Zelensky dismisses compromise with Putin, pointing to Prigozhin’s death
Zelensky dismisses compromise with Putin, pointing to Prigozhin’s death
www.cnn.com
Zelensky dismisses compromise with Putin, pointing to Prigozhin's death | CNN
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin – the Russian mercenary leader whose plane crashed weeks after he led a mutiny against Moscow’s military leadership – shows what happens when people make deals with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
As Ukraine’s counteroffensive moves into a fourth month, with only modest gains to show so far, Zelensky told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria he rejected suggestions it was time to negotiate peace with the Kremlin.
“When you want to have a compromise or a dialogue with somebody, you cannot do it with a liar,” Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Withdrawing troops, returning stolen land, children, prisoners and paying for damages.. thats all i would accept. Nothing less.
A 'Treaty of Versailles' type solution is not a good idea for durable peace though, harsh reparations, despite any sense they might be 'fair', seldom lead to both countries returning to be prosperous democratic countries (and to be clear, neither is a capitulation by Ukraine - that would be seen by Putin as locking in its current gains, with no real incentive not to try again for more despite what the treaty might say).
The best outcome for everyone is if Russia ends up being a genuinely pluralistic democracy (i.e. anyone in Russia can have political views, and the public selects its leadership in free and fair elections). Then Ukraine can normalise relations with Russia, and Russia stops being a threat to democratic institutions across the world as a whole.
I think the best way of thinking about it is not that Ukraine has a Russia problem, but rather that Ukraine and Russia have an oligarch problem (with Putin chief amongst them). Therefore, in a fair world, the oligarchs, and not the Russian people, would pay. It is true that Russians (and indeed some Ukrainians in occupied regions) have been radicalised by the oligarchs, so some kind of deradicalisation would be needed even if the oligarchs disappeared.
Solutions that look to negotiate how to reduce corruption and authoritarianism in Russia from the top are therefore the most likely to succeed long term. Shorter term solutions could include a negotiated end to hostilities coupled with agreements for Ukraine to join a defensive alliance that the oligarchs wouldn't consider provoking - which could be followed up by a carrot approach to easing sanctions in exchange for progressive movements towards genuine Russian democracy. This might give oligarchs enough push to take off ramps to cash in what they have plundered already, and slowly be replaced by less corrupt alternatives going forward.
Recovery from oligarchy for Russia might also by costly for Russia though - essential assets plundered from the USSR are now in private hands through crony capitalism; the best solution would be for many of the major ones to go back to or be rebuilt under state ownership, under genuine democratic leadership. But that is likely easier said than done given the state of Russia.
Socialism worked in Russia: it dragged hundreds of millions of people out of subsistence farming and turned the USSR into an economic powerhouse. Of course, the collapse of the USSR showed the failings of an aggressively socialist state, but the funny thing is that China already has the solution: a market-based economy with strong state control. Putin doesn't dare piss off the oligarchs though, so we're stuck with this crony bullshit.
This may be true but the negotiations are with a dictator. It's not like Putin is going to step down so that the problem is resolved peacefully.
And Russia Surrenders a 10km deep strip of its own land around Ukraine to act as a DMZ.
With what military do you plan on using to support this?
And a 3rd party enforced DMZ on the border.
Eastern European countries love their "macho" leaders. Putin has been doing the whole shtick since forever and Zelensky started it too since 2022. Fucking hate this shit.
Democratic leadership hasn't really done much for Ukraine. The Russians still have Bakhmut (their big gain from last winter). Almost the entirety of the Ukrainian counteroffensive has been dedicated to an area of land less than twenty kilometers across. Meanwhile, Russian forces are massing North of Kupyansk and Ukrainian supplies are drained.
The West doesn't seem to really care about Ukraine - while Russia has been able to bring their economy into war footing in about a year, the West is happy to dig around and play accounting tricks to scrounge up what they can. The recent shipment of ATACMS missiles was, well...
"A surprising discovery could also ease the administration's choice to send the weapons: The U.S. has found it has more ATACMS in its inventory than originally assessed."
That's what we're stuck with? Hundreds of billions of dollars down the drain and aid is only being sent because they miscounted inventory?
Okay then the war would go on and on until your government collapsed. A peace agreement is actually good here given that they just showed they were unable to reclaim much land with their counter offensive.
They've shown no such thing. Stop believing everything you hear in the media.
How? Ukraine's made like a few square kilometers of progress with hundreds of billions of dollars of funding while Russia has just fallen back from their low ground territorial gains to the more easily defensible high ground.
What leverage does Ukraine even have for those demands?
Russia's monetary system is in collapse and its economy is in free fall... the war took up 45% of its budget last year, its foreign exchange reserves have long since run dry and its first defensive line is slowly crumbling.
If it ends up being a war of endurance, Russia's going to be in a far worse position in a year than they are now.
The reason for those small gains instead of hard ones is largely air support. The fighting on the ground is very reminiscent of world war I. That is not a good thing. They may seem like modest gains but in terms of that type of warfare they are pretty huge gains. The problem is that without air support it is going to be a long hard battle.
All that said, it is Ukraine's territory. Russia could pack up and leave at any time.
do you live there
If only you also were in the position to dictate this to Russia. Even the US isn't in this position, and will never be.