The war has to end, eventually. Even the prolonged afghan and iraq and syrian wars all ended, all in complete blowouts to US demands and conditions. Will Russia continue to grapple with Ukraine for a decade? Quite possibly. But will Ukraine seize control of the separatist regions and drive out Russia? Nope. So either we've got a prolonged crisis that pits nuclear powers against each other, or we've got to find a mediated peace, and China were already the obvious candidates for that before they formally declared they would be, and once they start throwing their weight around even the US can't keep up its warmongering position indefinitely.

There's a lot about this conflict that's reflecting America's dwindling geopolitical hegemony and the ascendancy of China. At some point we're just going to have to recognize that as a fact instead of trying desperately to deny it until the bitter end. Maybe if the US started acting in our own rational self interests instead of pursuing a self-defeating foreign policy that has aided China at every turn, we wouldn't be here. Spilt milk

You said it was on record? In my own research I found that Boris Johnsons visit to Ukraine was around the time the negotiations broke down, and the news articles suggested it was down to him.

I didn't see anything "on the record"

The more depressing scenario is that there is no one left in Ukraine to fight, and Russia simply swallows the entire country, or whats left of it. I linked the Tom Hanks movie "Charlie Wilson's War" a few months ago in the topic. That to my mind is the US Strategy / Goal here, and it would work if the country in question was any other country then Ukraine.



are you seriously of the view that England and the US had no part in the abandoned peace talks last year ?

This post was edited by ferdia on Feb 22 2023 09:39am

Han CCP have not produced any peace plan or document. Their behaviour is logic: occupying the free space to take ground, diplomatically, and economically in deepening and intensifying the economic ties with the gas station.

That's it: Profits. And indirectly helping the gulag regime in oppressing the Ukrainian people, ofc. Yet Russian Isolation is an opportunity for them. It's all bad.

This post was edited by Meanwhile on Feb 22 2023 09:53am

well, so has been every separatist war in living memory eh? Whether its the south sudanese or pakistan or kosovo or wherever, population swaps and border rules and control of contested regions has always been a mess, often with the finer details left unresolved even after the larger peace is achieved. If the world powers and UN were actually interested in saving lives and peacekeeping, they'd be able to help sort out the aftermath. But fat chance of that while Joe Biden is doing his rounds rallying for his proxy war

Are you of the view they were? You said it was "on record"?
If it is then there is no discussion, you are just correct.

What record?

Its the same as this assertion that the US is to blame for NS2. It makes perfect sense in theory, yet there isn't a shred of evidence that isn't anecdotal.

This post was edited by Prox1m1ty on Feb 22 2023 09:42am

I mentioned this before - I watched a video about Russia and China recently where it was commented that when Putin came into power there were over 8500 disputes relating to contested land between Russia and China and that today there are only 7 contested disputes. This to my mind is a great achievement (albeit on the far side of the world). That to my mind is the definition of opposing ideologies getting on.



if I gave you a document signed in blood you would still dispute it i think?

This post was edited by ferdia on Feb 22 2023 09:45am

that's imaginable but I think after a year of conflict and with precedents in other wars like Syria that's not going to happen without some true weapons of mass destruction being deployed, not necessarily nuclear but at least gas or bioweapons. Look how the Houthis and Sunnis still held on in their respective wars after a decade of barrel bombing. At least unlike other protracted wars, Russia does clearly have the tools available to actually massacre an entire population, they're just choosing not to use them. And like those wars, the populations in eastern ukraine remain deeply opposed along ideological and ethnic grounds that preclude the kind of rapid collapse we saw in a country like afghanistan. Which is a good counter example, where the US war effort was only drummed up among the population by bribery and coercion, and as soon as the rug was pulled out the people had no reason to want to keep fighting, so they simply all laid down their arms and the war ended. That's clearly not going to happen in Ukraine at this point, not in regions which were already adamantly pro-EU prior to the euromaidan

You said it was on record. Just link the record.

We're talking about Ukraine (Crimea, Sevastopol, naval base) and the point is that Russia won't allow their naval base falling into the hands of NATO just like that. What would the US do if it were in Russia's position?

This is no longer a defensive military alliance, this is 100% aggression.




And WHY was there conflict in 2014, could it have something to do with the 2008 NATO Bucharest summit