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Europe will lose all credibility if Russia wins in Ukraine, warns French president Macron
(www.telegraph.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2024
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We need to start defining what a win and what a loss is. I feel that this could vary on some parts
It's very simple. Make the occupiers fuck off behind Ukraine's internationally recognised borders.
Honestly it feels like the only reasonable outcome is a division like Korea, and focus on modernising and liberalising West Ukraine.
With Ukrainian family in kharkiv, Odessa, and kiev this is not a reasonable outcome in the slightest.
Yeah, that's what losing feels like.
I'm guessing you're going to resort to terrorism if Russia conquers Ukraine? Could be interesting.
And fortunately none of those cities are occupied yet.
They're still being killed there. Sure not occupied yet, but you said it's the one reasonable thing to do.
And peace would put an end to that.
I don't get the idea of doggedly pursuing liberation of the Crimea, etc. when it isn't realistic and people are losing their lives.
It's better to have an okay-ish peace now and reorganise the country than to face total collapse if shortages continue.
Perfection is the enemy of the good.
Dude I'm talking about ceceding kharkiv and Odessa to Russia which is what you are saying is a reasonable solution
Have you ever considered that Ukraine is just an investment for the West? They'd rather have Ukrainians dying than their own soldiers. They don't actually think Ukraine can win, only weaken Russia.
This is what all Western military strategists are saying.
Considering the crippling wheat and other exports Ukraine provides for the west, yeah, there's a lot of reasons to invest into Ukrainian victory and survival. I'm not niave to believe the US cares about Ukrainian lives.
They could hold the current borders for peace. That is the most likely outcome.
Tell ya what, rent hasn't been cheap. How about I come to your house and set a few things on fire and camp out in your living room and refuse to leave. I won't hurt you if you don't enter the living room, but I've claimed the whole room to myself. And you have no way of knowing if I'll decide to take the kitchen next despite saying I won't. Would you accept this? Because this is what you're saying Ukraine should let Russia do to them.
The only peace that can be achieved here is for Russia to be defeated and driven out of Ukraine entirely. Otherwise, all you are doing is enabling Russia to regroup, rearm and attack again for more territory.
Very well put.
I recently read an article that states that maybe Putin kinda outwitted himself in the way that now even if peace could become a possibility this option will not be supported inside of the country because of how government positions are now appointed on the basis of being a war mongrel. Anyway, shit's real bad and I'm glad I don't make decisions for any side
I don't support Russia, but you need to be realistic.
Who is going to be driving them out of Ukraine? Biden has refused to send the US military, and Congress refuses to send weapons.
Ukraine will, with support from other countries, as they are now. We need more support for Ukraine, who has already done an excellent job stopping Russia's progress. Ukraine can only get stronger with more support. Biden can't send the US military because that turns into a full blown conflict between Russia and America, which would be worse for everybody.
Also it's an election year. Biden isn't refusing to send support. Congress is.
Biden could put boots on the ground tomorrow if he wanted to. The Commander-in-Chief has full control of military operations.
So... west Ukraine up til Moscow and east Ukraine for the rest?
Edit: apparently we need an /s
That isn't realistic, and Russia has nuclear weapons too.
The best bet is that the regime will be toppled in Russia with time, just like the USSR was.
It's better to lead by example with free institutions and free markets - the people of Russia will want freedom too.
The US has nuclear weapons. Europe has nuclear weapons.
Bullshit about "free institutions and free market". That was the thought after the Soviet Union collapsed. And what do we have now? The exact opposite of what Russia "was supposed to be through open markets".
Yeah, and they would use them if they had foreign armies pushing into their territory.
But no efforts were made to really democratise and modernise Russia - they let oligarchs rise up from criminal gangs, etc., it'd have been better to have a more controlled process like Glasnost.
I think that here the problem is not to invade Russia, but that Russia need to left Ukraine.
Yeah because Russia was not capitulated. They were a disfunctional, but sovereign country. You cannot dictate anything on them. You can lead by example or make suggestions, but ultimately it's the will of the people that matters. In that regard the situation is rather similar to Germany post WW1. A people not yet ready for democracy and no one there to force them to. In Germany's case it took the entire to be bombed to the ground, millions dead and being occupied by 4 not so emphatic countries.
I wouldn't compare interwar Germany and post-USSR Russia this way. On the one hand, post-WWI Germany absolutely had dictates placed on them that were big enough and were meant to cripple the country. On the other hand, WWI wasn't about democracy, but that the autocrats ruling Germany wanted colonial empires, like the autocrats ruling the Entente had.
Yes, electing Hitler was not the correct path, but I guess it's hard to see any path at all when English tourists laugh at the cheap prices at the cafΓ© you work at while you wouldn't be able to afford even one of them from your wages.
Russia did not turn out better, since there was no real regime change after the end of the USSR. Putin was in the KGB. I'm sure most people who are in power now were in the elite in the USSR as well.
It's not "the people not yet ready for democracy", it's that the instruments of power had the same people manning them. If it was just the people, a lot of the US seems "not yet ready for democracy" with being hell-bent on electing a dictator.
Actually Putin became president about ten years after the USSR collapsed, so there may have been a window of opportunity
Yeltsin was a highly placed party member as well before becoming president. You could say he was liberal, but so was OrbΓ‘n during his first term.
Good point. I'm not sure if the first president could've been not a highly placed party member, though, that'd be more like a revolution
That's my point exactly. No revolution ever happened, the same power structures that kept the USSR working the way it did keep Russia in the same path.
I think there were some efforts, some may even worked. There were also efforts from the inside, but in the end those efforts were not enough, it seems
And so ? Should we let them to do whatever they want just because "we have nukes" ? I
No, Biden should send the US army as he has the ability to do so.
But he is too weak to stand up to Putin, especially in an election year, so compromise is necessary.
You think Biden is unwilling to start WW3 because it's an election year?
Keeping the troops in Ukrainian territory wouldn't start WW3. The UK already has troops there.
US does not care about Ukraine, they only antogonize Russia. Then yeah, given what we have seen on the battlefield, if NATO will go boot on the ground Russia probably will have some serious problem (not that now they have not).
Maybe from a US point of view, but here we are discussing Europe.
It is about time that Europe (and EU) begin to be what we say we are.
I think that here Macron is damn right. Russia must not win this war because any concession we do to Russia now will be seen as "we can do whatever we want because in the end they fold".
Putin tried to take Ukraine exactly because EU and US did nothing when he took Crimea (if not talking).
And this whatever the US say.