US administrations are not bound by promises made by prior administrations. The promises made were promises kept by the administration that made them.

The puppet was democratically elected and was overthrown in a coup, led overwhelmingly by the far right and ethno-nationalistic pravi sector, azov, and the likes. Goom has made this point half a dozen times when talking to you, your willingness to hand-swipe illegitimate ways to take control of power and frame them as some victory for the people isn't accurate.

This is the way i see it.

Complete surrender = All of Ukraine is under Russia's thumb as it was prior to 2014.
Middle of the road = Minsk 2
complete and embarrassing loss= Russia going home

Please try to explain what you think a good and realistic compromise would be?

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Nov 1 2022 12:35pm

Those were vague, unofficial, not legally binding promises made by diplomats at a time when the Warsaw Pact still existed.

You know who broke an official, legally binding promise? Russia. In the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine gave up its nukes in return for security assurances from Russia. Here's the first two articles of this document that Russia's president had officially signed back then:

This is why any sort of negotiation with America is impossible. America is, and is increasingly so as it experiences this political degeneration, agreement incapable.

But it goes beyond that. You can't even sign an agreement with America and expect it to be enforced the next day, let alone after the next midterm or presidential election. America never abided by the JCPOA. America and it's vassals didn't abide by this recent grain deal. Agreements are often just exercises for Americans to massage PR.

This post was edited by kusotarre1 on Nov 1 2022 12:41pm

Vague, unofficial, not legally binding...all words to basically mitigate responsibility. You think the Russians give a fuck about lawyer speak here?

It would be funny to watch these people argue that geopolitics is some fucking game with snappy Joss Whedon dialogue, if it wasn't for the threat of endless escalation leading to nuclear war.

This post was edited by kusotarre1 on Nov 1 2022 12:46pm

This is FALSE.

What separates a coup from a revolution? Fact of the matter is that Ukraine was in a state of constitutional crisis from late 2013 to early 2014. The two democratically elected branches of government, the executive represented by president Yanukovych, and the legislative represented by the parliament, had arrived at an impasse.

Goom is also conveniently ignoring or downplaying several factors in his narrative of the "violent coup which overthrew the democratically elected president":

• it was Yanukovych's special police which started getting violent against the euromaidan protsters. His side was the one that's largely responsible for the escalation from peaceful protests to violent clashes; then later lost control of the situation and had to flee.
  
• Yanukovych came to power after the 2010 presidential election in which the question of Ukrainian EU membership was not a salient issue, partially because Yanukovych defused the issue by promising that he'd be open and not stand in the way of Ukraine joining the EU. By calling off the EU-Ukraine association agreement at the eleventh hour, he broke this promise.
  
• After he fled to Russia, the (democratically elected) parliament voted on a resolution that found Yanukovych to have "restrained himself from performing his constitutional duties" and had effectively resigned. This resolution was supported by a broad majority, including 36 MPs from his own party. (But would have had a strong majority even without them.)

Imho, a good and realistic compromise would be that Russia retreats from all Ukrainian territory except Crimea, but cedes any oil or gas found offshore from Crimea. Ukraine is free to join the EU. Ukraine refrains from joining NATO and commits itself to not host large contingents of NATO troops on its territory, but is otherwise free to engage in military cooperation with whoever they want. Ukraine waives any claims to reparations for the war and enshrines the Russian language as well as statutes of autonomy for its eastern regions into its constitution. Russia publicly acknowledges that any future violation of Ukraine's sovereignty renders this whole peace treaty null and void and that Ukraine will be free to join NATO with immediate effect in any such scenario.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Nov 1 2022 01:02pm

So the unofficial words from Western diplomats, spoken in backroom negotiations in 1989 and 1990 when it wasn't even clear yet whether the Warsaw Pact would disolve, are to be treated as gospel... but we're supposed to look the other way when it comes to Russia's brazen violation of the promises they made to Ukraine in an official treaty which was signed by their literal president?

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Nov 1 2022 01:06pm

this is all old ground. I guess there is a lull for now.

news around the world:

Al Jazeera (and cnn): Iran plans to send ‘over 200 drones’ to Russia – Kyiv

This post was edited by ferdia on Nov 1 2022 01:10pm