You've got Zelensky negotiating from a position of power. — frank

Who would be setting the terms has not been made clear in the proposal. If it is in line with the view that Ukraine is merely a proxy for foreign powers, Zelensky will have little to do with the actual deal. If the Ukrainian government does have some agency, despite their reliance upon foreign support, the deal would probably be something worked out between them as an approach to the Russians.

Whatever influence the Ukrainians may have in a conclusion of hostilities, they will need the foreign powers to see that the Russians honor their side of it. The removal of sanctions will probably be based upon demonstrations of good faith.

The idea the Russians conceded territory for the sake of a bargaining position certainly does not fit with any notion of Ukrainian agency. The missile attacks upon civilian targets immediately after the retreat solidify the Ukrainian commitment to further war.

Fierce offensives by the Russians are underway. Something more than some of them being saved from destruction is needed to signal a willingness to negotiate.

But that would only be relevant if the deal were to stop Ukraine invading the 'new' Russia ie the deal involved the ceding of Ukrainian territory to Russia. — Isaac

It is relevant to any deal because the annexations make the terms of any compromise to be about how much territory Russia is willing to cede to Ukraine to stop the war. The present efforts by Ukraine to recover territory are, by the measure of Russian law, an invasion of the Federation, just as much as if that effort were directed toward Belgorod, Rostov-on-Don, or even Moscow. Any realistic negotiation will have to address this conflict between current Russian law and the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine.

Outside of that issue are the other oblasts the invasion has attempted to remodel. The Russians were unable to take Kiev or Odesa. The Ukrainian state was not accepted as a legitimate governance of any of the territory up to the western borders. Having gone this far resisting the Russians, it would be ridiculous for the Ukrainians to let this condition continue.

That is why any possible agreement has to start with recognizing a Ukraine that is something more than a tool of foreign powers. A place where Russia does not have the right to remodel the government to its liking.

Perhaps a cease fire is possible in the conditions you imagine. But if it would not resolve the conflict. It woulld not provide the foundation to unwind the sanctions or seek repatriation of deported people The offer, as you described it:

"We don't recognize your right to rule over Donbas, but we will withdraw our forces from there if you stop shelling us"

is so uncharacteristic of the way the Putin regime speaks that it is difficult for me to entertain the thought experiment.

I think it's Ukraine that want Russia to stop their flight. Ukraine are no threat to Russia right now, they're not invading Russia. — Isaac

Russia has annexed the oblasts of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Crimea. The Kremlin today: "This is Russian territory."

What physically stops that deal from being struck? — Isaac

Agreeing to a cease fire is far from negotiating an end to hostilities. It is like agreeing to exchange sets of prisoners or to not bomb grain ships. Brokers like Turkey and Saudi Arabia permit minimum contact between the enemies in such cases. That is hardly the stuff of mutual security guarantees.

My comment was not an attempt to establish a general right to sovereignty, applicable to all situations. The observation was to underscore a minimum concession from Russia that could possibly interest the Ukrainians from stopping their fight.

No one is saying that currently there's no such thing as the Ukrainian government and therefore nobody to negotiate with. They're saying that the current powers of that government ought to change. — Isaac

What Putin has said is the following:

Step by step, Ukraine was dragged into a dangerous geopolitical game aimed at turning Ukraine into a barrier between Europe and Russia, a springboard against Russia. Inevitably, there came a time when the concept of ”Ukraine is not Russia“ was no longer an option. There was a need for the ”anti-Russia“ concept which we will never accept.

The owners of this project took as a basis the old groundwork of the Polish-Austrian ideologists to create an ”anti-Moscow Russia“. And there is no need to deceive anyone that this is being done in the interests of the people of Ukraine. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth never needed Ukrainian culture, much less Cossack autonomy. In Austria-Hungary, historical Russian lands were mercilessly exploited and remained the poorest. The Nazis, abetted by collaborators from the OUN-UPA, did not need Ukraine, but a living space and slaves for Aryan overlords. — On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians, President Putin

From this perspective, the organization calling itself the government of Ukraine is not a nation protecting its interests but an instrument of foreign powers. The only parties to negotiate with are the foreign powers. Your idea that one could make a deal with a state but not recognize the people speaking for it is not possible in practice. I am not sure it is even an idea.

In any case, since the invasion of Ukraine was based upon this rationale put forward by Putin, how could any deal be made without specifically withdrawing the claim? Otherwise, the only deal possible would be between the "West" and Russia to partition the lands in dispute.

How much should Putin + team be allowed to get away with scot-free? — jorndoe

Seeing the distance between what people in this discussion think is happening, it seems like any possible talks would have to start with some very basic steps toward living in a shared reality. The Russians would have to explicitly acknowledge that Ukraine is an actual state with the right to protect its sovereignty. This is going to be difficult to admit after selling the war as a fight with NATO itself. Why would Ukraine accept establishing anything less than that as a minimum requirement?

Without that first step, agreeing to investigations of deportations, war crimes, the targeting of civilian populations and the financial liability for repairing destroyed things would be meaningless (in the pre-Beckett sense).

Now that Russia has officially annexed 5 oblasts, any territory deal will either have to be done by fiat as an arbitrary drawing of boundaries or a process of referendums to challenge the nice results given by the Russian authorities. The Ukrainians have been adamant about not considering the former and the Russians are not likely to agree to a referendum 'rematch'. It would require a sharp change of rhetoric.

Another possibility, as pointed out by ssu, is a freezing of the conflict, where neither side concedes anything, but the front lines don't really change. The liberation of Kherson makes that seem less likely. There are certainly many commentators who say that such a stalemate is where things are going despite that development.

If one takes your last question seriously, then it brings into question what you want to learn beyond what you wish to demonstrate.

I love all of the players but this video shows how it was all for naught without Howe:

This part is particularly chewy:

In the Westernized mind, Putin and Xi, Trump and Truss, Bolsonaro and Meloni, Orbán and Kaczyński are all the same, all ‘fascists’. With historical meaning restored to the uprooted individualized life in late-capitalist anomie, there is once more a chance to fight and even die for, if nothing else, then for the common ‘values’ of humanity – an opportunity for heroism that seemed forever lost in the narrow horizons and the hedged parochialism enshrined in the complex institutions of postwar and postcolonial Western Europe. What makes such idealism even more attractive is that the fighting and dying can be delegated to proxies, people today, soon perhaps algorithms.

Pretty fancy language if you are simply objecting to your neighbor stealing all your stuff and people.

Yes, there does appear to be a lot of performative art in the preparations. On the other hand, the trenches being dug near Belgorod are less likely to be employed than the one's in Crimea that are in the path of Ukraine's stated goal to take the territory back.

There has been a lot of discussion in the press about whether Ukraine can push forward in south Kherson to follow up the Russian retreat. This NYT piece gives an account of the different possibilities. The Ukrainians' proven ability to keep plans out of view adds to the opacity.

It doesn't seem the Russians are free to redeploy their forces further east because that would invite Ukraine to push directly toward Crimea.

I nominate Steps to an Ecology of Mind by Gregory Bateson for the job.

Much has changed in science since he wrote it. Nonetheless, it brought into focus the divides between models of consciousness currently being pursued.

I am concerned that even if Russia tried to start returning children, the process of reversing adoptions would be a bureaucratic nightmare. The reports of children being sent far east suggests an intention to make the abductions irreversible.

The collapse of Russian forces in Kherson has Ukraine posting the following:

Ukrainian intelligence agency tells remaining Russian soldiers in Kherson to surrender

If the Russians are actually crossing the Dniepr, they will be very vulnerable to shelling as they rally to the few places where it can be done. The Ukrainians may advance only as far as to make that easier to do. The west bank could turn into a huge prison colony.

When considering the possibility of a negotiated peace versus continuing the war, it seems to me that that the future of displaced persons takes precedence over security guarantees. Many Ukrainians live as refugees in Europe. Many others have been deported to Russia.

If Russia is to come forward as a serious participant in peace talks, the question of whether people will be allowed to return to where they used to live will be front and center.

The dim view you have of the Ukrainian government has no immediate bearing on their stated purpose to restore their territory. The issue is how far support from other nations will go to achieve this goal. That issue falls within the question Benkei raised. Clearly the support cannot continue at "any cost."

It is unlikely that your moral calculus will be used to figure out what the limits will be.

It is not clear who would be doing the appeasing in your description. Is it the man behind the curtain using Ukrainians to fight a proxy war or a choice Ukrainians are making for themselves?

The answer to who is calling the shots relates to how an end to the war can be negotiated.

I wasn't speaking generally of populations who support war. I was expanding on my comment that is germane in the present circumstances:

If the Ukrainians are found to employ anything like the disinformation regime used by Russia on their citizens or conduct the war as barbarously as they have, that would make your method weighing of the cost of surrender against the cost of resistance more reasonable. Such circumstances would also reduce the support Ukraine receives from other nations and increase the number of those who view the Ukraine government as an equivalent of the Diem regime in the Vietnam war. — Paine

How would it be a different decision if Ukraine were an autocratic dictatorship? They'd be in exactly the same position with regards to weighing territory loss against the cost of continued war. — Isaac

They would not have the same level of support that has allowed them to repulse the Russians as much as they have. The people fighting would not view the change of government as significant if the leadership was as brutal as the Russians. Both factors shape any kind of negotiated deal.

Where have I said that they don't represent the Ukrainian people? — Isaac

There's no such entity as 'the Ukrainians' to even ask. — Isaac

Russia claims Ukraine is being run by a dictatorship. They also say that Ukraine is an integral part of their nation. Any deal they make with the Ukraine government will have as much water under it that the previous ones have had.

If the Ukrainians are found to employ anything like the disinformation regime used by Russia on their citizens or conduct the war as barbarously as they have, that would make your method weighing of the cost of surrender against the cost of resistance more reasonable. Such circumstances would also reduce the support Ukraine receives from other nations and increase the number of those who view the Ukraine government as an equivalent of the Diem regime in the Vietnam war.

In this case, the existence of the state is directly tied to its legitimacy as an 'entity' of the Ukrainians.

A Ukrainian government exists which is capable of making unilateral decisions about Ukrainian military action and diplomatic agreements — Isaac

Yes, and the point I was making is that you and Russia don't consider it representative of the people who live there.

The Ukrainian government definitely exists, no one is denying it and there's no credible threat to their continued existence as a legislative body (despite the individuals therein being under personal threat) that would prevent them from making the decisions in question. — Isaac

Perhaps I should have underlined the word "Ukranian." You do not regard that government to be legitimate agents of those people or that they even exist. You say:

There's no such entity as 'the Ukrainians' to even ask. — Isaac

Whatever agreements made by that government would have to be accompanied by an acceptance by Russia that such a state exists. That is going to take far more than the grudging acceptance of Minsk II because invading the entire country put an end on Ukraine having sovereignty. It is absurd to think one could recognize a government but "fix" their leadership with "denazification."

You have to understand that basically Russia isn't really an imperialist nation trying to cling on to it's old colonies and conquered countries. — Isaac

Claiming this is the case is a form of denying the existence of the Ukranian state. When discussing Chechnya, you said this about their attempt at independence:

Is Russia entitled to any land at all? Or are we just going to say anything more than a shed outside Moscow is just rampant empire building? — Isaac

After adding up this subtraction of Ukranian identity to the views put forward by many here that the Ukranian state is merely a proxy for NATO powers, I resubmit the proposal that the thousands of comments on this thread mostly concern whether Ukraine is a nation represented by its present government.

Your bullet points of questions refer to a Ukrainian state. A generous portion of the 11,300 comments on this thread concern whether it exists or not. It is lost or found between the interests of Russian and other nations.

When you speak of choosing between lesser or greater evils, the experience of actual war has superseded the calculation of peace bought at the cost of oppression.

How would an accurate response to your set of speculative questions provide a possible way to end the conflict?

I agree with your account that Dugin is providing the back story for Putin's oft repeated theme of historical destiny. I would like to qualify this observation, however:

The references to culture wars, to Russia being very Christian and so on are just to try to lure the far right in the West. — ssu

It is true that Russia is not undergoing the culture wars in which ultranationalists of other nations participate. Putin has been adept at telling them what they want to hear. But getting the thumbs up from the Russian Orthodox Church that his is a just war is important. Things would be different if they even declined to comment. But they continue to bring balloons and pom-poms to the funeral.

Putin's speech does reflect Dugan's vision. As a challenge to world order, it is difficult to imagine how the clash of civilizations is supposed to work when Putin and his gang of oligarchs gain and maintain their wealth through participation in the despised 'unipolar' system. The Russian economy will collapse if separated from globalized markets and resources.

Efforts that recognize the difficulty of preserving traditional forms of life in the face of 'unipolar' economy call for the opposite of imperial schemes. They wish to establish 'communities of communities' to increase the agency of people to shape the world around them. The relative independence of communities is not something one will find in the Cheka playbook that Putin absorbed in his youth.

As for the argument that the 'loss of universals' is what is destroying the idea of human nature, it is funny to have Heidegger be the champion for that cause. As Strauss pointed out in Natural Rights and History, deconstruction through historicism is what undermined the view of humans as having their own nature. And whatever else Heidegger may have been, he was an historicist of philosophy itself.

You don't know what methods were used. There was an attempt to canvass the eastern oblasts. I figure that has to be very difficult to do in the state of war with so many refugees and deported people. I am interested in how many supporters of the 2014 invasion still support the Russian state after they have gotten a taste of their love.

But I didn't bring up the poll to argue for a proper resolution of the conflict but to point out that there are enough self-identified Ukrainians around to undermine your claim:

There's no such entity as 'the Ukrainians' to even ask. — Isaac

I use "they" in the hope they are reporting what they think in polls such as these.

I imagine you will dismiss it as fake news. But it is by means of gathering reports in some way that we will learn the answer.

They are loudly telling themselves. The question of those who don't see it that way is a reasonable one. But that issue is different from you stating without qualification:

There's no such entity as 'the Ukrainians' to even ask. — Isaac

If the Ukrainians don't exist, you need to get out there and tell them. They have not received your testimony.

If Nationalism is bullshit, what is the principle supporting this claim:

Is Russia entitled to any land at all? Or are we just going to say anything more than a shed outside Moscow is just rampant empire building? — Isaac

Why 'imperial' retention. Are the UK 'imperialistically' retaining Northern Ireland?
Are Spain 'imperialistically' retaining Catalonia? — Isaac

It would not be a redefinition of language to note an important difference between your examples and a "retention" involving the Massacre of Civilians in order to preserve this "entitlement."

Should the Ukrainians be consulted over whether Russia is entitled to their lands?

Oh, and do you even reslise how absurd it is to include Chechnya in your list of evidences of imperialist expansion? — Isaac

It would be more accurate to call it a case of imperial retention as the independence movement came from the slow recovery from when "The Stalinist regime fallaciously accused the Chechens (and the Ingush) of massive collaboration with the German invaders, and then deported them en masse on February 23, 1944."

This might be why some people get nervous when Putin starts calling them Nazis.

Forgive me if I don't take that as a response to my observations regarding the role of "identity."

That is a very interesting development. While being pissed off by the U.S. could be a powerful motive, I wonder how much the rise of the Salafist parties played a part in these troops resisting the Taliban. That struggle played a major part in the Chechen wars.

If this group went full Merc, that sort of thing won't matter. Pretty nihilistic, after all that has happened.

Arguments based upon authority are the weakest kind.

Since you have no independent view of the matter, what would Mearsheimer accept as evidence of intent?

Organisms are not completely determined through their genetic makeup but have different life experiences due to the particular environment in which they emerge. For humans, that environment includes forms of living together that produce language, shared values, and instruments to sustain life through work. While the genetic code may mark out the limits of what is possible in life, it does not include all that is happening. I agree that life would be stupid if it did.

Identity is clearly a development of the environment of humans living together and its methods of continuing skills from generation to generation. We don't know very much about how these behaviors relate to Life as the activity exhibited by all organisms. But the importance of upbringing and education in the outcome of every individual is there for everyone to see and has been for time out of mind. When Le Rochefoucauld observed that "education is a second amour propre", it was an acceptance of our behavior as "natural", not an attempt to establish a separate domain. When one gets to the viewpoint of Vygotsky, the unique experience of the individual emerges directly from surviving the human environment as one of the conditions of life.

Regarding the extent genetics predetermine outcomes, it should be noted that there is an emerging science of Epigenetics that shows how environmental factors can alter what is expressed through DNA. The realm of Ecology, as the collision of the many elements of Life, is getting more complicated, not less.

That is a fair challenge after you give some kind of reading of Hegel that could serve as a point of departure. So far, there is no way of knowing what you think Hegel said.

What do you understand Hegel to be saying to be so confident in your dismissal?

Developmental psychology.
Game Theory.
Models of urban planning.

All built on the view of process as an interaction of conflicting goals.

Okay, it looks like Russia has gone too far to jump start a Minsk III. The annexations also make an armistice line an unlikely option because Ukraine would view that as a de facto relinquishing of territory. Russia's destruction of civilian infrastructure deepens the motivation to keep the structure of sanctions after any kind of cease fire.

The idea of a U.N. referendum is interesting. It seems like that would require restoration of occupancy by refugees who headed west and the return of those deported east.

It's not looking good for Humpty Dumpty.

The arguments over who caused what is interesting but which part of the truth of that relates to a future of possible agreements?

Whatever was possible at the beginning of the invasion is not available now. If the Russians had any kind of discipline in their rules of engagement, they could have established a language of limited goals that could lead to negotiations. Threatening to kill people is all they have talked about so far. Which agreement or disagreement from the past can serve as a template for progress in the situation? That is not a rhetorical question. On the other hand, nothing discussed here has yet to approach it.

The response by the Ukrainians to the invasion was not expected by many. Their continued existence makes future negotiations not as simple as some kind of Partition of Poland, as advocated for by some. Nobody involved will be allowed to return to some glorious past.