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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   9644 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 3, 2025

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Right now it looks like Russia can beat Ukraine by attrition. But a lot of things could happen before Russia actually won. For a ceasefire to make sense to Ukraine, it cannot result in speeding up Russia's timetable, and similarly for it to make sense to Russia, it cannot result it giving Ukraine a chance to improve its position.

Right now the best offer Russia is willing to consider is "We take part of Ukraine now and all of it later". This is obviously not acceptable to Ukraine, even if the alternative is a continued grinding war of attrition that they seem likely to lose.

Right now the best offer Russia is willing to consider is "We take part of Ukraine now and all of it later". This is obviously not acceptable to Ukraine, even if the alternative is a continued grinding war of attrition that they seem likely to lose.

What I don't understand is why Ukraine doesn't put a realistic offer on the table? Because as far as I know, the Ukrainian position is still "we will take back all the lost territories including Crimea".

Come to Russia with a realistic offer to end the war. If Putin refuses to negotiate, so be it. Then we'll know the war can't be ended and we can continue to support Ukraine with no reservations.

But Zelenskyy is not even trying, and is instead pursuing a strategy that is most likely to end with military collapse, or worse, a direct NATO-Russia conflict.

A NATO Russian conflict is a win for Zelenskyy.

Yes, I know. It's just a loss for everyone else.

You start with an offer you are willing to back down from. But you don't pre-backdown from that position before you even get to the table. A return to status quo from 2014 is not going to fly, but you don't back down from that position until the Russians are actually negotiating. You are pre-emptively weakening your own position because now you have to make concessions in negotiations on top of the concessions you gave up without anything in trade.

You don't go to Russia with a reasonable offer, and they won't come to you with a reasonable offer. That is what the negotiations are for. If Putin wants to negotiate he will do so, regardless of what Zelensky is saying he will agree to.

Fair enough- I’m no expert on the state of the battlefield and maybe there’s no ceasefire that Russia would agree to. But between “continue slowly losing now” and “pause, then maybe continue to lose later” it’s not obvious which is the better choice (maybe Putin drops dead, maybe European arms spending actually materializes). And if the Ukrainian war effort is completely reliant on the US, and the US thinks trying to get a ceasefire done is beneficial I think it’s the US’s right to insist on it. It just feels like Trump is being called pro-Russia for trying to negotiate while the Europeans get to LARP as serious defenders of the post-war order, when ultimately they aren’t willing to risk world war 3 over this conflict either.

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