Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says he will never accept Russia’s control over Ukrainian land. He has outlawed any contacts with Russia.
A U.S. official, speaking in Washington on condition of anonymity, said that the U.S. has not engaged in any back channel discussions with Russia and that Washington had been consistent in not going behind the back of Ukraine.
The U.S. official said that there appeared to have been unofficial “Track II” conversations among Russians not in the government but that the United States was not engaged in them.
For sending public messages of trying to negotiate a cease fire, they sure weren’t very public. Russia has no trouble disseminating information, why were these "very public"communications unheard until “the u.s. turned down a cease fire” was it Tucker? Was he the one you offered the cease fire to? If that’s the case the only reason he didn’t respond in the affirmative was because he was too busy gasping for post-fellatio air.
That’s really bizarre because why does America have a say in Russo-Ukrainian affairs? Shouldn’t a ceasefire be determined by the two parties not currently at a ceasefire?
Yeah why is it that also other western leaders like johnson visit ukraine and suddenly peace talks stop? www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/05/5/7344206/Why are they encouraging a war where Ukraine would depend on even more western military and economic aid?
Somebody who navigates all this please help us understand
oh for fucks sake, putins russia has never once ‘negotiated’ in good faith. they just use it to buy time to resupply and relocate. every peace deal theyve made, THEY broke. ukraine gets to decide when it’s time to talk. the US cant stop them
Zelensky the Zionist asked for a WW3 last year. Russia has always discussed the Minsk agreements for negotiations, but since Maidan CIA coup in 2013, Ukraine has not been a sovereign state but a US puppet state.
Update: it would seem that people disagree with me, fair enough, but perhaps somebody would care to tell me what is wrong with my theory?
Original comment:
I’m going to try with a crazy conspiracy theory(but the crazy ones are the more entertaining ones, right?):
Putin’s investment in the western defense industry drove the invasion of Ukraine to stimulate European NATO countries’ military investments.
Reasoning:
Russia’s actions towards Eastern NATO countries and the invasion of Ukraine could be strategic moves to encourage European NATO nations to bolster their military investments.
Sweden and Finland’s potential NATO membership could further incentivize their procurement of NATO-aligned weaponry.
Other Western European countries are already allocating significant resources to military investments.
Considering Occam’s razor, is it simpler to assume Putin, heavily invested in the defense industry, initiated conflict for profit, or believe in complex internal political motives?
but perhaps somebody would care to tell me what is wrong with my theory?
I’ll give it a shot.
First off, any payoff from Russia investing in NATO defense is massively offset by the untold damage this war is doing to Russia’s economy and population. This still holds true if it’s just putin’s investment, although if he were really bent on profit from that he probably could. But there are other, more lucrative and less damaging avenues to profit for a guy with as much money as he has.
Secondly, the war isn’t pointless. Occams razor suggests the simplest reason is often the truth. The simplest reason is that Crimea provides Russia a western seaport that isn’t frozen half of the year, and taking eastern Ukraine provides a path to that port.
I agree with you partly on your first point. Putin has other ways of making his fortune. BUT that doesn’t mean that he couldn’t also do this. Maybe it’s not the primary reason, but if Putin doesn’t care about Russia or the Russian people, then money could be a motivator.
On your second point IDK though. Russia still has a pretty large black sea port in Novorossiysk to the south east of Crimea. That port is on the mainland, has a rail connection, and doesn’t rely on an explosion prone bridge. Sevastopol may be an important port, but important enough to go to war over? Besides, the black sea ports aren’t the only warm water ports west of the Urals. Not counting the unconnected port in Murmansk, on the Baltic sea there’s Kaliningrad and the three large ports near Saint Petersburg. On wikipedia’s list of largest ports in the Baltic sea, the three at Saint Petersburg are in the top four.
So why go to war for a fifth port? Was Novorossiysk operating at capacity? I dont buy it. The war wasn’t for a path to Sevastopol alone.
Biden’s USA is stubborn and nihilistic and just wants to kill as many Ukrainians and Russians as possible before Trump comes in and forces Ukraine to accept a treaty
USA (and Ukraine) knows that Putin hasn’t changed its demands at all so any talks are pointless
USA (and Ukraine) knows that Russia is losing and doesn’t want to negotiate
Biden forgot how to use a phone and is too embarrased to ask
I’m personally going with 2 with a sprinkle of 4 and 1. In my happy dreams, 3.
The one thing that the Liberals have decided to take a stand on, “Russia Bad!”, to the point that they’ll keep the war machine churning through Ukranian bodies until its some other administration’s responsibility to turn off the US money spigot. Then they’ll squeal about it being a Putin Puppet’s doing or some shit.
Why are so many people here from Lemmy.ml and Hexbear assuming Putin and Russia offered an amicable ceasefire? When has Putin EVER shown he would ever want such a thing?
It’s propaganda. There are communist extremists in this thread trying to convince everyone the US is evil and using Ukraine as a bargaining chip.
I don’t even disagree that the US has done, and will continue to do evil stuff… But this isn’t one of those times.
The US is refusing to deal in back channels with Russia, and are insisting Ukraine be involved. From the article:
A U.S. official, speaking in Washington on condition of anonymity, said that the U.S. has not engaged in any back channel discussions with Russia and that Washington had been consistent in not going behind the back of Ukraine.
That’s right, they should be. They aren’t doing so because it’s in the interest of the U.S. to continue the war, and the Ukrainian government more or less exists at the pleasure of the U.S.
This entire response here was ostensibly in respect to Ukraine.
From the article, which you clearly didn’t read:
A U.S. official, speaking in Washington on condition of anonymity, said that the U.S. has not engaged in any back channel discussions with Russia and that Washington had been consistent in not going behind the back of Ukraine.
It was Russia that tried to negotiate a treaty with the US. And the US said ‘fuck you, ask Ukraine, not us’. Its Russia treating Ukraine like a puppet state, not the US.
In this scenario, by assuring the coup plotters that the U.S. will keep funding the war as long as they keep fighting it, as opposed to cutting bait with the coup as an excuse. The coup plotters would then accuse the deposed government of treasonously planning a surrender (a mischaracterization, but that’s par for the course) and portray themselves as acting in the national interest. They then keep the status quo of the war, with just a change in management. This would all fit neatly with the anti-Russia/pro-U.S. propaganda Ukraine has been subjected to. Any Russian objection would be written off as lies.
If Russia tried to support a coup government, that government would be branded as treasonous even if they sought to act in the best interest of the Ukrainian people. The U.S. would immediately seek to discredit and destabilize the coup government, and a lot of Ukrainians would listen as they’re fighting a war with Russia.
Zelensky just removed Zaluzhny from heading the military because Zaluzhny was getting too popular and becoming a political threat. Important to point out that Zelensky has called off the elections that should be happening right now and that there’s growing dissent for his administration due to how poorly the war is going. Also worth pointing out that Zaluzhny has ties to the far right militias of the Ukrainian armed forces and flaunted this fact when Zelensky first tried to have him removed. It would be very easy for NATO to back Zaluzhny and his right wing thugs (the same ones that took part in the maidan coup) against Zelensky if Zelensky breaks with the West’s wishes. US intelligence agencies are very good at pulling at threads of existing dissent to create chaos and oust difficult political leaders
Literally the same thought terminating logic fucking flatearthers use.
“I have literally have no counter argument so instead considering what you said I will gaslight myself and others into thinking I don’t have to by declaring out loud, without any evidence, that you are paid by NASA/Russia and imply that therefore everything you say can be dismissed without paying any mind because it is ontologically dishonest.”
Welcome to lemm.ml, #BlueAnon conspiracy theorist.
Meet Hamilton 68, the New King of Media FraudThe Twitter Files reveal that one of the most common news sources of the Trump era was a scam, making ordinary American political conversations look like Russian spywork
Nobody expects that they actually will do so willingly. Just that Russia should because, y'know, starting wars to annex territory is not something most people like. That's why Ukraine should be armed until it can make Russia leave.
That said, Russia would absolutely benefit from a negotiated settlement right now. This war is taking a lot of Russian lives and resources, so if it can persuade either Ukraine to agree to enough concessions or Ukraine's backers to stop backing it, Russia could benefit enormously. Even if Russia actually manages to completely overrun Ukraine in the future, actually having to fight to the end will be an extremely costly ordeal.
This take is both idealistic and ignorant of the situation on the ground.
It’s clear to anyone paying attention that Ukraine has lost any shot they had at driving Russia out in 2023, assuming they even had any shot at it in the first place. As shown by the evolution of the front line in 2023, Russia is now deeply entrenched in it’s current position and Ukraine, even back when Western military support was at it’s maximum, is unable to make them move from them in any significant way. Meanwhile Russia has had the time to adapt to western sanctions and the economy not only stabilized but is even growing quite a lot, especially the arms industry.
You need to come to terms with the fact that Ukraine won’t be getting back the occupied territory. With Russia now largely outproducing the west on military equipment and the west having pretty much depleted their stockpile, Ukraine, who is largely dependent to western military aid as their own military industrial base is far from solid, will unravel sooner rather than later. The ONLY thing sending them weapons is doing right now is prolonging the war and getting more Ukrainian killed for literally nothing.
Getting more thousands of Ukrainian killed because of the delusion that they can somehow still drive Russia out at this point is not worth whatever territory they want to get back.
Continuing to send billions of dollars of weapons to them won’t do any good to the Ukrainian peoples, and you aren’t the saviour of Ukraine you think you are by cheering for this.
What would do good for the Ukrainian people is suing for peace and starting to rebuild whatever territory they have left.
I don't want to make Ukrainians do anything. If they choose to keep fighting, they should be enabled to do so. If they choose to make peace, great, but they should be armed sufficiently that they can actually negotiate instead of just capitulate. Either way they need to be armed, because if they don't have the capacity to make the status quo costly then they have no leverage. There is no negotiation if we neuter Ukraine beforehand, there are only Russian demands.
Also, most of the aid is not weapons. A lot of it is, but more of it is housing Ukrainian refugees and funding the Ukrainian govenment to keep the basics of civil services going.
I'm sure it is, but Zelenskyy is an adult and capable of making his own decisions either way and I don't see what leverage the US could possibly have to force him to keep fighting. What are they going to do if he makes peace, stop giving Ukraine weapons for the war they aren't fighting any more? Even if the US deposed him, Zelenskyy has said openly that he doesn't want to run the country after the war. Can't say I blame him, I'd want a holiday too.
Regardless, none of this changes the fact that if you had read more than the headline, you wouldn't have said "per the article", would you?
A pretty fair point but I still think you are neglecting a few things.
Firstly, while according to this study by the Kiev international institute of sociology most Ukrainians do still support the war it also indicate that the portion that peace at the cost of losing territory is definitely growing since the start of 2023, if I were to try giving admittedly loose and uncertain bound based on those numbers and assuming the rate of change don’t shrink, I would expect this portion to reach 50% of the population 2 months from now at the soonest, 11 months from now at the latest.
An other related thing to consider is how accurately is the state of the war depicted in Ukrainian media? A state at war that don’t plan to surrender has incentives to make their war effort as good as possible and the enemy’s war effort as bad as possible and Ukraine is obviously no exception.
Depending on how distorted the narrative about the war is, these figures could be drastically different from what they would be if the Ukrainian public got a more neutral account of the war.
So do the Ukrainian want to continue fighting? For now yes, but I don’t believe it will last.
Your leverage point is moot in my opinion.
As I said, it is a fact that Russia is winning the war and that Ukraine has decisively failed to push them back before the Russian entrenchment in their position and the dwindling military supply to Ukraine made doing so impossible going forward.
I’m not saying that Russia could just roll over to Kiev any day if they wanted, that would obviously be absurd, but the military situation in Ukraine, the state of western weapon manufacturing compared to Russia’s and the sheer difference in manpower reserve and moral make it such that even if the west threw every last weapon in their stockpile at Ukraine, it would not change significantly what a peace deal between Moscow and Kiev could look like. I repeat therefor once again that the ONLY thing continuing to supply Ukraine with weapons is increasing the death toll on both side and prolonging the was for nothing, it’s literally not doing anything more, let alone helping Ukraine in any tangible way.
You are right, though, that most of the aid to Ukraine is humanitarian and not military, and those absolutely should continue, but that’s one reason more to not prolong the war uselessly, the end of the war would make helping the Ukrainian people way easier and would allow Ukraine to start rebuilding.
If arming Ukraine does not substantially impact Ukraine's ability to fight, how does it prolong the war? In your assessment, Ukraine would be forced to make peace at the same point either way. Could you expand on that?
If arming Ukraine does not substantially impact Ukraine’s ability to fight, how does it prolong the war?
This is not exactly what I said. I didn’t say that it didn’t impact Ukraine’s ability to fight, I said it doesn’t change the outcome of the war.
Of course, arming Ukraine adds difficulty for Russia, but it only at most delay Russia getting what they want since because of the way the war is going and the west’s inability to outproduce Russia, Russia has time on their side. Russia can largely afford to just wait until western weapon supply to Ukraine can’t keep up with theirs anymore, which is exactly what they have been doing since their retreat from the siege of Kiev in 2022, that’s why the front line has barely moved since then, Russia know they are in a position where time will do most of the work for them.
I'm not sure this holds. To me that very delay is the valuable point of negotiation I'm talking about; this war is also costly in lives and materiel for Russia. Being able to eventually outlast Ukraine on that front doesn't negate that. But I think that's getting towards too subjective a point for us to find common ground on.
How may of them chose to fight in the first place, aside from the neo-Nazi ones? Many of them were conscripted and forced to fight.
How many of the women & children & old men want the fighting to continue? The Ukrainian government is a shit government; how committed even are they to its survival? This is a post-US coup government that has banned opposition parties and is auctioning the country off to foreign capitalists. All of the aid they’re getting is lend-lease, which they will be repaying for generations. This is going to be full-on neoliberal shock therapy.
To what extent does the Ukrainian government have a choice in whether to continue fighting, when the US clearly has a lot of say in the matter despite its claims to the contrary?
1: Enough that there aren't mass desertions at the front lines.
2a: Continuing to fight typically has 2:1 support in what polling I have seen. My country's governnment is absolute dogshit, but if Russia invaded my country you're damn fucking right I'd want to fight them about it even with our shit government.
2b: Your article assumes a US coup, it does not show that there was a US coup. It is not weird that the American embassy wanted to negotiate with potential new leaders, doing so does not mean they masterminded a coup, and Zelenskyy was never even mentioned in the Nuland-Pyatt call. There have been two elections since then. It is also not difficult to believe that the protests against Yanukovych were legitimate considering his massive unilateral lurch in policy just beforehand.
2c: Absolutely shocking to suspend pro-Russia parties while literally being invaded by Russia. It should be noted that the incumbent party has a majority either way and suspending parties did not grant them any power they didn't already have. Further, the parties suspended represent a minority of the opposition.
2d: Sorry to tell you this but fighting a war is actually quite expensive. Is this approach the best one? I have no idea. It hardly seems relevant to what your second point started as. If you'd rather Ukraine didn't do this, it's going to need alternative financing, which means more support from its backers, not less.
2e: I do think that it should just be gifted, and some of it is. If your preference is that they get nothing at all then Ukraine could equally just refuse the lend-lease. Again, the better solution here is more support, not less.
2f: You know Ukraine was a capitalist country before this war started, right? But once again, if you don't want this to happen, Ukraine needs more unconditional support, not less.
3: How much say do you think the US has? This article is literally about Russia trying to get the US to decide on Ukraine's behalf and the US saying "that's not our choice". What is the US going to do if Ukraine decides to stop fighting? Stop supplying arms that the Ukrainians don't need anyway if they're at peace? The thing that I assume you want the US to do anyway, given the comment you're responding to?
Don’t know why the United States would have any say in Putin pulling the Russian paramilitary out of Ukraine. Ceasefire is simple, back your ass out of Ukraine, back to 2013 borders.
In the interview with fucker carlson, Putin said that Ukraine is a vassal of the US and Russia does not negotiate with Ukraine as it’s useless, they want to only negotiate with the puppet master.
Hence the offer, hence the rejection. It’s geopolitical theatre.
A U.S. official, speaking in Washington on condition of anonymity, said that the U.S. has not engaged in any back channel discussions with Russia and that Washington had been consistent in not going behind the back of Ukraine.
It’s one of Putin’s strategies: To make it look like it is a conflict between the US/NATO and Russia, not between Ukraine and Russia. He also tries to diminish Ukrainian sovereignity by making it appear as if the US is the overlord, as if Ukraine is an American puppet. It’s all about making Ukraine look like it isn’t its own country. That’s why we get those bullshit historic lessons by that pathetic man-child.
I agree with what you say. OP is implying that just because “It’s one of Putin’s strategies: To make it look like it is a conflict between the US/NATO and Russia, not between Ukraine and Russia.” It’s not true. And I would like to challenge that.
If there’s something I learned from libs during this war is that Russia’s no1 strategy is saying the truth of how geopolitics works. Dirty Russians… using the truth against us!
Perhaps I perceive this wrong, but it seems like the counterimplication is that this war is primarily between US/NATO and Russia with Ukraine being just a pawn. I don’t think that’s quite true either.
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