The Ukraine war thread
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Not a cheery article. I can't help but wonder where we would be if the west had supported Ukraine more whole-heartedly. All for using the frozen Russian assets.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/zelensky-is-losing-touch-with-reality/ar-AA1QGvyu
Not cheery but as one observer I read pointed out:
To be clear, the fact Ukraine’s investigators — and its raucous free press — are absolutely going to town on elites is itself evidence of a living, breathing (if coughing) democracy worth defending. One need only glance over the border to recall the alternative.
Can anyone send us the link to Russia’s credible investigation after the Panama Papers exposed Putin’s billions? Or how his best friend (Roldugin) earned billions playing a cello? (dude must be awesome). Or why the guy who made a two-hour documentary on Putin’s $1.4 billion Black Sea mega-palace ended up dead in a Putin prison?
The absence of scandal in an autocracy is often just a symptom of its silent, dehumanising condition. And inversely (if uncomfortably), the presence of scandal in a democracy often just reflects the messy but sacred human agency underneath. And that’s worth fighting for, everywhere, every time.
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The 28-point proposal [from the USA] favors Russia in pivotal aspects, including requiring Ukraine to cede territory and cap the size of its postwar army, while offering financial and geopolitical incentives to Moscow.
@Renauda ... your thoughts?
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The 28-point proposal [from the USA] favors Russia in pivotal aspects, including requiring Ukraine to cede territory and cap the size of its postwar army, while offering financial and geopolitical incentives to Moscow.
@Renauda ... your thoughts?
@Axtremus said in The Ukraine war thread:
The 28-point proposal [from the USA] favors Russia in pivotal aspects, including requiring Ukraine to cede territory and cap the size of its postwar army, while offering financial and geopolitical incentives to Moscow.
@Renauda ... your thoughts?
I don’t think there’s much in it that I didn’t already anticipate in one form or another. It certainly rewards Putin’s unprovoked aggression of the past eleven years against Ukraine. It also gives Putin the time and opportunity he needs in order to finish off the country once and for all at a future date of his choosing. Think of it as a 21 century version of the Ribbentrop Molotov pact. It is not a lasting or just peace for Ukraine but rather a temporary non aggression pact between Russia and the US. It is nothing more than an armistice on Moscow’s maximalist terms that no one outside of the Kremlin or the Oval Office can like or trust.
In the meantime, here is a link to Lawrence Friedman’s excellent analysis of what we know:
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According to this former Russian diplomat, Putin will not accept the 28 point plan either because it is too generous to Kyiv and gives too much power to the POTUS:
The final section of the plan is especially revealing: it puts forward the establishment of a so-called “Peace Council” led by President Donald Trump to oversee compliance. This arrangement is utterly unacceptable to Putin, as it places Trump in the position of supervising and assessing the Russian leader’s actions. Putin is waging war to prove that he has an equal right to shape global decisions alongside the U.S. president and other world leaders. He is fighting for imagined respect, for a status of equality — or primacy, even — among global actors. In this worldview, putting anyone above himself, especially someone as unpredictable as Trump, would be humiliating and a signal of weakness.
