false equivalency pushed by the western media between 1. “bending over and letting it happen” (disgusting comparison to SA) with it being invasion by “muh subhuman asiatic hordes” and 2. “fighting back the untermensch invaders”.

Everybody here advocates for a peaceful resolution to the conflict in which no more innocent lives are lost, with the withdrawal of military forces on both sides, and as another user pointed out below, Russia will ideally take the Donbas/Crimea because otherwise the racial reprisals by Azov and co. against the ethnic majority Russian population would be another humanitarian disaster.

There is a truly peaceful resolution to this conflict, do not take seriously the warmongering fascist propaganda of the West because they want to use this as an excuse to test experimental weaponry against their enemy.

just an FYI the Ukrainian government is attempting ,since the colour revolution, to destroy the usage of minority languages , beginning with Russian, Belarusian, and Yiddish (!!!). Considering the government’s affiliation with reactionary militias, this doesn’t bode well.

Personally I find the common usage of genocide pretty broad, but the specific targeting of an ethnic group in Ukraine means the word genocide fits to describe what the Ukrainian government has been trying to do for the last 7 years before the war properly started.

I don’t want to be mean since you didn’t just call us ruzzian bots and shills. But, to call Ukraine just a “troubled” country and insist that Russia must be worse somehow shows that you do not yet have the necessary understanding of historical backgroundthat led to the war in the first place.

As to what I think the best outcome would be, obviously if all working peoples in Russia and Ukraine who get subjected to these wars joined together in a common class struggle to create a dictatorship of the proletariat that would be great. But left wing parties aren’t doing very well in Eastern Europe unfortunately. So, barring some upsurge in left wing mobilisation, areas that have a majority of ethnic Russians should be given a choice to either join the Russian federation or create an independent state, Ukraine should be barred from joining NATO, and all Azov/right sector militants should be tried for their crimes of 2014.

Tbh I don’t see any of this happening within a peace deal considering the military situation heavily favours Russia over NATO, I think the end result will be determined simply on whether or not the Russian army would like to make Ukraine into a rump state and what message they are wanting to send to Africa, Asia, and south america as we enter a world without total American dominance.

At this point, yeah, they probably should. The counteroffensive is failing.

I won’t pretend to speak for the rest of hexbear, but I don’t see a positive future for Ukraine no matter what happens next. Blame Russia, blame NATO, it doesn’t matter - we are where we are. But realistically, what do you think is going to happen to those Russian-speaking Ukrainians if Ukraine doesn’t cede the Russian-speaking territory?

Yes. Some countries are not worth fighting for. The Nazis in should not have fought against invasion at the end of the war and instead surrendered. Some are. The USSR needed to fight the Nazis because losing means genocide. Ukkkraine doesn’t need to fight Russia because losing means not getting to ethnically cleanse Russian speakers from the donbass.