Quote (ferdia @ 14 Feb 2024 10:22)
IMO Russia is shelling cities across Ukraine because Ukraine refuses to come to the table, so what looks to be happening is that Russia is trying to beat them down into submission. If the Reuters report is true (and I would tend to believe it) the US administration is ensuring there will be no peace. If Russia is repeatedly saying lets negotiate and the USA and Ukraine are repeatedly saying no, well after a while I think more and more people will believe thats the actual situation. Even in my country when someone says lets negotiate the response from the government is "now is not the time to negotiate". So your argument that Russia is not seeking to negotiate does not jive with all the comments being made.
Anyway, the war continues...
If Russia had the ability to beat Ukraine into submission, they could just continue to do that until Ukraine surrenders unconditionally and Russia gets nearly everything - so in that scenario, they would have very little incentive to negotiate a (from their pov) lesser peace right now. The only thing they would gain from a ceasefire in that scenario is saving the lives of some of their footsoldiers - but even the biggest Russia shills will readily admit that their leadership doesn't give a single fuck about how many grunts they have to send to the slaughter.
Quote (ferdia @ 14 Feb 2024 12:39)
a snippet from that link
“Redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision. Russia leaves if that is will of the people,” Mr Musk said. “Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake). Water supply to Crimea assured. Ukraine remains neutral. This is highly likely to be the outcome in the end – just a question of how many die before then.
As I've said before, the bolded part is criticial: what does "Ukraine remains neutral" actually entail? No NATO membership and no NATO bases on Ukrainian soil is surely a condition sine qua non for Russia.
But would a peace treaty allow Ukraine to join the EU? If the Russians don't want to allow that, I don't see a way for Ukraine to sign off on the deal. But then again, this whole conflict began when the Ukrainian parliament wanted to sign an association agreement with the EU and president Yanukovych, Moscow's puppet in Kyiv, vetoed it at the 11th hour.