I didn't argue that Russia's sole or even primary interest in Ukraine is economic. I argue that their interest is driven by economic, political and military considerations, in rooouughly equal proportion. You, on the other hand, seem to argue that the military side (keeping the home base of their Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, preventing NATO from encroaching on their doorstep) is far and away their primary motivation. And that explanation leads to a host of contradictions which we've already discussed ad nauseam.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Dec 1 2024 03:25pm

ye ok, we dont need to dwell on this. I am happy to leave that aside noting, as you said, this has been repeatedly discussed. its not hard for me to agree that Russian interests are driven by, as you said, economic, political and military considerations.

This post was edited by ferdia on Dec 1 2024 03:31pm

Headline: "Ukraine must find diplomatic solutions to retake occupied territory, Zelenskyy says"

oh wow, what a surprise, having to sit at the table with someone you dont like. its almost as if he is a politician / diplomat now.

This post was edited by ferdia on Dec 2 2024 05:50am

The nuance is to retake the occupied territory in a diplomatic way like "Putin. could you please eff off with your troops?" And he happily accepts of course.

This post was edited by babun1024 on Dec 2 2024 07:00am

Yeah, at this point, it's just not gonna happen. Same story with this recent phrasing about "temporarily giving up territory": this is just a transparently deceptive framing with which the decision-makers on the Ukrainian side try to sell the bitter pill to their own people while saving face/without getting lynched. The territory Russia currently controls is gone and not coming back, and acknowledging this reality is the absolute minimum Ukraine will have to make in terms of concessions.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Dec 2 2024 08:53am

It was inevitable. I mean I am not going to complain when he is making *reasonable moves. That is counter productive.

*reasonable, in my opinion, suggesting that a diplomatic solution was ever the only solution, while accepting western hawks do not understand this concept of negotiation and repeatedly sank all attempts at negotiation.

This post was edited by ferdia on Dec 2 2024 11:37am

You refuse to acknowledge how Russia work: if you start negotiating and giving them things, they keep asking for more and more.
They break every deal.
You might buy a year or maybe even 3 years by negotiating, but thats it, you just feed the beast, the beast gets free food and the beast grows bigger.
Sometimes you gotta kill the beast while its still small, even if you might fail.
Still better die fighting, than die being tortured and massacred in some kind of Bucha. This is what Ukrainians understand. Or at least used to, before many patriots were killed by Russia.
In Poland during the ww2 the jews they knew they were doomed, but still made an uprising.
Just because they prefered to die fighting, and maybe kill some nazi if they are lucky.

Some pretty terrible comparisons. Millions of Ukrainians are living in or have moved from Ukraine directly to Russia or Russian held territories. In contrast Jews living in Poland were doomed because the Polish collaborators literally hunted and snitched on their Jew neighbors on behalf of the Nazis. Warsaw was close to 1/3 Jewish, many very affluent, and after the war almost none remained, with all of the land, houses, possessions, ending up in hands of ethnic Poles after the war.

Millions of Ukrainians made the choice not to fight but to leave the country whether to Europe or Russia. To compare that to the fate the Germans and their local collaborators gave to the Jews is nonsensical.

Poland and Ukraine have the same view as Boris Johnson and see him as some sort of savior. I have already outlined, based on facts, how he is a pathological liar. If Ukraine is happy for his "aid" in ensuring that there is no peace with Russia, well they can sleep in that bed forever. By a lot of accounts Putin is a logical person, he subscribes to tit for tat and yet we are led to be believe by hawks that in the twilight of his reign he suddenly woke up and decided to be a monster. That narrative quickly evaporates when we consider:

Russia invaded Georgia after Georgia instigated a conflict with the break away South Ossetia. Ye and the US are busy wrecking Georgia and Georgia are going to be in Deep DooDoo within the next few years Ukraine 2.0 here we come.
Russia invaded Ukraine after Ukraine spent 8 years bombing its own people in eastern Ukraine.

Zelensky was voted into office with 3 mandates, one of which was a pledge to mend ties with Russia. However, It was Zelensky that torpedoed the Minsk agreement and with his actions along with those of the US at the time, this contributed to the heightened tensions which led to Russia invading Ukraine. Meanwhile Russia and China had over 1000 border / territorial disputes. through DIPLOMACY and NEGOTIATION they now have ZERO active territorial disputes left. That was actively resolved by Russia and China.

amazing what a bit of DIPLOMACY and NEGOTIATION can do, when it is a fact that these are two vastly different cultures. So TLDR: the idea that Russia is a savage dog is departed from reality. They subscribe to tit for tat. you dont bother them, they dont bother you.

This post was edited by ferdia on Dec 2 2024 06:19pm

Isn't it better for Ukrainians to just flee West, like every single Ukrainian with money did? The only stayniks are the ones who are forced to stay because they have no means to leave