- cross-posted to:
- ukraine@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- ukraine@lemmy.ml
Tough one - what should Ukraine do? Take a step back - they’ve surivied a war of existential conquest. And probably in a better state than you’d have expected in 2022 if you’re honest. The high-level mission now is to mitigate or prevent The Next War, which will always be looming as long as the predatory monster of Russian imperialism sits next door.
The line has barely moved in over two years. Russia’s cruel intentions have not changed 1%, but their military capability has evaporated to the point that all they can do is terror bomb, and trade meat for thin slices of rubble, at less and less favorable ratios.
Russia won’t win. They can’t win. If eveything stopped today, it won’t have been worth it. Ukraine is gone from their grasp forever. For the first time in 1,000 years their abusive enslavement of Ukraine ends. They have less than zero credibility, pissed away a 30 year war chest, 60 years worth of Soviet hardware inheritance, are generally a global pariah and the junior partner to China in the Axis of mafia state shitholes. Or is it?
Russia, of course, will now switch gears back to corrosive misinformaiton, right wing populism and election interference - all things they’re frankly better at than fighting wars against near-peer armies. The push for elections is clearly to try and infiltrate the process and get an Orban/Fico like stooge in power eventually, which will give them the de facto victory that they couldn’t achieve militarily.
Point being - Ukraine will never truly be safe until the fundamental imperialist petro mafia gangster state formulation of the Russian Federation changes. Whether that is from a Gorbachev-like deconstructionist leader in Russia or a descent into post-Putin feuding warlodism too divided to menace their neighbors remains to be seen over the next 5-10 years. Until then - Ukraine should expect political, economic, electoral interference, espionage, assassination and general orc ghoul fuckery to be table stakes. Especially if America continues it’s descent into Republican Dictatorship and Russia feels no consequences. Post-War poverty and crime will be blamed on Ukrainians anyways, in an attempt to keep a narrative on the simmer if you need any flimsy pretxt for another war.
So - what do you do? If you’re Ukraine, and if this were a strategy simulation…the best way to sustain a lasting peace might be…to keep fighting. Accept the chest thumping outrage of Kremlin-aligned stooges like Trump that “ukraine are warmongers!!!”, but - keep the Russian war machine bleeding until it collapses.
But this isn’t a simulation. This is people’s lives, a nation’s existence, and you need to rebuild your country with internal strength and external security guarantees. Is a long war better than a bad peace?
Tough one, indeed
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Ukraine will get nothing from the US in the way of future security. I would like too see their continued pivot to their European neighbor’s. They share far more in common and European security depends on strengthened relationships in their existing partnerships as well as expanding them in the region.
Europe has the chance to fill the vacuum left in the wake of american abdication on the world stage, allied commitments and I wish they would collectively rise to the occasion.
trump wants instability in Europe as much as putin does. The US is no friend to Ukraine or Europe.
Zelenskyy is a strong leader and has proven himself resourceful and effective. The US and Russia both want him replaced with a puppet they control.
I want peace for Ukraine and their continued sovereignty. I don’t see that happening under any negotiations aided by trump.
Honestly what Ukraine should do is up to her people. They are the ones living through this nightmare with no good choices.
I hope that they understand that they cant trust the US, turning more to Europe and away from the US is likely a smart choice. Europe should be the intermediary in peace talks and security guarantees. The US has no moral standing anymore and should not be trusted on any level ever again!
Wouldn’t get any argument here on any of this. I intentionally didn’t bother mentioning U.S. as any kind of reliable guarantor under the vulgar talking yam and his court of black hearted lickspittle grifters and diaper changers.
That’s kind of what I’m getting at. Russia is tapped out - they cannot do any better than what they are doing right now. Trump was the last big card they had to play. His role is to destablize NATO, make the allies care more about themselves than Ukraine, and thus remove their support. Ukraine is suffering, but - that is Russia’s doing, and was inevitable. Ukraine can probably continue to trade land for time for a while before they get into past viable state limits. Ukraine can outlast Russia in this current form of the war.
The grimmest, hardest part might still be yet to come for the Russian - Occupation. The entire point of stealing/conquering land is to get benefit from it in the future. It’s in Ukraine’s interest to keep russia paying for their crimes, as long as they can support it with an increasingly automated defensive strategy. Russia has taken to absurd statements in the last year, such as “wherever a russian soldier places his foot, that is ours”. That’s an idiotic statement, and not how war works. In war - you get to keep and hold what you can keep and hold. The end. If russia is finding that’s insidious process of pushing small infiltration teams into pounded rubble until they are sniped, shot, shelled, droned etc is not a great long term occupation strategy, they might rightly conclude that abandoning their plan for total conquest and trying to re-write the rules of war is the way to get a settlement you don’t really deserve on a military basis. Then pivot to their strategy of corrosive disinformation and grey area shithousery to try and weaken Ukraine and it’s supporters.
Things are really, really, really historically bad for Russia - now, and going forward. If they could be doing better, they would be. This is the point - this is it. They’re harping more about settlements than Ukraine is. And Trump, being equal parts loud and dumb, always tries to hamfist negotiations with leverage he doesn’t actually have. He’s already cut all U.S. support, and that has not produced even a blip of progress for the Russians’ 2025 version of their rag tag shit band of low functioning, thieving, cannibalistic goblins they call an army. This stupid war is on an epic scale of historic imperial self-owns, like when the Persians decided to go show that uppity brat Alexander of Macedon who the big dog of the age was.
I think Ukraine’s going to keep quiet, keep fighting and understands fully that if you want to truly neuter the Russian war machine, it has to keep bleeding. We’ll likley never get a satisfying view of Putin crying into his pillow at his monumental failures, or seeing him full of bullets or strung up like Mussolini, Gaddhafi or Caeucescu, but all in all…Ukraine has won it’s freedom. That’s more than most serious minded people thought was possible 4 years ago.
Shame on Reuters for sane washing Trump’s backstabbing corruption. There is no “deal” to be made with Trump. They are notorious bad faith negotiators. Ukraine’s future is with Europe.
Absolutley. And frankly - despite the awfulness of this entire stupid war, there is optimism in the long run. Putin, a black hearted, overpromoted gangster ghoul lich king of a completely shattered, debased society who offers the world nothing but death, destruction and mischief, has seen their worldview project crumble in just 4 years. He will die having been the man who lost Ukraine, the man who lost Russia and sold it to China. Putin the Fool will go down in history as The. Worst. Russian. Ever. Which is saying something.
Indeed, Ukraine has suffered dearly - but this is a 1,000 year divorce and they will integrate into Europe without any delusions about some sort of unspoken, unbreakable bond to Moscow that only the orc horde seem to think exists. Their entire way of war, the Horde War that presumed you could roll from Poland to Portugal before the feckless pussies in the west could even start to respond has turned out to be every bit the myth the rest of their shitty Cruelty Project pretending to be a society is. Russia will continue to rot and fall apart, imprisoned by its own hubris. The Mad Tsar will be a cautionary tale about investing too much power in one man, and in ignoring the much bigger, more REAL threat to the east - China.
One would just like it all to happen a bit faster, though.
