Russian President Vladimir Putin may be open to a cease-fire in his war with Ukraine, so long as the country could still declare victory, a new report by the New York Times found.
Putin, still confident in his forces, said that Russia’s goals have not changed. In his annual year-end press conference last week, Putin warned that there would be no peace solution in Ukraine until Russia achieves its overarching goals, the “denazification” and demilitarization of Ukraine.
Putin’s message might be different now, as he has reportedly signaled he is ready to make a deal. Since September, Putin has signaled that he is open to a pause in fighting along the current lines, which is much shorter than his intention to dominate Ukraine, according to the Times who cited two former senior Russian officials.
According to the United Nations, more than 10,000 civilians have been killed and 18,500 have been injured since the start of the war nearly two years ago.
“When it first started” is such a weird passive way to say “when Russia invaded Ukraine” that I can’t trust anything else you say is without an agenda. But whatever, I’ll bite:
If people break down your door and murder, kidnap, rape, and torture members of your family and then start living in some of the rooms of your house, you don’t reset boundaries to where they are now! I can demand you “negotiate” with the people that did these crimes, but the negotiations start with them getting completely the fuck out, being punished for everything they did, and you being compensated for all of their crimes. No sane person would say, “well, just let them keep one room as part of a truce.”
Countries cannot profit off of illegally invading other ones. It literally incentivizes more war if they can just keep part of what they invaded, especially when done by countries with large militaries.
Not to mention, Putin had every chance to have a stalemate dozens of times. When he invaded Crimea. When he sent mercenaries into the Donbas. When he shelled the Donbas. When he shot down MH17. Putin had dozens of opportunies to walk away from the war and get away with annexing huge regions of Europe.
He chose murder, rape, torture, war, and there needs to be consequences for the Russian state.
“The negotiations start with them getting out”
Ideally yes… pragmatically no. Ukraine lost how many troops in the 2023 counteroffensive and got essentially nowhere? If Ukraine’s goal is to reclaim all of it’s territory, it’s going to be a pyrrhic victory. It will cost more than the territory is actually worth, the war and conscription policy have already demographically ruined Ukraine (e.g all the young people they need fled the country).
“No sane person would say ‘let them keep a room’”
Because they have the ability to remove that person. Ukraine does not, and it’s corruption and underperformance in the battlefield suggests that it may never no matter how many weapons the West gives them or conscripts they send to the trenches.
You are arguing for a perfect victory at all costs. The real world doesn’t work like this, and it would be deeply immoral if it did.