this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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Ukraine has plenty of opportunities to win. It could have chosen to chart a more balanced position between the EU and Russia. It could have given the Donbass some independence referenda and just let them go. It could have actually tried to adhere to the numerous Minsk Agreements to deescalate and prevent war. It could have negotiated for peace while the Russians were pulling back after its previously more successful counter offensives.
But each time its leaders ignored the off ramp to peace and pursued delusional maximalist goals, egged on by promises of EU and NATO membership which even Zelensky acknowledged publically were just carrots dangled in front of Ukraine.
Now there's no pathway to any sort of Ukrainian victory and the most realistic scenarios all involve Ukraine permanently giving up Donbas and Crimea. The only difference between the likely outcome now and just giving them a referendum in 2014 is a couple hundred thousand Ukrainian graves.
I'd respect the EU and NATO more if they had actually followed through with their promises to Ukraine instead of this Charlie Brown football bullshit.
I mean they tried to but they got couped by the US for their troubles.
"They could have won by surrendering so many times"
It rules that libs constantly appeal to public opinion of people in Taiwan as an argument for why China should let it be independent but as soon as people from a Western aligned country want to exercise that same self-determination its "surrendering" to let them have a referendum.
Totally an intellectually coherent ideology and not just "our team (good), your team (bad)".
Neither of these things he describes are surrendering:
In fact both of them would have prevented Russia from annexing donbass. They would be independent territories that would act as a buffer state between the two countries.
I was coming at it from the sense of both outcomes being the same (Ukraine losing Donbas) but in one scenario Ukraine "wins" because it doesn't get bombed and lose hundreds of thousands of people, but you raise a great point. There was a chance that letting Donbas go in 2014 would have resulted in a fairly neutral buffer with Russia.
There was a point where the DPR and LPR were just seeking autonomy within Ukraine to speak Russian and decide local issues but the hardliners in Kiev decided to sic Nazis on them instead.
Hell in 2014 just granting more regional autonomy could have been viable (although the Russians would probably also push for travel rights that would allow easier logistics to Crimea)
Hundred of thousands is sp much higher than any source I can find. On both sides of the conflict.
Go volunteer then
Give your mother to russians and after that you can propose to give Ukrainian land.
Go out and fight Russia yourself and after that you can propose that Ukrainians should keep being drafted against their will on your behalf, coward.
Libs just love making shit up, do you even know what Russia is demanding?
Go volunteer if you think it's this much of a moral fight.