Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he is certain that the war will end "sooner" than it otherwise would have once Donald Trump becomes president.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv would like to end the war with Russia next year through "diplomatic means" as both countries prepare for President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House.
In an interview with the Ukrainian media outlet Suspilne, Zelenskyy said he is certain that the war will end "sooner" than it otherwise would have once Mr. Trump becomes president.
The prospect of Trump returning to power in the United States next year has raised questions about the future of the conflict, as the Republican has been critical of U.S. military aid to Kyiv.
Zelenskyy said that Ukraine "must do everything so that this war ends next year, ends through diplomatic means."
The idea that it is possible to "diplomacy" your way out of conflict with a dictator is so absurd I want to laugh my ass off, but unfortunately it isn't funny at all.
Putin will happily send every last Russian in to the meat grinder before he accept defeat, and now that he has his American buddy back in place, now with added musk funds, it is seriously delusional to think the situation is going to do anything other than escalate.
Zelenskyy is being beyond naive at best (I honestly don't believe he believes in what he's saying).
I don’t think he’s being naive, he knows Trump is going to hang him out to dry, and he can’t win without ongoing US support. So if he’s come to the conclusion that defeat is inevitable, or at least that victory is impossible, then it makes sense to start posturing to that effect, to try to get the best outcome possible later at the negotiating table.
Well, I suppose bending over for a couple of dictators to fuck you (but more importantly, your people, and then who ever those two decide to invade next) is a kind of posture.. 🙄
Putin will happily send every last Russian in to the meat grinder before he accept defeat
I doubt that, but its moot since Russia would inevitably win this war of attrition without having to do it. Also, the whole Russian meat grinder/meat wave thing is just recycled WWII Nazi war propaganda BS.
I don’t know. How should Ukraine have held an election when it has banned eleven political parties? Ukraine had a US-backed coup ten years ago[1][2]. It is nothing close to a democracy.
Ok but that doesn't change that they're being actively invaded by Russia right now. That does tend to put a pretty big damper on a country's ability to conduct secure elections.
Do you believe the elections in Russia are held fairly? I was under the impression that there are a lot of issues with political repression and electrical fraud, but admit that some of those notions could be more propaganda than reality. I'll be reading more into Russian electoral politics and history in the meanwhile.
From what I read so far, it looks like Russia actually did hold elections for their own government within occupied Ukrainian territory. I'm not sure what to make of that.
Do you believe the elections in Russia are held fairly?
Putin seems to be genuinely popular, so how fair the last presidential election was is somewhat moot. I think he had a clear majority regardless. Russians have good reason to like him: he kicked the Western capitalist neoliberal shock therapy plunderers out of the country. It’s still a capitalist shithole, but at least it’s their shithole and not a neocolonized state anymore.
it looks like Russia actually did hold elections for their own government within occupied Ukrainian territory.
I can’t speak to the quality of those elections. Eastern Ukraine had been in a civil war with western Ukraine for almost a decade, and many eastern Ukrainians wanted a Russian intervention, but I’m no expert and couldn’t say what percentage wanted one. Back in 2014, Crimea was very easy to annex, because most Crimeans wanted to be annexed. And they fared better than their friends to their north, who suffered almost a decade of attacks by western Ukrainian Banderites.
I'm not sure who "you people" are, but at no point did I claim to know what's best, but I sure as fuck know, from knowing history and paying attention, that tyranny doesn't go away by asking nicely. Never has, never will.
So a better question would be wtf is with you claiming you know anything at all about global conflict or fascism? Its like you’re larping as a wilfully ignorant and overly confident centrist who is happy to lay others lives on the line and let war rage on as long as we aren't mean to a dictator. 🙄
So I don't know how the Russian/Ukrainian war is going to go. I mean Trump is such a wild card it's hard to say. But I want to point out that your comment:
that tyranny doesn’t go away by asking nicely. Never has, never will.
Is very wrong. The weirdest thing is you state if you're paying attention. Well, if you're paying any attention what so ever, you'll see that tyranny regularly gets displaced by asking nicely. In fact, in recent history we have South Korea with a peaceful democratic transfer, Taiwan which also had a peaceful democratic transfer, Singapore and many others. And that's just recent history. Let alone all the Kingdoms that were displaced by democracy in history such as the UK. Heck, the UK still has a monarch and yet run in a democracy because of how peaceful the transfer was. Thailand as well. I could go on, but I think you get the point. In fact one of the MOST COMMON ways to go from Monarchy/Dictatorship to democracy is a peaceful transfer. Obviously that doesn't always happen, but it's quite common to simply ask nicely.
*Edit: Actually Ukraine ITSELF was a peaceful transfer from tyranny to democracy. That's the REASON Putin is angry and jealous of them. I mean you don't even have to look outside of the combatants to see a peaceful transfer. Which is gone now, but that doesn't take away that it happened.
All I can say to this bizarre reply is that the whitewashed version of history (never mind current events, since some of those conflicts are still ongoing, violently, today) you were taught at school, or hear about in the msm isn't the reality, and that none of those conflicts were fucking peaceful, or came to a conclusion because those in power just decided to give it up.
Pick up a fucking book (or watch a video, or listen to a podcast, however you take information in, go and do that, but only if you can cope with challenging your bias, otherwise it becomes a completely pointless exercise)
E: Like, honestly, do you seriously believe there is any point in talking to Putin? Do you think an open and proud totalitarian known for throwing his opponents out of windows is a trustworthy person who will have good faith and stay true to his word? Do you fucking hear yourself???
Nice try but you don't get to argue that a protest over 7 years ago and is unrelated caused the peaceful transfer.
I mean you might as well argue that the blood of Americans were spilled for their freedoms in BLM, Kansas State Massacre, the Chicago fire. Oh wait, those protests massacres happened AFTER USA was a democracy. It's almost like they're not related to being a democracy or not and the June protests weren't part of that massacre because it's a 7 YEAR gap.
The Gwang-Ju protests were a pro-democracy protest against the dictator Chun Doo-Hwan. You have no idea what you're talking about and are erasing the very real historical impact of the massacre.
And those protests were like the American protests didn't get anything done. It wasn't until 7 years later when they simply asked nicely. If anything, you're proving violence doesn't work and the best option is to literally simply ask nicely.
Thus, my point about the violent protest being unrelated. It did NOT cause the regime change. I'm not talking about what it's about, I'm talking about what actually switches the government.
I never said nations don't have problem. My list of violent massacres in USA proves that. I'm saying violent protests does not lead to regime change as often as a peaceful transition. Your Korean argument proves that as the violent protest did nothing, vs the peaceful one.
*Edit: To be clear, if we study history we find peaceful regime change far more likely than violent ones. BUT people like YOU keep creating violent situations that do not help the situation. If people like YOU stop being violent, maybe we could work towards actually beneficial transitions.
They had already asked peacefully, and were slaughtered for doing so. The change was a cumulative effort with deep contextual history, and didn't happen in a vacuum.