You claim that I 'rewrite history' and then proceed to quote two sources that confirm exactly what I wrote. Are you surprised that I question your reading comprehension? — Jabberwock

And yes, you are simply rewriting history.

What is the actual context:

During the 2010 presidential election campaign, Party of Regions leader and candidate Viktor Yanukovych stated that the current level of Ukraine's cooperation with NATO was sufficient and that the question of the country's accession to the alliance was therefore not urgent.[69][70] Yanukovych's victory in the election marked a turnaround in Ukraine's relations with NATO. On 14 February 2010, Yanukovych said that Ukraine's relations with NATO were currently "well-defined", and that there was "no question of Ukraine joining NATO." He said the issue of Ukrainian membership of NATO might "emerge at some point, but we will not see it in the immediate future."[citation needed] On 1 March 2010, during his visit to Brussels, Yanukovych said that there would be no change to Ukraine's status as a member of the alliance's outreach program.[71] He later reiterated during a trip to Moscow that Ukraine would remain a "European, non-aligned state."[72][73]

As of May 2010, NATO and Ukraine continued to cooperate in the framework of the Annual National Program,[74] including joint exercises.[75] According to Ukraine the continuation of Ukraine-NATO cooperation does not exclude the development of a strategic partnership with Russia.[76]

On 27 May 2010 Yanukovych stated that he considered Ukraine's relations with NATO as a partnership, "And Ukraine can't live without this [partnership], because Ukraine is a large country."[77]

On 3 June 2010 the Ukrainian parliament passed a bill proposed by the President that excluded the goal of "integration into Euro-Atlantic security and NATO membership" from the country's national security strategy.[78] The law precluded Ukraine's membership of any military bloc, but allowed for co-operation with alliances such as NATO. — Ukraine–NATO relations - Wikipedia

Which, as you may again note if have that reading comprehension you covet, is not neutrality, but a compromise position of keeping the status quo. Which, as you note, the status quo did not cause Russia to invade, or even make serious threats such as amassing troops on the border.

The status quo changes when the legally elected president who represents the above compromise position is illegally removed in a coup, by anti-Russian forces explicitly backed by Nuland and the CIA.

For those interested in actual reality:

NATO in 2008:

NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO. Both nations have made valuable contributions to Alliance operations. We welcome the democratic reforms in Ukraine and Georgia and look forward to free and fair parliamentary elections in Georgia in May. MAP is the next step for Ukraine and Georgia on their direct way to membership. Today we make clear that we support these countries’ applications for MAP. Therefore we will now begin a period of intensive engagement with both at a high political level to address the questions still outstanding pertaining to their MAP applications. We have asked Foreign Ministers to make a first assessment of progress at their December 2008 meeting. Foreign Ministers have the authority to decide on the MAP applications of Ukraine and Georgia. — NATO's own website, 03 Apr. 2008

Then, to avoid being invaded right away, as NATO notes:

From 2010 to 2014, Ukraine pursued a non-alignment policy — NATO's own website

There's then a coup in 2014, and Russia annexes Ukraine and separatists in Donbas try to separate following this coup.

One party here, the "war party" as implied by @ssu, would have us believe that Ukraine's status as a neutral country is totally clear 2010-2014.

The reality is that this issue of neutrality or then trying to join NATO or then wanting better ties with Russia (for example to avoid being invaded and destroyed), is extremely controversial in Ukrainian society. There are large groups of people on each side of this policy issue.

Russia does not annex any territory nor invade the time this discussion within Ukraine takes place.

Ukrainians legally elect someone who is a compromiser with Russia, perhaps because a majority of the Ukrainian people understood at the time, as they have been made to understand all too clearly since, that antagonizing Russia by trying to join NATO does not benefit Ukraine and will cause exactly the war that the point of joining NATO would be to avoid.

The "will of the people" on this point is completely irrelevant to the "pro-democracy" NATO proponents: when the coup is "pro-West" then the will of the people is whatever the West says it is; elections certainly don't matter ... and yet the very same people will accuse Trump rioters in Washington of sedition?!?!?

Now, once the side that is literally backed by the CIA and the US is literally choosing who will lead Ukraine, then Russia annexes Crimea.

And people here would have us believe that the annexation of Crimea has nothing to do with the illegal replacement of the Ukrainian government by the CIA, that it was basking in it's "non-aligned status", happy as a clam, coup's having nothing to do with it and the annexation of Crimea was totally unexpected and everyone was all just Pikachu faced about it.

What the evidence actually supports is that Russia waits for a significant period of time for Ukraine to resolve its status as a neutral country or not.

↪boethiusI have specifically stated that Ukraine has been neutral at the time of Crimea annexation. ssu has acknowledged that by repeating your own quote that the policy has been TERMINATED. That specific word means it has ended, was finished, it was no more. How from that you have concluded that ssu (or me) claim that Ukraine has been 'neutral the whole time', only you can know. — Jabberwock

First, you explain yourself that Ukraine and NATO are holding talks, going towards NATO membership:

NATO

True, it has been previously vaguely promised NATO membership, but at the same time it was excluded from the membership action plan, which was the necessary condition for accession. It was supposed to be 'reviewed' in December 2008, but it never was. — Jabberwock

Which does not satisfy the criteria of a neutral country.

Your argument that Ukraine was neutral in 2014 is basically explaining that it wasn't neutral but was "vaguely promised" to join NATO and then some bureaucratic hangups: tada! neutrality!!

Now, the point of "termination" of non-alignment is simply to establish that obviously Ukraine is not neutral in 2022.

We were discussing what Zelensky could do to avoid the invasion in 2022.

Obviously Ukraine has no commitment to neutrality in 2022 whatsoever, literally has joining NATO in its constitution, and my point is committing to neutrality may have avoided the war.

More importantly, as Ukraine had and has no allies, committing to neutrality costs Ukraine nothing.

But let me get this straight, your counter argument is that the war was guaranteed and committing to neutrality would have changed nothing (in 2022, or anytime before) ... because Russia annexed Crimea after an illegal coup by CIA backed forces?

My argument is that declaring neutrality would make the Russian invasion far more costly diplomatically.

The reason the annexation of Crimea (as you note, there's no fighting or invasion as Russian forces are already there) was not difficult diplomatically is because Russia has a giant military base there so partners such as China and India understood the reasons for it.

I.e. neutrality would have real leverage in the real world and significantly increase the diplomatic cost to Russia of an invasion while removing the critical justification (even to the domestic audience) for it.

While hanging on to "we might join NATO someday" is literally zero leverage because NATO isn't going to let Ukraine join anyways.

However, are you really arguing that an illegal coup backed by the CIA is non-alignment, as well as the relationship between Ukraine and NATO prior to 2014 would satisfy the definition of a neutral country as per Wikipedia? (i.e. that Ukraine in 2014 was neutral just like Ireland and Costa-Rica and non-neutrality of Ukraine is just in Russia's head?).

We can discuss this if you want.

What the records actually shows is that insofar as Ukraine had leaders willing to navigate the situation Ukraine is actually in with some common sense, Russia did not invade as the cost of an invasion was far higher than moving forward diplomatically.

You get rid of the compromiser (who was elected legally) and replace the legal president with Nuland's "our man" and obviously Ukraine is no longer neutral in any way (not even some "formal" way) nor striving for neutrality (being taken over by people, that at least the CIA implies, work for the CIA) and you get the annexation of Crimea and the civil war in the Donbas.

As anyone would expect is extremely likely to happen, just as this much larger war is extremely likely to happen if Ukraine continues on it's delusional path towards NATO.

Yes. As the quote you made yourself says: "Ukraine pursued a non-alignment policy, which it terminated in response to Russia’s aggression."

Do you understand what 'in response' means? No?

People in a philosophy forum ought to understand cause and effect. — ssu

This is the point in question:

It should be noted that at the time of annexation of Crimea Ukraine had neutrality clause in its constitution, and the reason given was that the new government might some day allow Western forces to station in Ukraine. Thus the claim that Russia might be satisfied with any 'formal neutrality' is obviously false. — Jabberwock

Disputing my point that Ukraine is obviously not "neutral", but rather Aha!! Ukraine had a "neutrality clause in its constitution"!! and has been neutral the whole time, the Russians have been just delirious as to the political position of Ukraine and invaded a neutral country! OMG hold the presses!!!

A point you then assent to by stating:

Indeed. Formal neutrality hasn't left Moldova safe from Russia's interventions either. — ssu

"Indeed" being an approbation of the referenced points n this context.

Not only is Ukraine not neutral, but I provide further clarification of what neutral means (that anyone of good faith willing to accuse others of lacking "reading comprehension" can easily go read and educate themselves on what "neutrality" obviously means in international relations) with the Wikipedia article that is literally called "neutral country" and I even list the "neutral countries" according to this definition I am Using, but if you were still confused why "Ukraine" doesn't appear on that list, you could easily go to the article and use the power of "reading comprehension" to read it and see that is literally starts with a definition of neutral "country":

A neutral country is a state that is neutral towards belligerents in a specific war or holds itself as permanently neutral in all future conflicts (including avoiding entering into military alliances such as NATO, CSTO or the SCO). —

To which, if you can apply that reading comprehension you covet so much, the definition of "neutral country" on the Wikipedia page literally tilted "neutral country" explicitly clarifies neutrality to be a "permanent" commitment and explicitly lists NATO as an alliance a neutral country would be committing to avoid joining.

Obviously if you declare your intention to join a military alliance and that military alliance not only creates all sorts of military partnerships and support but also reciprocates and publicly declares they'll let you in oh ... some day, that is not neutral.

If "neutrality" language is left in law or the constitution it is clearly irrelevant.

To support my point that Ukraine is obviously not neutral I cite NATO's own webpage.

You then manage to obliviate yourself about what we're even talking about, what the point of contention is, what you previously cheered on as brilliant argumentation, and you then manage to respond that essentially: of course Ukraine isn't Neutral, Russia is annexed Crimea dumb dumb!!!

Let's "read" it again shall we:

Yes. As the quote you made yourself says: "Ukraine pursued a policy, which it terminated in response to Russia’s aggression."

Do you understand what 'in response' means? No?

People in a philosophy forum ought to understand cause and effect. — ssu

You literally go in 2 comments from approving of the idea Ukraine is neutral, and has been neutral this whole time, to just repeating my claim:

Russia's demands was a commitment to neutrality, obviously stronger than NATO literally explaining on their own website that Ukraine abandoned non-alignment and passing laws to make NATO membership a strategic foreign policy objective. — boethius

What do you even perceive yourself to be doing?

Even putting aside your just ignoring the previous discussion, Do (or did) you genuinely believe that I'm claiming Ukraine "abandoned non-alignment" for fun? Or because Zimbabwe might invade at any moment?

Obviously Ukraine wants to be in NATO for protection and deterrence towards Russia.

The problem, as you may have noticed, is that Ukraine isn't in NATO and the process of trying to get into NATO for protection from a war may (and obviously will in this case) cause exactly the war you are trying to avoid.

Joining NATO is at best a gambit with some odds of success, a gambit that has clearly failed (just odds are basically zero, so it's not a gambit but rather defiantly asking to be invaded which is what has happened).

If you want to argue that gambit was a good one, just so happens caused the war it was meant to prevent, go ahead.

If you want to argue that countries should pursue "what they want" in the name of "rights and freedom" even if it will very likely cause the mass trauma, depopulation, economic destruction, and hundreds of thousands of KIA and permanently wounded: feel free to explain this subtle political art that justifies such a course of action.

The only way out of the war for Ukraine before the war and since the war started and now, was and is diplomacy.

Putting in your constitution your goal is to join NATO is simply taunting Russia to invade for no benefit: as probability of NATO letting Ukraine in before the war is exactly the closest value you can get to zero and still be able to perform statistical calculations of some kind in a world ruled by quantum mechanics.

It should be noted that at the time of annexation of Crimea Ukraine had neutrality clause in its constitution, and the reason given was that the new government might some day allow Western forces to station in Ukraine. Thus the claim that Russia might be satisfied with any 'formal neutrality' is obviously false. — Jabberwock

And , and others.

You guys have come to a point of really pure insanity.

Ukraine literally put the intention to join NATO in their constitution, basically declared that as their national mission and NATO reciprocated the fantasy by making partnerships of various kinds and explicitly saying Ukraine would join NATO one day (just left the fine print out that "some day", if it ever comes, is long, long, long after the day it would have been useful to Ukraine to be in NATO).

You can read about the above directly on NATO's website:

From 2010 to 2014, Ukraine pursued a non-alignment policy, which it terminated in response to Russia’s aggression. In June 2017, the Ukrainian Parliament adopted legislation reinstating membership in NATO as a strategic foreign and security policy objective. In 2019, a corresponding amendment to Ukraine's Constitution entered into force. — NATO's official website

The above is obviously not a commitment to neutrality.

If Ukraine remained technically neutral, it's only because it has no allies.

Russia's demands was a commitment to neutrality, obviously stronger than NATO literally explaining on their own website that Ukraine abandoned non-alignment and passed laws to make NATO membership a strategic foreign policy objective.

You guys are literally rewriting history on the fly.

It's truly incredible.

I don't have time today to deal with the rest of the nonsense, but don't worry your pretty little heads, I'll find time in the coming days.

However, you guys should really contemplate what brings you to needing to believe Ukraine was a neutral country all along a la Costa Rica.

Right. And this is why it's so useful to discuss with you. — Echarmion

Oh, and definitely History will remember Zelensky as a stupid crazy person if it turns out it was obviously incredibly foolish to promise a total defeat of Russian forces on all previously help Ukrainian territory and he got hundreds of thousands of his comrades killed in this stupid and crazy pursuit.

But sure, maybe Zelensky is a military genius and is about to deliver victory across the entire front, and casualties have been like super low as Zelensky claims.

However, if Zelensky loses, it will also clearly become even stupider and even crazier the act of publicly making these promises as well as ultimatums to even restart negotiations that, as you point out, only make negotiations far harder (which Zelensky, and moreover Ukraine, would certainly need if they are unable to simply win on the battlefield).

Zelensky has zero political or military experience. He was able to pretend things were going well for a time, but it may turn out to be both stupid and crazy to make decisions based on what you're able to pretend is true rather than trying to see what is actually true.

But this is contradictory, because the cost is right there - if Ukraine is neutral it has much less protection against any future aggression. — Echarmion

This is not contradictory in anyway.

What is contradictory is to fight a war at a significant disadvantage on some principle to join an alliance that would offer protection from said war.

You seem to just want Ukraine to be in a better position than it is, rather than the reality that Ukraine is in a far weaker position vis-a-vis Russia and no way to remedy that without the war in question (no way to sneak into NATO as NATO doesn't want Ukraine in NATO, but rather NATO, at least the US, wants Ukraine to antagonize Russia and then create a "structure" where Ukraine fights Russia to the last Ukrainian).

Ukraine is a de facto neutral country, with zero allies that comes to its aid when Ukraine is invaded, therefore it is of zero benefit to Ukraine to not offer neutrality in exchange for peace.

If Russia accepted it (of course in the context of peace agreement that addressed plenty of other issues as well) maybe Ukraine would have avoided the war from starting or then ended it in the first phase and avoided significant pain, suffering and lost lives.

If Russia rejects it, or then makes other demands that aren't reasonable (from the point of view of being able to very likely win in a war against Ukraine) ... well you have the same war as you have now!! Just that Russia would be in a far weaker position diplomatically in attacking a country that professes it is willing to be neutral.

Insofar as Ukraine refuses to commit to neutrality, other large countries see that if they don't support Russia then they could be next with a similar kind of conflict; therefore, it's in their interest to help Russia win in order for NATO to be extremely hesitant to try to arrange a similar proxy war.

If Ukraine "bent the knee" and committed to neutrality, it would be far harder for Russia to make the case to its partners that the war is justified.

That is unless you think that for Russia, "neutrality" would mean simply that Ukraine is not officially in NATO but can otherwise get as much western military support as it wants. — Echarmion

Obviously Russia would not accept that.

As Blinken explained in public long before the war, if to do what you say and arm Ukraine to the point of having a credible deterrent to Russia, then Russia will simply match that capacity and if you continue Russia will invade before the situation got out of hand (from their point of view) which is exactly what has happened.

There is simply no way to arm and train Ukraine until it can credibly fight a war with Russia without causing said war with Russia.

You may not like it, you may feel Russia is doing something "illegal" (that we can't do anything about in the system of international law), you may feel Russia would not have valid reason to view Ukraine as a security threat, and certainly that Russia's invasion would be immoral in any case, but what you can know for sure is that a process to arm and train Ukraine to compete militarily with Russia will result in a Russian invasion to put a stop to that process.

Now, with incredible levels of support (financing the entire Ukrainian army, government and subsidizing a large part of the economy) you can keep Ukraine on life-support to fight a long war with Russia. You can, and people have, argued that's good for the West: a nice "structure" of having Ukraine fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. You can argue that's a moral and wise political thing to do; I disagree on both points.

Therefore, the only way for Ukraine to have avoided this war and the only way out of it since it started is through a negotiated settlement and offering concessions such as neutrality.

If you think the situation isn't fair for Ukraine: see Captain Jack Sparrow cited above.

If you think international law isn't working correctly ... well, they're more like guidelines ... than actual rules.

And you think that somehow this is an acceptable arrangement for Russia, that Russia would start a war over nothing but a formality? — Echarmion

Yes, this is a huge factor.

Had Ukraine formally declared neutrality, it would be a "diplomatic win" for Russia, certainly still plenty of issues that would need to be resolved, but it would be a huge diplomatic cost to immediately invade a country that just declared neutrality. I would agree if negotiations did not succeed then Russia would invade anyways, but it is a huge disincentive to invade a neutral country. There are plenty of neutral countries that larger countries could easily invade (some have no army at all), it doesn't happen because it would be a massive diplomatic cost, the neutral country presents no threats (no significant military of their own and no alliances or any reason alliances would even happen) so it is easier to do business than invade.

Ukraine could have easily sought a similar path that has worked fine for plenty of other neutral countries.

If you go to wikipedia there is a list of neutral countries:

List of countries proclaiming to be neutral:

Andorra, Austria, Costa Rica, Ghana, Haiti, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Panama, Rwanda, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkmenistan, Turkmenistan, Vatican City — Neutral country

So, you can believe such a similar strategy for Ukraine to remain sovereign would not work, but it clearly has worked for other countries and is a viable strategy. Proclaiming neutrality creates a large diplomatic cost to an invading army and also significantly lowers any "national security paranoia" if you are indeed not a threat to anyone, that may otherwise lead to an invasion.

In the case of Ukraine, what is clear is that the attempt to not-be-neutral would with near certainty result in the present war, and the strategy of fighting a war from a weaker position so as to avoid fighting a war in the future makes no sense.

Im talking about the right to self-determination as understood in internation al law.

This one. Not an abstract notion of freedom. — Echarmion

Sure, I specifically point out that it's not surprising nations create an international law in which only nations have right to self determination.

However, that is not a good argument to support the idea that all separatists movements do not have just cause as they don't have a "right to self determination" under international law. You'd need to argue how that even makes sense considering many of the nations concerned are the result of separatist movements they claim were just. Certainly it's not a some moral universal position.

But if you want a strictly legal view of things: coup of 2014 was illegal, therefore Ukrainian government since is illegitimate. What does the West say about the coup? Illegal but justified as "Ukrainians" wanted it, so is claimed; but even if true, a poll at some random point in time is not a legal process (that's what makes elections different than any poll).

That's all quite wrong.

The UN-Charta rules out violence in international relations generally, in Art 2 section 3 and 4. The security council has some specific and far reaching powers (theoretically at least), but it is not the authoritative body on how to interpret international law. Nor does it need to declare something an attack in order for it to be one, as among other things Art. 51 of the UN-Charta makes clear. And of course there is an entire body of international law part from the UNC. — Echarmion

Go on, please explain how you interpret international law without the security council and how that would mean anything. You're saying Israel left the West Bank decades ago?

That is not my claim, nor does your demand make any sense in context.

But anyways here is Igor Girkin telling us about his role in the invasion of Crimea, so Girkin is in Crimea from February 21.

On April 12, the Slovianks Police HQ is taken, apparently by a well organised "independent group". Later interviews from Girkin make clear that he was the leader of that independent group 1, 2, 3.

Two weeks later, Girkin is acclaimed the leader of all separatist forces in Donetsk, and in May declares himself supreme commander of the DPR.

Was there anything more specific you wanted to know? — Echarmion

You say it was all this Girkin and Russian mercenaries, and there was no popular support.

Does putting "independent group" in quotes meant to establish this was only Russian mercenaries with zero popular support?

It could. But the russian military started shelling them and send regular army formations across the border to support the "separatists", at which point it became a stalemate as Ukraine wasn't at that point able to push into russian artillery and army formations. — Echarmion

Well we've resolved which army is hopeless incompetent if they let this chance just slip through their fingers without even trying.

Girrrrkkkkiiiinnn!!!!!!!

That military defeats might force russia to accept a peace more facourable to Ukraine is an entirely different argument from the one that russia always intended to offer such conditions. — Echarmion

The demands were clearly offered before the invasion, neutrality being the main one and the easiest one to accept (as Ukraine is de facto neutral).

It's entirely possible Russia would have fought anyways to the conclusion of the battle of Kiev or then to the battle of Kharkiv and Kherson or fought anyways until now.

We can't evaluate what exactly Russia would have accepted at any given point to avoid going to war or resolving it once it started. We can evaluate what seems to be the main issues for Russia and what would seem a rational course of action but you can always claim Russia was "pretending" to negotiate.

What we can evaluate is the leverage of the different parties. If Ukraine is losing the war then clearly its leverage was higher in the past and now is much lower and will be lowest if it fights to a collapse of its forces entirely.

We can also evaluate that some concessions Ukraine can make cost nothing. Declaring neutrality costs nothing because Ukraine is already a neutral country with only itself to rely on, and accepting Russia has Crimea and Ukraine can't physically take it back likewise would cost nothing since Ukraine does not have Crimea. With respect to these things Ukraine doesn't have (actual allies, Crimea) we can also evaluate that the diplomatic cost would be incredibly higher for Russia's invasion if Ukraine "gave Russia what it wanted" on these two points, and since Ukraine doesn't have either its position to fight a war is unaffected.

Indeed, maybe Ukraine would have gotten the heavy weapons and air power needed to actually win a conventional war right from the start if Russia violated the "rules based order" even harder by invading a proclaimed neutral country. Certainly sympathy for Ukraine would be far higher if it had neutral status when invaded, rather trying to join a alliance that creates regularly reports, sometimes hundreds of pages long, on how Russia can be damaged in various ways, "extended" for example.

Zelensky is also a stupid crazy person because he does not push NATO into committing better weapons in exchange for repudiating negotiations (which was clearly the deal).

Zelensky does not understand that offensive actions will be impossible (as I explained at length at the time) without armour and air power, two obvious points that Zelensky and his generals have understood far too long into the conflict.

Had Zelensky understood this sooner, he would have seen that NATO was not in fact offering "what it takes" and so either would have pressed for heavy armour in order to commit to reconquer the occupied territories, or then would have made peace with the Russians.

As I discussed in detail at the time, it was likely very possible for Ukraine to at least cut the land-bridge in the first phase of the war if they received more advanced weapons for offensive maneuvers. The "ok, ok, you can have some" sequence of weapons systems was clearly "calibrated" (to use RAND's language) to ensure Ukraine not make any significant gainse that may "provoke" the Russians too much by winning.

I don't think NATO had just cause in bombing Syria, and I think humanitarian interventions in general are highly questionable. — Echarmion

Well then we agree there.

And certainly strengthens your position if you also condemn "when NATO does it".

This just seems a bizzare and obviously false claim. I can remember no-one making such assumptions. — Echarmion

Really?? Bizarre??

Took me literally five seconds to find:

An Off-Ramp for Putin Is Repugnant But Necessary

Russia’s defeats on the battlefield create an opening to bring the war to a close without risking catastrophe. — Bloomberg, September 22, 2022

This was the conversation in the Western media at the time. Russia was experiencing defeats and therefore could be pressured into a peace favourable to Ukraine ... though of course needing some compromise so that Russia accepts.

The article literally starts with the obvious reason to seek a peace:

From the outset of Russia’s war on Ukraine, the crucial question hasn’t changed: Can Vladimir Putin be defeated at an acceptable cost? Despite all we now know about Russia’s military incompetence and the courage and skill of Ukraine’s forces, the answer is still uncertain. — Bloomberg, September 22, 2022

This was the discussion at the time, and given the "Russia’s military incompetence and the courage and skill of Ukraine’s forces" there wasn't much debate about whether Putin would accept a reasonable offramp. The questions of this debate was what offramp would still be adequate punishment for Putin and whether to offer an offramp at all given "the courage and skill of Ukraine’s forces" could simply deliver glorious victory instead of compromise.

We'll know when either side has lost. For now Ukraine holds a good deal more territory than it did at the time. — Echarmion

This debatable, considering Russia did not really occupy any major urban centres in the North.

However, if you want to support general Miley's view that after the battles of Kherson and Kharkiv that Ukraine had achieved all that was militarily practical to achieve and should negotiate.

I'd agree with that too.

However, it can be debated whether Ukraine increased or decreased their negotiation leverage with those battles; it depends on the losses. If Ukraine essentially expended their offensive capabilities then easily their negotiation position decreased rather than increased; they did regain territory but made it more difficult to negotiate withdrawals from further territory and other concessions.

But I'd agree this was the last reasonable military actions by Ukraine.

If it was so easy to make peace, why did it happen? Your argument is that either Zelensky is a stupid crazy person or he's being controlled by the west. Well in that case I can just argue Putin is a stupid crazy person and would attack anyways.

If we assume both leaders are reasonable and somewhat informed about the situation the only conclusion is that Russian and Ukrainian interests were fundamentally unreconcilable. And this happens to be exactly what the evidence suggests, from the rhetoric of demilitarise and denazify to the annexation of Ukrainian territories before they're even considered. — Echarmion

Zelensky definitely is a stupid crazy person who did not understand that a small force can have temporary success against a larger force, and more importantly it's the potential to inflict damage (even if you will still lose) that is the main leverage of a smaller force, and this leverage is only useful before and not after expending said force.

Except for some opportune manoeuvre victories at the start of a war, further fighting decreases, rather than increases, the leverage of the smaller force while also making the larger force "need more" to show for the military effort: creating a dynamic that locks in continued pointless war of attrition (that the smaller force is nearly guaranteed to lose; a terrible dynamic as the more the larger force needs to justify the war effort, the less concessions will be on the table and the less the smaller force will be able to get to justify their own war effort).

And again it's an entirely unsubstantiated claim that russia would have accepted a simple pledge of neutrality. Various Ukrainian governments have expressed their willingness to accept neutrality in principle. — Echarmion

You don't substantiate any of your claims, just throw it out there that it's "relatively easy" to demonstrate Ukraine has just cause ... but then don't bother to do this easy work.

Worse, you're just inventing straw man positions for what I say.

For the benefit of other's I'll point out your clearly purposeful mistakes in comprehension and re-explain the actual point.

I do not claim that if Ukraine committed to neutrality we know Russia would not have invaded.

My claim is that committing to neutrality would have cost Ukraine nothing. Ukraine does not have any formal allies it is already formally neutral. Notice how no other uniformed troops of any other country entered Ukraine. Declaring neutrality when one does not have allies, is only making de jure an existing de facto state of affairs. Ukraine has "friends" and "partners" which neutrality does not exclude. Receiving arms from third party is does not compromise formal neutrality; neutral countries can still receive arms.

Therefore, declaring neutrality changes nothing and I say may prevent the war because it removes the principle Russian motivation of the war.

Now, if you want to argue Russia would have invaded anyways, that's possible, but Ukraine would have lost nothing form committing to neutrality and would be in a far better position diplomatically. Russia would have a far more difficult time justifying their actions to other nations (China, India, Africa, South America) had Ukraine committed to neutrality, sympathy would be even higher for Ukraine and Russia would look far more belligerent than it currently does.

For, simply because the West is happy to just take it for granted that Russia-bad-Ukraine-good, a position requiring zero of your sought after "substantiation", doesn't mean the rest of the world has equally little concern. Especially the large countries (China and India) have zero sympathy for small countries that make trouble for big countries, so had Ukraine actually declared neutrality then things may have turned out very different diplomatically (either far more pressure on Russia or India actually participating in sanctions).

We can't know, but the main point is it would have cost Ukraine nothing to commit to neutrality and would have had only positive benefits.

The only reason for a country without any formal allies to repudiate neutrality would be to then actually join an alliance to have some deterrence and protection.

This does not follow. Russia had already decided at that point to annex the "independent" republics, there was a rather humourous episode where a Russian official apparently switched their scripts and argued in favour of a request (as of then nonexistent) to join the RF before the republics had even been recognised by Russia.

Nor would the deal in any way obligate Russia to not demand further territory in subsequent peace negotiations. All they offered here was to halt their operations. — Echarmion

Again, several different parties, including Zelensky himself, described peace talks at various moments as "realistic" in Zelensky's words or close to successful.

Clearly Russia was at least presenting reasonable positions that could form a basis for peace. If you want to argue they were only "pretending to negotiate" as others (who weren't there) have claimed; sure, that's possible.

My main criticism of Zelensky is walking away from peace negotiations entirely, making public ultimatums making public declarations that would be humiliating to walk back, and then committing to further warfare without any realistic military means to achieve military aims.

As I've stated, a cease fire in place is anyways better than continuing to fight a war that you then lose. Retaining your forces is also preserving your leverage in order to negotiate withdrawal, which, again, you is better to accept won't happen then to embark on a losing war.

Baseless speculation. — Echarmion

Might be speculative to some degree what exactly Boris Johnson said to Zelensky, but it is not baseless that he encourages Zelensky to walk away from negotiations and fully commit to "liberating" all of Ukraine. Several reports by credible journalists describe Boris' purpose as to convince Zelensky to fight and not negotiate. But believe what you want to believe; if you want to believe Boris was there just for fun, or then to convince Zelensky to negotiate peace but, alas, failed, feel free to believe that.

Stop lying through your teeth. — Echarmion

What lie?

You're accusing me of lying in a statement is a question. My question is:

What does it matter if Russian terms were even worse for Ukraine than what seemed to me, everyone on the forum, and the mainstream Western media, if your interpretation is correct ... but Ukraine loses anyways? — boethius

Which is a question. How can a question be a lie?

I'm asking you why would it matter what the Russian terms were if Ukraine goes onto lose the war? Any terms at the time, such as cease fire in place, would be far superior to losing the war.

Now, if you want to argue Ukraine will win the war or then fight to a superior negotiating position than it had at the beginning of the war, we can debate that. However, what prompted all this discussion about the Russian terms is that you explicitly agreed that Ukraine had more leverage at the start of the war than it does now, so should have pushed for a peace deal when it had maximum leverage (which I'd argue was before the war even occurred; but once it did Ukraine still had the most leverage in the first phase than it does since or now).

Which, if you can read, I use the word "if".

If your point is that "if" Ukraine win's that will prove Zelensky a military genius and Glory to Ukraine!

Go ahead, make that clear and we can debate instead Ukraine's military prospects.

You yourself quoted the 15 point plan that was the Ukrainian counteroffer. — Echarmion

Are you going to substantiate that? The wikipedia article simply describes the talks at that time as being based on 15 points, not some sort of draft treaty presented by Ukraine.

But even so, let's say Ukraine did have a reasonable offer at one point, clearly they repudiate their own offer when the walk away from negotiations and then make a public ultimatum (for example they'd only talk peace on the condition of Russia withdrawing all forces from Ukraine including Crimea) that are clearly not reasonable conditions for peace talks.

You're welcome to your opinions, but they seem far removed from reality to me. — Echarmion

These opinions are common sense.

Clearly there were chances to negotiate peace.

Clearly if Ukraine loses the war then it would have been better to have negotiated peace terms before said losing war, and, indeed, would have been better to just accept any Russian demands, no matter how "unreasonable" compared to losing the war.

If you want to argue Ukraine will win the war and therefore not only continuously declaring their intention to join NATO but putting it in their constitution was the right move, cause they are winners on the battlefield, feel free to argue Ukraine is going to win the war.

My main interest is pointing out obvious falsehoods and inconsistencies for the benefit of others. It's quite clear you will not budge one inch whatever I say. — Echarmion

The right to self determination doesn't apply to individuals and is generally fulfilled so long as there is some effective form of representation for the people, i.e. the ethnic or cultural group (as a whole) in question — Echarmion

WTF are you talking about?

Obviously the right to self determination also applies to individuals: freedom of religion, freedom of movement, freedom of association, freedom of opinion, freedom to choose career or not a career, and pretty much all the freedoms express the freedom of self-determination of individuals.

Indeed, even when it comes to conscription for war, the Western legal tradition has conscientious objection in the name of self-determination.

Of course, all freedoms are limited by a whole bunch of things, but the "freedom" and "liberty" is another word for self-determination, that individuals can (as far as is practical and respecting of the rights of others) choose their own destiny.

In any case, your theory that self-determination is "generally fulfilled" by group decisions is the exact opposite of the concept of freedom and self-determination in the Western legal tradition. To what extent, if any, it's justifiable to remove an individuals right to self-determination by, for example, forcing them to fight in a war is one more of those "thorny" issues of yours.

I have never come across a theory that presents the idea that removing an individuals right to self-determination is justified because it's anyways "generally fulfilled" by an ethnic or cultural group ... which is not even a legal argument that "the law" can take away your right to self-determination because Zelensky needs you to fight the Russians, but has even more problems than that.

However, please elaborate if you have this ethnocultural self-determination general fulfillment theory worked out.

Well since we haven't talked about it before, it wasn't necessary. Perhaps you'd just have agreed. But here is the overview of the timeline from Wikipedia . Anything specific you take issue with? — Echarmion

I have zero interest in discussing morality with you, so I'll stick to the international law. — Echarmion

Ok, well the way international law works is that the Russian action are de facto legal if there's no security council resolution that says otherwise; that's how international law is setup.

The security council is the authoritative body that has the power to interpret how international law applies to a given situation, and before and until that happens all legal arguments about the situation are merely legal briefs and opinions and are not legal facts.

What the Russians are doing in Ukraine is perfectly legal under international law until there is a security council resolution that says otherwise.

If you want to argue that's unfair because Russia can veto any security council resolution: Welcome to international law! You should get together with the Palestinians and voice your extra-legal grievances about how the law works.

Perhaps join Zelensky himself in demanding Russia be removed from the security council ... which, you guessed it, would require Russia's approval to be legally possible under international law.

If you don't care about extra-legal arguments, that certainly can make claims to legitimate interpretations of international law (those legal briefs and opinions mentioned above) then there's nothing to say the Russian invasion of Ukraine is illegal as there is no security council resolution that states that, and international law was setup with exactly this in mind.

Sourcing things isn't some kind of weird dick measuring contest. I'm asking you for sources for specific claims, because those claims are false as far as I can see.

What exactly is it you take issue with? I can provide sources for the movements of Igor Girkin if you want. — Echarmion

You've thrown out all sorts of claims without any sources at all.

In your dick measuring contest analogy your dick literally measures zero inches.

So yes please, please source the Igor Girkin movement to support your claim that there is and never was any popular support for the separatists within the separatists territory.

In my own reading up on Girkin I don't see where it's stated that he conquered the Donbas with a band of Russian mercenaries and no effective popular support at all.

I do, however, see that if what you claim is true, and Girkin is the key to everything, then Ukraine could have easily won this conflict all the way back in 2014:

On the night of 4–5 July 2014, during a large-scale offensive by the Ukrainian military, following the end of a 10-day ceasefire on 30 June, Girkin led the Sloviansk People's Militia to an orderly retreat out of Ukrainian encirclement and made it to Donetsk, which they started fortifying on 7 July.[79] Sloviansk was then captured by Ukrainian forces, thus ending the separatist occupation of the city which had started on 6 April.[80] According to Girkin, 80-90 percent of his men had escaped from Sloviansk.[81]

The ultimately successful withdrawal of a considerable force of separatists from the besieged Sloviansk to the large industrial center of Donetsk caused some backlash in Ukraine against the army leadership. General Mykhailo Zabrodskyi, then the commander of the besieging army who was criticized for having allowed Girkin's columns to move out of the city unopposed (and as of 2023 the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces), said in 2020 that Girkin's successful escape had longtime consequences for the war, unfavorable for Ukraine — Igor Girkin - Wikipedia

So, if what you say is true, then we can safely conclude that Ukrainian military is totally incompetent and had the chance to simply win all the Donbas territory back in 2014 but let the key man, and his band of mercenaries, escape.

This is a thread of 532 pages, so yes, that was said. And I won't bother to find the direct quote as you continue yourself: — ssu

Which we've both been apart of since essentially the beginning.

The "peace party", as you accurately describe us who have been promoting a negotiated settlement to the conflict and providing both justification for doing so (such as Ukraine having no viable military path to victory) and analysis of potential compromises and why they would be preferable to continued warfare as well as arguing against the "war party" position of using Ukraine as a proxy to harm Russia with little or no concern for Ukrainian welfare, have provided the context that indeed Crimea was part of Russia for a long time and there was certainly strong motivation to want it back.

None of us presented the historical grievance as justification for the annexing Crimea, and I'm sure you know the positions that were elaborated on these various points as you aren't a straight-up denialist of facts and nuance.

Rest my case, tovarich boethius. — ssu

This is the exact opposite of your case of the "peace party" using historical grievance as justification for the annexation of Crimea.

Rather it is the obvious reality: Russia annexed Crimea to secure their military and navel base there, which was a fairly easy task considering they had a massive military and navel base already there.

Whether it was justified or not, Russia is obviously not going to give it back to Ukraine, although, notably, the Wikipedia article on the peace negotiations mentions:

On 14 June 2023, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko claimed, in an interview with Russia-1, that Ukrainian and Russian delegations also discussed the possibility of "some sort of a lease" of Crimea during the March 2022 negotiations — Peace negotiations in the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Which if you're "party" is correct that the invasion was a disaster for Russia and they expected total capitulation and occupation of all of Ukraine in about 3 days, then perhaps Putin really was desperate for some "off ramp" and even willing to return sovereignty of Crimea to Ukraine in exchange for leasing Crimea, which would have resolved the whole "nations don't conquer new territory anymore!! (only the US can go around building bases where it wants!!!)" complaints from the West.

Maybe the offer was genuine, maybe it was some Russian ruse, but my main point on the negotiations is that the start of the war was when Ukraine had maximum leverage and should have pushed for maximum concessions. "Leasing Crimea" to Russia would certainly be the maximum concession Russia would ever make on the issue and the best Ukraine could ever negotiate if military conquest of Crimea is indeed not feasible as it appears to me since then.

But it's interesting to note how the myth of "Russian incompetence" can so easily co-exist with the myth of Russian intransigence and only pretending to negotiate and offering terms that only appeared to people are fairly reasonable (but "actually" there's no evidence for what we believed here and what Western media likewise believed).

Of course. And if it brought up, the "peace-party" immediately tells us that Crimea has been part of Russia, only given away by birthday present inside the Soviet Union. Or then, conveniently, any earlier Russian demands for Crimea are forgotten and the annexation is introduced only as a response to revolution, sorry, "coup" — ssu

Literally no one here has said that.

Everyone here in favour of peace (some compromise that ends the war) has had no problem accepting Russia annexed Crimea due to their military base there coming under threat with an illegal change of government in Kiev.

You seem to be mocking your own point of view by pointing to the fact that one person's revolution is another person's coup.

You yourself posted the Reuters report. It said Russia would "halt military operations".

That is what you have offered regarding the russian proposal. Noone doubts the ukrainian proposal involves Russia retreating. — Echarmion

First, you completely ignore that obviously Russia's offer before the invasion even took place would require no withdrawal.

Had Ukraine accepted neutrality before the war, the war may not have happened, and Russia may not have seen enough sufficient cause to invade given the main point of contention was resolved.

Did refusing neutrality help Ukraine?

No. Ukraine has no allies that sent soldiers to its aid because Ukraine is already de facto neutral.

As for the Reuters article clearly states the terms "change its constitution to enshrine neutrality, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory, and recognise the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states".

In other words, Donetsk and Lugansk would not be annexed by Russia and there's no mention of the other regions Russia occupied in the demands as Russia would be giving them back in such a deal.

But if this was bad faith, and only a reasonable offer if there wasn't some sneaky "cease fire in place", the correct move for Ukraine would be to make a counter offer that explicitly clarifies those points. Which Ukraine never does.

Ukraine negotiates based on Russian demands, which at some points are "realistic" even according to Zelensky, but then walks away from negotiations (after Boris Johnson flies to Ukraine to convince Zelensky to not make peace).

Ukraine does not make any counter-proposal of their own that is remotely realistic.

Had Ukraine done that, clarified the points you are now equivocating on, and the Russia clearly refused such a peace deal; ok, the Russian offer was in bad faith, Russia intends to continue the war until all its demands are met without compromise, and Ukraine is in the difficult position of needing to either find some way to "win", accepting Russia's demands no matter how painful, or then losing the war and then accepting Russias demands.

You seem to think that if you "don't like terms" that's reason enough to reject them. That is not how war works.

An offer which we also do not know. — Echarmion

We do know the Russian demands before the war. The main one was Ukrainian neutrality.

Prior to invasion, Russia sought legally binding guarantees that Ukraine would not join NATO. — Peace negotiations in the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Of course, we don't have final drafts of such deals because there is no serious negotiation.

Again, just stating whatever fact seems reasonable.

Obviously there were chances to negotiate peace at various times leading up to and during the conflict, starting with the Minsk accords, the main point of contention being NATO, and Ukraine consistently chooses to push for joining NATO rather than entertain accepting neutrality.

The war happens. If Ukraine can't win, and instead loses and significant amount of Ukrainians are killed, Ukraine depopulated through people fleeing the conflict, and the economy destroyed and furthermore far more of the coveted territory is lost in battle, clearly those opportunities for peace were preferable, and trying to join NATO did not help Ukraine one bit (just a provocation based on some foolish principle of "having the right to ask to join a club that doesn't want you" without any benefit whatsoever).

Halting your military operations is a ceasefire. — Echarmion

Which is the first step in any sort of peace plan.

But again, I've asked several times, even if the Russians were only offering a ceasefire as you claim without evidence, what's the point of refusing that offer if you can't win the war?

What does it matter if Russian terms were even worse for Ukraine than what seemed to me, everyone on the forum, and the mainstream Western media, if your interpretation is correct ... but Ukraine loses anyways?

Why would I need to do that? It's your claim not mine. — Echarmion

Because demanding sources of points that you don't honestly disbelieve is just bad faith.

Makes you look purposefully stupid, which is much wore than being actually stupid (the latter not being a moral blemish if you can't help it). So which one is it?

This is not a claim I'm making. I'm saying what you quoted describes a ceasefire in place. — Echarmion

It does not describe a cease fire in place if it goes onto list conditions such as independence for the Donbas, clearly the ceasefire is a first step of resolving the whole conflict. That is common sense interpretation of the list of demands.

But again, if the demands "actually mean" just a ceasefire in place, why is it better to lose the war at massive cost to Ukraine?

Not under current international law. — Echarmion

The key syllables are "national" in "international law". A law created by nation states in their own interest: surprise, surprise, doesn't condone separatism.

However, plenty of existing states exist due to separating from the states they were formerly apart of, so to say separatism is immoral is to claim a significant amount of existing states, including the US, is immoral and should render their territory back to their formal owners.

As you say, separatism is a "thorny" issue.

That's not how any of this works. — Echarmion

That's exactly how it works. "Ukraine" as some sort of "entity", whatever you want to categories it, claims the right to self determination (join NATO, resist Russian invasion) and so on, and furthermore claims the right to remove the right of self determination (freedom of movement) from a large number of its citizens in order to be able to coerce them (including nabbing them off the street) to the front line to defend the national right ... oh and all that without elections anymore as it's common sense that the "freedom side" suspends elections in a war.

That's exactly how it works: imprisonment within Ukrainian territory and forced conscription to be forced into military service (i.e. taking away people's right to self determination for themselves) in the name of self determination for the "glorious nation".

Yes. The organic separatist movements in the Donbas were very localised and nothing really got off the ground until mercenaries arrived from Crimea. Even then the separatists quickly fizzled out in most areas apart from a few strongholds - notably Donetsk city. — Echarmion

You criticize me for not providing further citations to prove beyond any possible equivocation you can bring up about a minor point I don't care much about (if Ukraine can't win, then they should basically accept anything that's on offer whatever it is, so ceasefire in place is perfectly reasonable as well compared to losing a war), but on this critical issue for yourself to support your case that Ukraine has just cause (without citation or argument of any kind when you state it the first time ... and the second time) you offer zero citations or evidence or even plausible arguments.

I have no doubt it seems that way to you, but it is not legal. You cannot declare yourself a separatist and ask your neighbour to invade. It should be obvious why. — Echarmion

Separatism is based on extra-legal moral principles, obviously not legal principles of the country you're currently apart of.

You totally can declare yourself separatists and ask your neighbour to invade.

For example, if the United States of America declared itself separatists and then asked the French for help, and lets say the French even send soldiers to help and not just material, would that make the American Revolution illegitimate in your framework?

Likewise, is every separatists movement the CIA supported over the years unequivocally illegitimate because of the mere presence of foreign assistance?

Obviously if you have just case you will seek to convince others that you have just cause and you are a worthwhile cause to assist, being just.

Whether a separatist movement actually is just cause, or any armed conflict, depends on the circumstances.

Certainly the separatists have good arguments, including language and cultural repression and an illegal coup in the capital, so I do not see how it is trivial to state Ukraine shelling the separatists civilians is "insignificant". At minimum you'd need to do a lot of work to prove that the separatists had no "legitimacy". They certainly fight a losing battle against Ukrainian forces until the Russians assist covertly and stabilize the front, but that has nothing to to with popular support within the separatist territory, just pointing out the obvious that they are a smaller force than the rest of Ukraine.

However, we seem to agree that if the separatists have just cause then Ukraine does not have just cause, and Russia has therefore just cause in assisting the separatists.

That might be an interesting question in the abstract but it is not what happened. Most of the unrest in Donbas coincided not with the Euromaidan but with the seizure of Crimea. It was also short lived until Igor Girkin, a Moscow born russian, started taking over cities with a band of mercenaries. — Echarmion

Again, zero sources, which immediately following demanding sources for me to 100% clarify the sources I already cited, is extreme bad faith.

If you don't want to bring your own sources to the table, then it's complete idiocy to demand others provide sources (on-top of the sources they've already provided).

And look how well that turned out. — Echarmion

NATO bombed everything that could potentially support a plane, no matter how indirectly, and were perfectly content to see the country descend into total chaos and a breeding ground for exporting jihadism to the region.

But if you are conceding that NATO had just-cause in bombing Libya because civilians "might" get shelled, then certainly it follows Russia has just cause in invading Ukraine due to shelling of civilians in the Donbas ... which if the separatists did not have popular support why would you want to shell civilians that are actually on your side but de facto being held captive by Russian mercenaries?

Ah yes more excellent advice from boethius. Just retreat. What's the worst that can happen? — Echarmion

Yes, either fight with confidence you can win or lose and capitulate anyways, so best to try to negotiate while you still have forces and leverage. The only exceptions are extreme circumstances which do not exist in the current conflict.

Forcing men into conscription and to the front lines to be killed in a losing battle is both immoral and terrible national policy anyways.

This is an insipid and pointless sideshow.

You have claimed Russia offered to retreat to the February 2022 starting points in exchange for Ukrainian neutrality. It's upon you to provide evidence of this, which so far you haven't done.

I ultimately don't care one way or the other whether you believe diplomatic negotiations happen in public. — Echarmion

Again, the offer made before the war obviously required no retreat as the invasion hadn't happened yet.

Now, "everyone" at the time in Western media, and also on this forum, discussed under the assumption that Russia would accept peace (that would include withdrawal) with some for of the three main points they kept repeating were critical to them: recognition of Crimea, Ukrainian neutrality, and some status change in the Donbas, where considered the key elements (Ukraine would need to accept) to arrive at a peace.

Significant ink was dedicated to analyzing this sort of "off ramp" for Putin, and especially the Western media which assumed the war was a "disaster" and going terrible for Russia, and did not even consider the idea Putin would not take an "off-ramp" if provided one. The debate in the Western media mostly focused on the idea of any peace whatsoever being a "win" for Putin or not (or then an unfortunate compromise for the sake of Ukraine).

However, I do not dismiss the possibility that once Russia conquered the land bridge to Crimea it never had any intention of giving it back. I seriously doubt this but it's possible. If you want believe the peace deals that are reported by various parties as getting "close" and Zelensky himself saying terms seemed more realistic, was all either misinterpretation or then Russian bad faith, there's no way to completely prove otherwise.

But again, how is a cease fire in place at the time not preferable to losing the war?

So if all this discussion is just to come to the fact that Ukraine's refusing neutrality before the war, and refusing Russian demands after the war broke out, is only reasonable (certainly at least in hindsight) if Ukraine can ultimately "win" (at least on the glorious nationalistic territorial dimension).

Then sure, the "war isn't over" and we can return to analyzing the military situation, and everything else depends on that.

The ultimatums Ukraine refused were tied to its"demilitarization," and mechanisms that would ensure it, which would amount to laying down their arms before an enemy that had just invaded them. The "de-Nazification" in practice, was a demand that Russia be allowed to pick who could remain in Ukraine's government. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The point at issue was whether the Russia was offering only a "cease-fire" in place and did not include a withdrawal.

Of course, Russian offers to withdraw clearly never included Crimea, and Russian demands before the war included some form of autonomy for the Donbas region (as the Minsk accords clearly outline) and during the war the language of "independence" started to be used (such as in the Reuters article), but it was clearly understood by not only the people her eon the forum, Western media, but also Ukraine itself that Russia would be withdrawing from the rest of Ukraine and the Donbas status would not be part of Russia but some intermediary status.

Now, the Russian demands of "de-Nazification" as you describe, control over who is allowed to be in the Ukraine government, could be understood as genuine, or then as starting a negotiation "high" and then settling lower. It was pretty popular in Western analysis to assume that Putin was looking for an "off ramp" that allowed ending the war on an acceptable compromise. Especially as the West was taken for granted at the time that the war was going terribly for Russia and therefore Russia could be anyways be pressured into a peace that was "pretty good" for Ukraine; the issue of contention all the way back then was if providing an "off ramp" would be some sort of reward for Putin and if the war was anyways a good thing to harm Russia in the long term.

It could be equally argued that Russia was "starting high" as they never intended to make any peace deal at all and it was all theatre, and therefore always kept terms "just out of reach" of a reasonable compromise, which the West also claimed as presented in the Wikipedia article:

Following the talks, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian warned that Russia was only "pretending to negotiate", in line with a strategy it has used elsewhere. — Peace negotiations in the Russian invasion of Ukraine - Wikipedia

But notice now the French Foreign Minister wasn't actually there, and as far as I know no one involved in these negotiations insists on the idea that they were fake.

If we return to the source we seem both content to use as a basis to the discussion, Zelensky is presented as stating:

The two sides resumed talks on 15 March,[6] after which Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the talks as beginning to "sound more realistic" — Peace negotiations in the Russian invasion of Ukraine - Wikipedia

Followed by a description of the negotiation:

By 16 March, Mykhailo Podoliak was assigned as the chief negotiator for the Ukrainian peace delegation, who indicated that peace negotiations of a 15-point plan would involve the retraction of Russian forces from their advanced positions in Ukraine, along with international guarantees for military support and alliance in case of renewed Russian military action, in return for Ukraine not pursuing further affiliation with NATO — Peace negotiations in the Russian invasion of Ukraine - Wikipedia

So, clearly there were terms being discussed that seemed "realistic" even to Zelensky at some point.

If the Russians started with some demands that didn't seem realistic, clearly they were flexible on those points, which is how negotiations often go.

Now, what is interesting is that any retrospective narrative placing the blame on Russia for the failure of good faith peace negotiations to find a reasonable compromise, is completely incompatible with the main Western narrative at the time which was that the Russian invasion was a failure and Putin was looking for an off-ramp. Indeed, we've just spent several pages re-discussing this topic of "incompetence".

The claim that there was ever and "offer for peace in exchange for not joining NATO," is patently false. Russia has continued to include these demands relative to neutering Ukraine's ability to resist future invasions and the right to select who can hold political office in the country. — Count Timothy von Icarus

What's the evidence for this? This is literally the first time I've heard of this.

I can go back and start citing what was being discussed at the time, both here and in the mainstream media, but I have zero memory of anyone stating Russia was insisting on deciding who holds office in Ukraine; what I do remember is pages and pages of discussion about the meaning of "guarantee" since at one point Zelensky was complaining that a peace agreement could not be guaranteed in some sort of absolute sense (which is basically the ontological status of guarantee: a promise that may or may not be fullfilled), and we discussed at length to what extent Ukraine could be confident in a peace deal, confident in Western or Russian "guarantees" about it, as at another point it was argued that Putin "could not be trusted" and that was why Zelensky was reasonable in repudiating any peace agreement (and my point was that a lack of 100% certainty is not a basis in itself to reject a peace deal, but must be weighed against the diplomatic, economic and military leverage of the parties involved that would incentivize them to stick to the deal; maybe we can't "trust Putin" but there's plenty of reasons he'd want to keep peace in Ukraine if it was achieved and keep all the gas flowing, and, in any case one needs to military leverage to actually win a war to justify repudiating negotiations).

Certainly Russia would be aiming to neuter Ukraine defensive capabilities as much as possible in negotiations. The reason to accept that is that you cannot win a war with said defensive capabilities.

What is also true is that Russia is the stronger party to the conflict, so can more easily play "hardball" and insist on more concessions from Ukraine than Ukraine could insist on from Russia. The basis Ukraine could negotiate retaining more, rather than less, of a conventional deterrent would be mostly that continued fighting is costly and risky for Russia, even if it has a large advantage, and also the gas issue.

My main point on these topics is not that "I know" what exactly Russia was offering at one points and to what extent, if any, Ukraine could negotiate down the Russian demands.

My point is that Ukraine's leverage was far higher at the start (both before and immediately following the invasion) than it is now, and so should have been trying to negotiate a settlement based on that leverage. Of course, even if one has the leverage to compel "rational parties" to accept a deal, there's no guarantee that would happen.

The only actual evidence of derailment of the negotiations is the assassination (by Ukraine intelligence) of a representative in the negotiation.

The person that makes public statements that render any further negotiations exceedingly difficult is Zelensky in promising to reconquer all of Ukraine, including Crimea, refusing to negotiate until Russia already leaves Ukraine, refusing to negotiate until Putin is removed from office by the West and similar claims that are embarrassing to walk back to resume peace negotiations with Putin on the basis of, at minimum, Russia keeping Crimea.

The party that removes a large part of Ukraine's leverage to end the war is the party that blew up Nord Stream 2. Maybe this was good for US gas interests, but this was definitely not good for Ukraine and any Ukrainians as it significantly reduces the incentive (and therefore potential concessions) that Russia would be willing to make.

Second, the seriousness of Russia's desires for a merely "independent Donbass" is belied by the fact that they officially annexed those regions, and southern Ukraine not long after. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The more the war goes on, the more Russia needs to "show for it".

That Russia annexes the regions after several failed negotiations where Russia was offering not-to-annex-the-regions (it wasn't even a point of discussion that the other 2 regions would be needing independence too, just the 2 Donbas separatist regions).

However, more importantly the Nord stream bombing happened on 26 September 2022, and Russia declared annexation of the territories on 30 September 2022.

In other words, a significant part of Ukraine's leverage in negotiating some form of return of the territories is blown up, and immediately after that Russia annexes those territories.

The credibility of Russia in a deal predicated on "giving up Ukraine's means of self defense," strains credulity considering how they had just vociferously denied that they were going to invade Ukraine, calling the build up for the invasion "military exercises." I recall Lavrov declaring how the West would be "embarrassed" by the fact that all the Russian soldiers would simply return to their barracks, and blamed the US in particular for "building up hysteria" about a possible invasion. That was, in retrospect, obviously just patent lies. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is pretty normal demand in these sorts of conflicts. A larger state is threatened by another large state using a smaller adjacent state as a proxy, so an acceptable compromise is that the smaller adjacent state accepts neutrality and few means of conventional deterrence.

The logic of such deals is that the larger state can destroy the smaller state, so it's basically play nice of be destroyed. We can debate the morality of such demands in some absolute moral framework, but it is pretty usual political events in the real world and has happened many times before without anyone going around and crying how "unreasonable it is".

Now, to what extent Ukraine could negotiate retaining a neutral but conventional deterrent I don't know. Maybe Russians would have accepted essentially retaining the relative force parity that existed at the time, so that Ukraine would be no worse off in a future war.

However, the logic of "fighting now rather than later" anyways implies some means to win the war now. If there's no means to win the war, then a deal that postpones conflict to later is still better to take. Maybe favourable events transpire during the delay.

As for the second point, it's also pretty normal to downplay a surprise invasion. Not everyone follows the Ukrainian playbook and makes movie trailers advertising the planned offensive.

Russia's offer was a ceasefire in place. — Echarmion

Again, just inventing things that would be convenient if it were true.

Are you just repeating myths that circulate in "pro-Ukrainian" echo-chambers on Reddit or Facebook and simply assuming they must be based on "something" or do you just do cursory research to get a vague impression of what you're looking for?

By 16 March, Mykhailo Podoliak was assigned as the chief negotiator for the Ukrainian peace delegation, who indicated that peace negotiations of a 15-point plan would involve the retraction of Russian forces from their advanced positions in Ukraine, along with international guarantees for military support and alliance in case of renewed Russian military action, in return for Ukraine not pursuing further affiliation with NATO. — Peace negotiations in the Russian invasion of Ukraine - Wikipedia

And, obviously, the Russian offer before the war would have occurred without any Russian forces outside of Crimea.

It is quite usual for ceasefires to also be negotiated during a war, for humanitarian purposes (such as we see in the Hamas-Isreali conflict) and / or as an attempt to deescalate the situation to give time for leaders to focus on peace negotiations.

However, trying to present the various Russian offers at different times as only ever involving a ceasefire in place is either a straight up lie or you are totally ignorant of events and have no intention to make yourself not-ignorant.

You're also directly contradicting the Reuters article I cited, which clearly describes an offer that it not a ceasefire in place, so if someone's already presented authoritative evidence to support a claim, your evidence that claim is wrong should be ... well, more than zero evidence.

No, they didn't. — Echarmion

Again, just thinking backwards to making things up that would be convenient to be true.

"Everyone" in the context refers to members of the forum commenting on events and also mainstream media, such as Reuters. But, even so, can you even provide evidence of "someone" understanding the Russian offer different at the time?

Then no doubt you can provide relevant evidence. — Echarmion

Are you really doubting that there was not huge amount of analysis of this war and the Russian peace terms as reported by Reuters?

I can provide you the evidence (already on this forum is a huge amount of analysis at the time), but I'd like to first confirm that you truly doubt there was a huge amount of analysis at the time reflecting what the Reuters report says about Russias offered terms.

No, that was not understood. You seem to be confusing a ceasefire with a peace treaty. — Echarmion

Read the Wikipedia article that's literally called "Peace negotiations in the Russian invasion of Ukraine".

Where do you get that Russia was only ever offering a ceasefire in place? Especially before the 2022 war even occurred?

Again, just making things up, trying to create plausible deniability that there were reasonable terms on offer (reasonable in the sense of preferable to the situation for Ukraine now).

But even so, a ceasefire in place is better than losing the war. Even if your made-up version of history is correct, that Russia was only ever offering a ceasefire in place, that is certainly preferable to losing the war and all the destruction and death that has happened since.

Ok, you claim Ukraine may still win, war's not over.

Sure, but that is simply agreeing to the main point of contention here: that whatever terms Ukraine was offered, it would have been better to accept compared to losing the war, or even accepting a ceasefire in place now or at some point in the future at the current lines (which get worse, and not better, for Ukraine everyday).

If Ukraine was right to reject a ceasefire in place, it needs something to show for that too.

Correct. — Echarmion

Well then we agree on the main point of contention as far as I'm concerned.

In terms of learning something to avoid future disastrous wars, the main thing of interest to me is at what points was peace achievable through talking.

The problem Ukraine gets into is that it repudiates negotiations and commits itself to achieving a better negotiation position by military means.

When I say Zelensky repudiates further peace negotiations is because he starts making both public conditions and public ultimatums to even have further peace talks.

President Zelenskyy denounced suggestions by former US diplomat Henry Kissinger that Ukraine should cede control of Crimea and Donbas to Russia in exchange for peace.[75] On 25 May, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine would not agree to peace until Russia agreed to return Crimea and the Donbas region to Ukraine.[76] Zelenskyy stressed that "Ukrainians are not ready to give away their land, to accept that these territories belong to Russia." He emphasized that Ukrainians own the land of Ukraine.[77] As of September 2022, these peace negotiations have been frozen indefinitely.[citation needed]

Peace talks: Third phase of invasion (6 September to present)
September 2022
In September, Ukraine rejected a peace plan proposed by Mexico.[78]

On 21 September, Zelenskyy addressed the UN General Assembly with a pre-recorded video, laying out five "non-negotiable" conditions for a "peace formula", comprising "just punishment" of Russia for its crimes committed against Ukraine, protection of life by "all available means allowed by the UN charter", restoring security and territorial integrity, security guarantees from other countries, and determination for Ukraine to continue defending itself.[79][80] Speaking to Bild, Zelenskyy stated that he saw little chance of holding talks with Putin unless Russia withdrew its forces from Ukrainian territory.[81] Following Putin's announcement of Russia annexing four regions of Ukrainian territory it had seized during its invasion, Zelenskyy announced that Ukraine would not hold peace talks with Russia while Putin was president.[82] — Peace negotiations in the Russian invasion of Ukraine

So, ok, Zelensky can insist on the return of Crimea or stating Russia should withdraw first and then peace talks can maybe happen, but this is incredibly foolish if you are unable to improve your position on the battlefield.

Henry Kissinger is obviously correct in his assessment at the time.

Well I'm glad to hear people here had enough sense not to. — Echarmion

This is what people here would claim, that there was not "enough' Nazi's in Ukraine to justify invasion. I simply asked if there's not enough to justify invasion, what's the definition of enough.

People make a claim with the term "enough" in it, and I simply ask for the definition of this term in the context.

For, unlike yourself, other interlocutors here wouldn't simply wantonly invent facts and rewrite history wantonly for their own convenience, and did recognize that clearly the overtly Nazi battalions in Ukraine were not a good thing, they just claimed there weren't enough of them to justify invasion. The question of what would be enough to justify invasion is a pretty common sense question.

The argument was that Russia cannot demand that western nations bar Ukraine's NATO entry. — Echarmion

Russia obviously can demand this, and NATO could agree to it and likewise Ukraine could agree to it.

Fighting a war for the right to join an organization that has had 3 decades to let you in at anytime but hasn't, is just completely dumb.

The neutrality of states in between larger powers is a common theme of negotiation throughout history and happens all the time, precisely to avoid the kind of war that is currently happening.

Nazi Germany and Japan were both sovereign nation in WWII, why should they need to accept terms of surrender and accept enemy troops on their lands!?!?

Because they lost the fucking war!! Obviously no nation "wants to" accept any concessions to a hostile force, the whole thing about war is resolving what you can't actually have just because you want it.

Ukraine can't have NATO, which is just as much NATO's doing as it is Russia's.

Which just makes the whole war even more stupid, as Ukraine has consistently refused to give up what it doesn't even have, and the key point of contention leading up to war (and to make matters worse, the whole point of wanting to be in NATO is to avoid precisely the war that is currently happening; and NATO encouraging Ukraine to fight a war with a geopolitical rival for "the right to join NATO" and maybe actual protection by NATO from Russia if Ukraine first goes and "earns it" by defeating Russia first on behalf of NATO ... it's just ridiculous reasoning).

Most previous wars were at least fought over what countries did actually possess before the war started.

This is just reality. If you want to fight a war to protect some possession or right (in this case a meaningless symbolic "right to want to join NATO"), the critical question is whether you are going to win or not.

Even Disney understands this:

The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can't do. For instance, you can accept that your father was a pirate and a good man or you can't. But pirate is in your blood, boy, so you'll have to square with that some day. — Captain Jack Sparrow

But that's relatively easy. They're fighting an aggressor who violated their undisputed borders repeatedly (and who also has a treaty obligation to protect the sovereignty of Ukraine), and they have not committed any kind of crime against humanity which might in extreme cases justify a war of aggression. — Echarmion

It's not easy at all, first language and cultural repression and shelling the separatists are crimes against humanity committed by overt Nazi's (that even the Western media would go and report on before they "got the memo" that the Nazi's were the good guys actually), but second it is a completely legitimate political action to seek separation after the coup in 2014.

Ukraine elected a president, the "will of the people" spoke, and that the president can negotiate foreign policy are part of the democratic rules. If the president is removed in an illegal coup, it's perfectly reasonable to call the new government illegitimate and secede. Once you've seceded it's perfectly legitimate to seek allies to come to your defence.

From 2014 to 2022 it is Ukraine that is waging a war of reconquering the separatist territories. If it's perfectly just cause to secede after an illegal coup, then Ukraine's war of aggression against the separatists is not just cause, making the separatists invitation of Russian forces to enter the war completely legitimate.

Western countries literally had to pass laws specifying that lethal aid to Ukraine was not to go to the Nazi's and Western journalists go and report that definitely lethal aid is going straight to the Nazi's. The Nazi's were not some marginal and illegal gang but had official support from both Ukraine and the West, and I honestly don't see much of a problem waging a war against said Nazi's.

My grandfather fought the Nazi's, nearly all his friends he had in the airforce died, and I'd be spitting on his grave if I'd view a conflict with literal and overt Nazi's as "relatively easy" to prove the side with said Nazi's has just cause.

But even without the Nazi's, if Ukraine has a right to self-determination so too the separatists.

Who doesn't have a right to self determination is all the Ukrainian men that cannot leave Ukraine and can be forced to fight by the government ... and why? To protect the right of self determination of Ukraine?

So, we can get into the philosophy of just war if you want, but that seems secondary to the issue of whether there was reasonable terms on offer and, whatever terms were on offer, if Ukraine had more leverage to get a better deal before or at the start of the war, compared to now.

What should be perfectly clear is that fighting for the right to join a club that doesn't let you join, is not just cause but a stupid cause.

Separatism is a thorny issue at the best of times, and the Donbas separatists lack any convincing popular legitimacy. — Echarmion

What are you even talking about?

Convincing popular legitimacy in all of Ukraine?? Obviously not, that's what makes them separatists.

Or are you saying they lacked popular legitimacy in the Donbas ?

But yes, it is a thorny issue at the best of times, and therefore it is not a relatively easy issue, but a thorny issue at the best of times, to conclude Ukraine has just cause.

To blanket condemn separatism would of course be a condemnation of the United States and their little revolution and that they did not have just cause, the US of A is an immoral and illegal enterprise, and Biden should go and kneel before King Charles tomorrow and kiss the ring and give back to the crown what is rightfully his majesties property.

So, certainly just cause for the separatists is on the table, and the separatists cannot be said to be attacking the rest of Ukraine (as the front line was pretty deep in separatists terriroty), so it is clearly a war of aggression by Ukraine against the separatists to reintegrate the breakaway regions.

The separatists clearly have a right to self defence and if that requires asking Russia for help and Russia wrecking the rest of Ukraine to protect the separatists, seems perfectly legal to me. If the seceding is triggered by an illegal coup, seems entirely legal to me.

The social contract of being in a larger political unit is that the rules are followed. A president was elected to Ukraine and the rules are the president has certain powers and serves a certain term; those rules aren't followed, social contract is broken, perfectly reasonable and legitimate (and therefore just cause) to then secede from an illegitimate national government.

If you want to argue that following an illegal coup in Kiev there were equally illegal coups in the Donbas, I fail to see how such an argument, even if true (which I don't think it is), would establish anything other than both the Kiev National government and the local governments in the Donbas lack just cause.

Even if it wasn't, it was not remotely significant enough to be cause for an invasion. — Echarmion

It's completely enough justification. If you shell civilians you should expect anyone with a sense of duty to protect said civilians to do so.

The justification for wrecking Libya was that civilians "might" be shelled.

At the least Russia also failed to implement it's obligations under Minsk. — Echarmion

I don't know all the details of the Minsk process, if both parties were bad faith then the weaker party is far stupider for being bad faith than the stronger party (see Captain Jack Sparrow's analysis above), but what is an overriding consideration is the West simply admitting that the whole process was in bad faith to "buy time" for Ukraine. So if you have one side literally admitting the process is bad faith, seems irrelevant to try to nitpick about the other side "starting it" in terms of clashes and so on.

Ukraine was anyways in the separatist regions territory, if Ukraine was of good will about the accords (and had the sense to want to avoid a larger war with Russia) then they would have withdrawn to positions where clashes were no longer possible.

There's also video of Zelensky going and trying to order the Nazi's about, saying he's the president and so on, which they just openly defy him about. Nazi's who explicitly say they want a larger war with Russia.

So, maybe consider the possibility that the side with the literal Nazi's who want to escalate the war to be directly with Russia (believing this will collapse Russia somehow and Ukraine superiority will win somehow) is the side that frustrated peace accords previous to the larger war the Nazi's were explicitly trying to cause.

Or it can blow up the negotiations because now one side is compelled to accuse the other of lying to avoid fatally compromising their position. It's a dangerous game to play. — Echarmion

You're claim was that offers in serious negotiations aren't made public, to support your previous claim that "we don't know much about" the negotiations and what, if anything, Russia was offering, which you now just casually move the goal posts to this entirely new claim, that basically it maybe unwise to make your position public.

But you don't know what you're talking about. Making a negotiation position public does not compel a counter-party to call you a liar, why would it? If you outright say in public your position on selling your pants is 10 dollars, why would I call you a liar? If it's some "more serious" negotiation, again why would I call you a liar?

You seem to have ommitted the part where you show Russia's pledge to retreat and return all territory, (which would include the parts of Donetsk & Luhansk not occupied prior to the 2022 invasion). — Echarmion

This was Russia's offer as reported at the time.

You're trying to create some sort of plausible deniability scenario that we "don't actually know" that Russia was offering something so obviously reasonable and so obviously preferable to continued fighting.

But that's just straight up rewriting history. Everyone at the time understood the Russian offer to be pulling their troops back to Russia and Crimea if the offer was accepted. There was huge amount of analysis at the time; the Reuters citation is just the most authoritative "Newspaper of record" of what the substance of the Russian offer was. We can of course debate exactly what Reuters is meaning by "independent" or then exactly what Russia's meaning is in their actual offer, as well as what Russia may have been willing to accept, but what is clear is the three main points are neutrality, recognizing Crimea and some sort of status change in Donbas (but not integration into Russia, which has happened since if you haven't noticed).

Now, obviously "all territory" does not include Crimea, but it was understood Russia was offering to pull their troops from the rest of Ukraine including the Donbas (it's not really a "retreat" if it's part of a peace agreement). Certainly Russia was not offering to abandon their allies in the Donbas, so to that extent they were not offering Donbas seperatists to be conquered by Ukraine, but rather a peace that protected the separatists as well.

However, the minutia of how a peace plan would be implemented and the exact status of the Donbas is clearly irrelevant compared to the actual point of contention here which is that Ukraine had far more leverage to try to negotiate the best deal they could ever get back then compared to now. A point you don't seem to agree with.

If you want to argue (as other posters have already done) that the Russian offer was maybe in bad faith and they would have continued the invasion even if the offer was accepted, that is not reason to reject the offer: it strengthens your diplomatic position to accept an offer that is then reneged on and would seriously weaken Russia's diplomatic position to be seen reneging on a clear offer that was clearly accepted by Ukraine (a big reason the "rest of the world" hasn't joined the West and implemented sanctions is that Russia is able to say they kept on offering reasonable peace deals that Ukraine and the West rejected: so pressure the West, not Russia, if you want peace and lower food prices).

I have a pro-Ukraine bias, but I do try to avoid looking away when bad news for Ukraine surface. — Echarmion

Well then, what "good news" do you even see in even mainstream Western media?

Sure, a win, but a relatively minor one which offers no long term strategic advantage to Russia. — Echarmion

Well, at the time, the West was framing this as giving Putin what he wants rather than punishing him for breaking the "rules based order" over annexing Crimea and the West refused to negotiate directly with Russia to try to come to a larger deal over European security architecture as a whole and so on.

For a while talking heads and social media were continuously repeating that "Ukraine has a right to join NATO" and that "Russia can't demand Ukrainian neutrality as Ukraine is a sovereign nation" as justification for repudiating any peace agreement, which are absolutely moronic points and do not justify war fighting (precisely because Ukraine can't join NATO, it should not fight a war for the "right to join NATO" and precisely because Ukraine is a sovereign country it can accept neutrality to avoid war if it wants).

Their cause is just. — Echarmion

We can come back to this point, as no one so far as actually provided an argument of why the Ukrainian cause is just. For example, in nearly 2 years of debate no one has answered the question of how many Nazi's in Ukraine would be too many Nazi's (people have admitted that there are Nazi's, just not enough to justify invasion, but then refuse to explain how many Nazi's would be too many and therefore not-invading Ukraine would be an actually accurate analogy of appeasement; a force that can stop Nazi's going and stopping Nazi's), and furthermore, not a single "pro-Ukrainian" has been able to explain why the Donbas separatist cause is not just on exactly the same grounds as the Ukrainian cause of "self determination", and even if we ignore that issue then why shelling civilians was justified, reneging on the Mink accords was justified.

However, let's assume none of that matters and it's all very simple and Russia is fundamentally in the wrong in their invasion of a sovereign nation and Ukraine is fundamentally in the right and exercising self defence.

Even assuming that, once Ukraine rejects reasonable peace terms (which you seem to accept are reasonable) then their cause is no longer just, but fanatical fighting for a hypothetically just cause. It's hypothetically a just cause to take back Crimea in the simplistic framework we are using her, but to be actually just you need to be actually able to take back Crimea, otherwise you are fighting a pointless war and getting people killed for no feasible military objective, which is not just cause.

Actual offers in serious diplomatic negotiations are not made public, much less when actual lifes are at stake. Sure Ukraine could publish the offers made, but then why would we believe Ukraine was telling the full truth, and any such move could jeopardize further negotiations. — Echarmion

What are you talking about? Offers in serious negotiations can and often are made public. Making an offer public can put further pressure on the counter-party if the offer is clearly reasonable to take, and that's why Russia made their offer public. Regardless of the West spinning it this war or that, the rest of the world concluded Russia was being reasonable and did not deserve sanctions and Ukraine was stupid and the West cynical and duplicitous.

Now, definitely Zelensky should have heeded your advice and at least kept his positions secret, such as refusing to talk to Putin and making ultimatums in public that would be a serious loss of face and obstacle to try to reverse if Ukrainian prospects became bleak even for Zelensky's "belief" based approach to the war, but again he did not.

You are trying to create some sort of plausible deniability smoke shield where none existed at the time and last time I checked smoke cannot be blown into the past.

I guess we'll have to trust their judgement on when they have "maximum leverage" for now. The war isn't over. — Echarmion

Sure, this has been the position of every other "pro-Ukrainian" to debate these points: war isn't over, maybe Ukraine will turn things around, wonder weapons and all that.

We shall see.

It should be noted that Russia has voiced concerns about Ukraine joining the EU as well, because the EU features a military dimension such as a mutual defense clause (making it function, on paper, in a similar way to Art. 5 of the NATO treaty). — Tzeentch

This is just meant as an example of what Ukraine could try to get from the West using the leverage of ending the war (which some parties wanted, such as German industrialists) as well as the leverage of threatening to make peace with Russia that maximizes Western embarrassment rather than have some form of spin available for the West to pretend it is a "defeat" for Putin in some sense.

I.e. offer to make peace with Russia in a way that now claims would be "obviously" a Russian defeat:

Of course, Russia camped his force on Ukraine's border for months, then invades, looses men and materiel, gets absolutely nothing in return but the US blocks it because it'd "be seen as a russian victory". — Echarmion

And threaten to make peace with Russia in a way that maximizes Western embarrassment, going so far as to threaten "publicly admitting" Russian talking points such as Maidan was a coup and so on.

This is simply an example of the leverage Ukraine had at the time over the West and things the West has that could be good for Ukraine to get, but I am not arguing it would be trivial to get those things.

The counter-offer of the West could easily be: we'll murder you within an hour if you keep talking this way.

By explaining the leverage Ukraine has, it does not meant to be taken in a vacuum and that other parties have no leverage.

The West's leverage over Ukraine since the beginning of the war is that finance can be pulled at any time and Ukrainian government would entirely collapse, which is a far bigger threat than not sending arms.

However, this leverage was at a minimum at the very start of the war, and so when Ukraine would have had the most room to try to deploy its own leverage in negotiations.

If Ukraine tried to pull what I describe was possible at the start of the war now, his Western counterparts would just laugh in his face.

Another big point of leverage Ukraine had at the start of the war was a functioning economy that did not depend on continuous Western finance (maybe not a "great" economy, but it was functioning), so this is leverage in terms making an economic deal with the EU (which does not need to be full EU membership, there's a large spectrum of possibilities such as status similar to Norway or Switzerland) and likewise threatening (if there is nothing offered by the EU) economic rapprochement with Russia.

Now that the Ukrainian economy is completely wrecked, that leverage is also gone.

Moral condemnation requires analyzing all these things to be sure the condemnation is justified.

Why do I say so? Because I would wish for myself a thorough analysis before I am condemned.

What does not take much analysis is to conclude that ending the war through talking, in some workable solution for everyone, is better than continued warfare.

If Zelensky wins, ok, another intrepid and committed war leader willing to sacrifice any number of his own citizens for glorious victory.

If Zelensky eventually accepts terms that were on offer before and at the start of the war, then it's difficult to justify the lives lost. — boethius

That's not a fact, it's a wild flight of fantasy. — Echarmion

I am in the midst of writing a response to your previous comments, which also contains this same denialism:

The russian offer which we ultimately know very little about. — Echarmion

Which is just so preposterously bad faith that I went all the way back to when we (by which I mean myself and other people, not yourself, actually concerned about the war and Ukrainian lives, regardless of our respective positions, when the war first broke out and a settlement is easiest to reached).

Russia's conditions for a peace settlement were made public, so we do in fact know a lot about Russia's peace offerings, and calling this knowledge "fantasy" is just ludicrous attempt to rewrite history to make the Ukrainian war effort and the West clearly doing everything possible to both start and maintain the war, as less evil and less stupid.

LONDON, March 7 (Reuters) - Russia has told Ukraine it is ready to halt military operations "in a moment" if Kyiv meets a list of conditions, the Kremlin spokesman said on Monday.

Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was demanding that Ukraine cease military action, change its constitution to enshrine neutrality, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory, and recognise the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states.
— Reuters

There's zero reason to assume this offer isn't genuine.

Unless Ukraine has some way to "win", then Russia will simply implement these conditions by force. — boethius

This is literally March 7th, 2022 (both the publication by Reuters and my comment citing Reuters in the context of the debate at the time).

Of course, Russia camped his force on Ukraine's border for months, then invades, looses men and materiel, gets absolutely nothing in return but the US blocks it because it'd "be seen as a russian victory". — Echarmion

Again, just inventing whatever that makes Western policy sound better.

This is exactly what "the West" (officials, mainstream media, zillions of commenters on social media) was insisting on, that any peace (in which Putin keeps Crimea and Ukraine accepts neutrality, which was the only deal the Russians would consider accepting) would be a win for Russia: they wanted Ukraine neutral, they want recognition of Crimea by Ukraine, so if they get that then they "win".

You're debate technique is just to think backwards to what would be convenient to be true in order to defend Western prestige (make Western policy look less stupid and evil) and just state it like it was fact.

My diagnosis of your philosophical disease is that you've, until now, happily swallowed what Western media was selling you about this war so could comfortably ignore taking a closer look, confident that certainly if the Western media and social media is so pro-Ukraine their cause and our support for their cause must be just and reasonable and going towards a good result—perhaps some are hurt, even sacrificed but it is all worthwhile, and certainly "casualties are low"—, and now that the war has clearly "gone wrong" as evidenced by radically different facts and opinions appearing in even the Western media (Ukraine can't win, casualties are high, Russia's economy is doing well actually), the cognitive dissonance has pierced your ears and arrived at your brain, and you come here to try to quell your uneasiness and retroactively prove (or then at least throw some shade on the posters who have stated since the beginning of the war the very things the Western media are now admitting, couldn't have been "really right" but just lucky guesses, nothing could have been prevented by wiser decision making, the West meant well and so on) Ukraine and Western decisions made some sort of sense and had good intentions at least, that "maybe" a preferable peace was achievable at different moments but we have little "knowledge" about it.

But feel free to provide a different narrative, personal mythology if you prefer, of why you suddenly take interest in the war now that Ukraine is clearly on the verge "not winning" with the very real risk of total collapse (especially if the dollars stop flowing).

However, the main issue is not "what exactly" Russia was offering, but that Ukraine walks away from negotiating, makes absurd ultimatums public and so on, rather than strive to get the best deal they can when they have maximum leverage.

Now, if you are in a weak position, negotiating when you have maximum leverage doesn't guarantee you get what you want (maybe there was a way to get into the EU, maybe not; maybe Donbas could be fully recovered, "autonomy" watered down, or maybe not), but not getting everything you want (like keeping "the right to join NATO" without actually joining NATO) is not a reason to refuse a deal, even less a reason to refuse continuing to negotiate.

If Russia's offer was "not quite good enough" ... then why don't we have a Reuters citation of Ukraine's counter-offer, such as neutrality and keeping the Donbas with more limited cultural protections for Russian speakers (since that's important for "some reason")?

The reason is that Zelensky is a moron and willing to destroy his country and get hundreds of thousands of his comrades killed to be on vogue ... and have a finger in billions of dollars of currency and arms flowing into the country that he has since said it's insulting to Ukraine for anyone to ask any accounting of.

Now, there is lots of philosophical nuance to analyze but as I said at the time (March 21st, 2022):

What does not take much analysis is to conclude that ending the war through talking, in some workable solution for everyone, is better than continued warfare.

If Zelensky wins, ok, another intrepid and committed war leader willing to sacrifice any number of his own citizens for glorious victory.

If Zelensky eventually accepts terms that were on offer before and at the start of the war, then it's difficult to justify the lives lost. — boethius

It of course goes without saying that if Zelensky eventually accepts terms that are far worse than what was on offer at the start of the war, that is called ruining his country to be on the cover of vogue magazine while Western leaders blow smoke up his ass to do what's in their interest and not Ukraine's interest.

BTW how many rubles do I owe you, prof? — neomac

Me, you owe nothing.

If you have been paying attention, I have already explained several times the basics of negotiation. Attempting to redefine the terms after the deal is concluded is called reneging and an insult to anyone whose word means anything to them.

For example, when Merkel et. al. brag about the Minsk accords being agreed to in bad faith without any intention to implement it in order to "buy time" for Ukraine, it is called reneging. Hopefully that will help you remember the definition.

Had I wanted anything from you in exchange for my services, I would have negotiated that before delivering the goods, because I am a man of honour.

Your reasoning looks rather out of historical circumstances.
First, Ukrainians didn’t refuse negotiation BY DEFAULT. There have been several attempts for negotiations for a ceasefire, all of them ultimately failed. Add to that a long history of failed agreements and reviving historical tensions between Ukraine and Russia. So the refusal of negotiation can very likely be a consequence of past failed negotiation attempts and failed agreements. — neomac

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was asked by a reporter if he would join negotiations mediated by Turkey if Russian President Vladimir Putin came to the table, and Zelensky said, "I don't accept it."

Erdogan "knows my view," Zelensky said. "We discussed this before the war. I told him to put Putin at the table for negotiations. 'Can we please do that? We must avert a full-scale war.' But [Erdogan] was not able to do that. Not only him — he is powerful — but he is not able to do it. And now he thinks that he is? Now we can't," Zelensky said Friday.

Zelensky explained why he cannot speak to Putin anymore.

"It is not the same man. There is nobody to talk to there," he said. — CNN

This is called repudiating negotiations.

To try to reinterpret what I say as claiming there was never any negotiations is foolish.

I clearly explain that there was a negotiation, nearly successful by some accounts (but clearly happened, was in the news and everything), and then Zelensky rejected the Russian offer and repudiated further negotiations with statements like the above.

Since even normal people intuit there's something wrong with walking away entirely from the negotiation table (the US is in continuous negotiation with Hamas as we speak), some pressure is put on Zelensky about it so he changes his position to he'll negotiation but only after Russia leaves Ukraine, including Crimea, entirely ... which is not how negotiation works. You negotiate the points of contention before an agreement is made and the exchange value actually occurs; simply demanding the counter-party does whatever you want before negotiating is another way of saying one refuses any negotiation.

In diplomatic parlance it's called the "cry baby move of unhinged, immature and reckless politicians that wish to see their own country burn".

Second, hand-weaving at hypothetical compensations for the Ukrainian territorial, economic, security losses while abstracting from relevant historical and geopolitical circumstances is a rather weak argument. — neomac

First, it's not hand waiving, it's what negotiation is about: you seek as much compensation as possible from the parties involved in exchange for whatever you're giving up (money, time, apologies, legal claims, paintings, diamonds, leaving town etc.).

So, if there was a deal on the table that was "sufficient" in terms of being preferable to continued warfare, then the only thing to do is attempt to negotiate an even better formulation of the deal but with the aim of ultimately accepting anyways.

Furthermore, I am not abstracting away from anything, I have routinely and diligently analyzed the battlefield situation using both my own soldiering experience and training (including training specifically designed for a fight with the Russians and exactly the kind of warfare we've seen play out in Ukraine) as well as analysis available elsewhere, to evaluate Ukraine's chance of a battlefield victory.

My conclusion is basically no chance, due to the specifics on the ground (Ukraine lack of capacities the Russians have and Ukraine lack of quantity, such as artillery, where Ukraine does have comparable capacity: how can anyone expect soldiers to prevail in such circumstances?!).

Therefore, if Ukraine has no chance of a battlefield victory then it should strive to negotiate a peace, using the leverage of being able to do further damage to Russia (when you are a weaker party to a conflict, you're leverage is the ability to inflict damage even with little threat of victory; of course, being able to threaten actually victory is better leverage, but people seek to avoid damage if they can so generally offer concessions to terminate the war sooner rather than later; and even when no concessions are offered, such as unconditional surrender, it is still usually better, for real people under your command, to surrender unconditionally than to fight to the death).

Indeed, the idea that the US and European allies would compensate for the Ukrainian territorial, economic, security losses is geopolitically questionable if that implies burdening the US as the hegemon (which has been explicitly and repeatedly antagonised by Russia) and its allies (which can’t easily make concessions to Russia without irritating the hegemon) for the Ukrainian losses (which, notice, would be also Western losses if Ukraine was meant to be more integrated into the Western sphere of influence!), the costs of compensating such losses, and the additional strategic risks (by emboldening Russia, China and Iran witnessing Western weakness) while, at the same time, condoning everything to an anti-Western Russia. And historically questionable: appeasing Hitler just emboldened his hegemonic ambitions (and also encouraged a nasty alliance with the Soviet Union before their great patriotic war, right prof?). — neomac

My oh my oh my oh my.

You've said a lot there from various different perspectives that are not the same.

When I say Ukraine should seek compensation from the West in any peace deal for loss of territory, it is because they have the leverage to get that. If they can get compensation from Russia and from the West in a peace deal, that is clearly better than simply compensation from Russia.

Of course now, Ukraine has very little leverage.

But at the start of the war, for example, in exchange for accepting a peace along the lines of what Russia proposing, Zelensky could have sought various compensation from the West, in particular Europe that has the most to lose from a larger and longer war: such as a fast track into the EU (which Russia explicitly said they did not oppose, only NATO).

True, it would be a compromise where Russia is "appeased".

But as I've explained numerous times, the appeasement argument is totally fallacious and demonstrates a total lack of understanding of history.

The appeasement analogy applied to Ukraine would only be remotely similar if it was about chastising Poland for not fighting to the last Polander.

The criticism of appeasement is not levied at the smaller and weaker countries Hitler gobbled up, accusing them of surrendering or cutting deals rather than fighting to their last man and even worman, but rather the criticism of appeasement is levied at the far larger and stronger countries (UK, France, US) that had an actual chance of defeating Hitler.

Avoiding "appeasement" has nothing to do with smaller countries stuck in the middle of the great powers. It is always the same: the strong do as they will, the weak suffer what they must. And so weaker countries can only strive to suffer as little as possible in navigating the rivalry and clashes of the great powers.

A situation I do not approve of, but is created out of the system of international relations—in which the key word is "national" and the nationalism from which those nations spring—and insofar as we have a system of nations then we have more and less powerful nations and among them the "great powers" who do great things – terrible, yes, but great.

Great things generally aimed at each other but sometimes also space.

The smaller powers stuck in the middle have no interest in fighting to the death for one side or another; one needs really extreme circumstances for that option to be viable.

Now, that such a peace would be potentially "bad" for the West is from a US and Western perspective, not Ukraine's perspective. You are basically giving up the ghost of your position. You are simply taking it as assumed that Ukraine should do whatever the West wants it to do and is in the interest of the West, with no consideration for Ukraine.

And indeed, even if you are correct (which I don't think you are) in assuming any peace between Ukraine and Russia would be good for Russia and bad for the West, that's not an argument that Ukraine shouldn't make peace with Russia; only an argument that the West should not want Ukraine to make peace with Russia.

Now, whether this is inherently true or not, that any deal that is or was remotely feasible between Ukraine and Russia is "bad for the West", certainly, depending on the details, a peace deal would be better or worse for the West, and this is exactly the leverage Ukraine has, or at least had at one point.

How Ukraine could get concessions from the West is in threatening to go and make sure of doing exactly what you say would be bad for the West: i.e. threaten to make peace with the Russians in a way that embarrasses and weakens the West the most.

For example, Zelensky could have gone to the US, NATO, the EU, and said "look, you've slow played us into this disastrous war, if you don't give me some additional compensation (such as fast track EU membership), in addition to what the Russians are offering, so that I can do right by the Ukrainian people and we get something for giving up claim to Crimea, then I'm going to declare the West has abandoned us, no Western soldiers are coming, no no-fly zone is coming, we are alone, abandoned by our Western friends, arms and thoughts and prayers won't defeat the Russians, and therefore we will make peace with the Russians (and then imply a bunch of terms even more embarrassing for the West, such as allowing Russia to have military bases in Ukraine, station missiles, or just further economic cooperation with the Russians etc.).

At this stage of negotiation, the West would need to decide whether to play ball or not and participate in negotiations in order to be able to negotiate terms they can better spin as some sort of "victory" for the West (such as "security guarantees" for Ukraine, integrating Ukraine into other Western institutions such as the EU, and so on). If the West refuses to offer anything, well the Russian deal is still better than a disastrous war, and there's nothing to lose in trying to go get concessions also from other parties concerned.

Third, whatever the Russian initial demands were circumstances for peace negotiation worsened within a month: the failure of the Russian special operation in Kiev (if the objective was Ukrainian capitulation) and the genocidal massacres (like in Bucha) became public (as much Russian state media support of Russian genocidal intents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Russia_Should_Do_with_Ukraine). Later, the deal-breaker demands included also the new annexed oblasts. So I’m not surprised that Ukrainians would be compelled to refuse negotiation. — neomac

Ukraine's leverage was likely the highest before the war even started, as it's a big expense and a big risk to even start the war. Now, Russia wanted more a deal with the West, a new European security architecture, which the West refused saying it's between Russia and Ukraine (exactly because neo-cons at least believe that Ukraine fighting Russia, even if irrational for Ukraine, is better than any peace; no a surprise there), that was more comprehensive, but again Zelensky (if he wasn't an idiot) could have gone and threatened the West with peace into agreeing to negotiate with Russia a new framework in which Ukraine is neutral.

Then there is the first weeks of the war where an offer was on the table, Zelensky could have closed a deal had he wanted.

War crimes are definitely usual in any war, and their investigation can be part of a peace deal; it is simply another point to negotiation, and not a reason to refuse to negotiate (even if we are assuming it was indeed the Russians and not elements in Ukraine that don't want any peace).

Another strong reason is that Ukrainians would like to keep the Western alliance and they could likely count on the decades-long support of the US: Ukraine is on the border of Europe, the historical core of the US’s sphere of influence. — neomac

Yeah, sure, and I'd like a toilet of solid gold.

Simply wanting something is not a rational basis to fight a long and costly war that you are very, very likely to lose.

The relevant question here is whether war is a reasonable way of getting what you want. Maybe it is reasonable for Ukraine to "like to keep the Western alliance" (that Ukraine is not apart of), but it does not follow from that to fight a long and costly war to join the alliance of which the purpose would be ... deter said long and costly war?!?!

While Russia explicitly antagonizes the US hegemony and solicits anti-Western regimes to join Russia in this effort, so both the US and its enemies are compelled to see the war in Ukraine as a critical step to establish a new World Order at the expense of the US. So it is reasonable to expect this be of particular concern for the US. — neomac

Sure, maybe it's reasonable for the US to want Ukraine to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian ...

If you are right about your manipulative interpretation of what Sen. Lindsey Graham said, that proves at best he shares your views of what is rational. — neomac

I am right that the US is manipulating Ukraine. For example "whatever it takes" and "as long as it takes" are both obviously manipulative lies. Likewise, the billions and billions and billions (and many more billions until you've said billions at least 50 times, assuming each billion stands for at least 2 billions) in hard currency and arms the US sends to Ukraine without any tracing or auditing etc. is also a de facto area of affect bribe to all parties in Ukraine who stand to benefit from billion and billion and billions of untraceable currency and arms. That is not only clear manipulation without even attempting to avoid a situation where the money and arms are de facto bribes, but it was well known ahead of times those arms would find themselves in "the wrong hands" (to use RAND's phrasing) and would supercharge terrorism and organized crime around the world.

However, how this would "prove" Graham shares the same definition of rational as me, and what the point would be, I honestly don't see what that argument is or would be, so you'll have to explain it.

Whatever you're trying to say, rationality does not mean "good" only lacking in self-contradiction, and "self" is a key word as a rational position does not imply a universal position.

People who want to cause as much harm as possible and do as much evil as possible in their limited time, can be perfectly rational in such a pursuit. That they may lack self contradiction in pursuing their purpose to murder, rape and torture, does not make those actions good on account of being rational nor lend any weight to the position that such purposes should be universal and adopted by all rational agents.

It may very well be that it is rational for Senator Graham, relative his neo-con ideology and evil purposes, or even just plain-ol' US imperialism in general, to want Ukraine to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. That being true would not somehow make it true that is rational for Ukraine to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.

But I find questionable your concept of “rationality” roughly for the same reason I find questionable your interpretation of what Sen. Lindsey Graham said. — neomac

How is my interpretation questionable?

If you find something questionable, moreoverso in a philosophical debate, you should explain what's questionable about it and, in the case of interpretation, provide your position on the matter.

How do you interpret Senator Graham's statement?

Before rebutting the rest of your post, I think it is wise to take a hiatus here and see if you even have an alternative interpretation.

For, if you don't (which your failure to support your "questioning" my interpretation by providing an alternative one, very strongly implies that you don't), then your thrashing about in the void is far more easily dealt with as obvious denialism (that even you clearly see in simply denying my interpretation without providing your own) of what Senator Graham obviously has stated (the "quiet part out loud"), and that equally obvious it is a direct and clear statement of US government policy (reinforced further by the lack of anyone from the White House even bothering to contradict Senator Graham, even just for appearance sake ... as it's so obvious an admission of what is so obviously actually happening that it's easier for everyone if the mainstream media simply never cites Graham in full on the US position in the war, much less discuss it).

Exactly. But it’s fun to watch people use sarcasm in such a ridiculous way. No one serious denies US power in world affairs, but in order to feel a fake sense of superiority it’s necessary to reduce this fact to absurdity: “That guy slipped on a banana peel— must be the US, ay guys? Har-har-har.” — Mikie

Agreed.

Western policy has been a complete disaster, it's now becoming obvious, so denialists must retreat into the safety of thought terminating clichés:

A thought-terminating cliché (also known as a semantic stop-sign, a thought-stopper, bumper sticker logic, or cliché thinking) is a form of loaded language, often passing as folk wisdom, intended to end an argument and quell cognitive dissonance.[1][2][3] Its function is to stop an argument from proceeding further, ending the debate with a cliché rather than a point.[1] Some such clichés are not inherently terminating; they only become so when used to intentionally dismiss dissent or justify fallacious logic.[4]

The term was popularized by Robert Jay Lifton in his 1961 book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, who referred to the use of the cliché, along with "loading the language", as "the language of non-thought".[5]

The earliest recorded definition of the term was published in Robert Jay Lifton's book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism in 1961 wherein he was describing the structure of language used by the Chinese Communist Party, defining the term as "the start and finish of any ideological analysis". — Thought-terminating cliché - Wikipedia

Meanwhile, our defense industry is loving it to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. But I’m sure that has no “major” influence here either.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to rehash it all again in detail. I really can’t do it anymore. (That’s why I could never be a teacher.) — Mikie

Thanks!

If it is of any use, I write mainly for people who maybe following the discussion and are genuinely curious what arguments can stand up to scrutiny and who can see something as propaganda or the clichés mentioned above but can't quite see the full structure of how it works.

In this light my opponents are very helpful and obliging foils.

My principle project here on the forum is to develop strategies of dealing with bad faith debaters. The first tactic of a bad faith debater is of course to try to both confuse and render the debate tiresome; so rehashing is one such counter-tactic. Most importantly is to call out and clearly explain the ulterior motives; conceding "good intentions" to a bad faith interlocutor is to concede defeat and motivated only by either cowardice or one's own ulterior motive to fraternize with, rather than confront, evil.

I think it's implied. How could it be anything else when US imperialism is the singular force that determines events around the world.

Well maybe only the bad ones. — Echarmion

Why even bother replying if all you're going to do is demonstrate that you really don't want to answer? — Echarmion

may simply not have the time to unpack the obvious, but fortunately I do so I'm happy to dissect all the myths that cloud and manipulate your judgement.

Not only for your own benefit, but also for those following and feel there's been something deeply wrong in the West's policies in Ukraine and are wondering what exactly.

Anyways assuming that Russia views any US support as hostile interference, what is the proper course to take? — Echarmion

Since you're fairly new to the conversation, you are perhaps unaware we've spent significant effort over the 529 pages, 20 comments each, of elaborating the different policy options.

Throughout the first phase of the war—which you seem to agree, however tentatively, that Ukraine's leverage was perhaps higher than it was now and would have gotten a better deal in terms of territory than what's available now while also avoiding all the death and destruction and depopulation that has happened since—, we discussed at length why Ukraine should negotiate (rather than repudiate any negotiation) and why the Russian offer was a reasonable one for Ukraine to take (of course trying to negotiate as many further concessions as possible, and not only from Russia but the EU as well).

So, you seem to already have agreed in this proper course of action, only adding the caveat that there would need to confidence a deal does not simply post-pone the same war. To my caveat to your caveat that you can't possibly evaluate if a deal would be a durable peace or not if you refuse to negotiate but also that having a war now rather than later nevertheless requires confidence one can win the war.

Now, when a war starts it's of course common sense to negotiate and see if it can be ended on acceptable terms, exactly what the West is doing with regard to the Gaza conflict; but with regard to Ukraine, the West (in particular the US and UK) did everything possible to encourage Zelensky to not only reject the Russian's offer but refuse to negotiate entirely.

To make matters worse, Western officials, and particularly the US, do not even hide the logic that Ukraine fighting Russia is a "good investment" as it's a chance to damage Russia without losing any American or other NATO lives. There isn't even any hesitation to simply embrace what they are accused of, manipulating Ukraine into fighting to the last Ukrainian, but rather simply embrace it whole heartedly:

“I like the structural path we’re on here,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham declared in July 2022. “As long as we help Ukraine with the weapons they need and the economic support, they will fight to the last person.” — Aaron Mate

Again, note that I cite Aaron Mate (not that I have a problem with that), because I have found no main stream outlet that has a single article that cites Sen. Lindsey Graham's statement in full.

Now, from time to time in this conflict it has become quite apparent that Ukraine isn't winning, does not even have a scenario in which it could "win", and the Western talking heads and legions of posters on social media rush to explain exactly the policy explained by Lindsey Graham (he is not explaining what he would like to do but is not policy as far as we know, such as assassinating Putin or providing Ukraine with nuclear weapons as has been suggested by others, but he's explaining the "structural path we're on here", in other words what the policy is and why he supports the policy).

So, to dress up US involvement in Ukraine leading up to the war as simply naive do-gooding, and the policy since the war started to arm Ukraine (but in a drip feed manner that avoids "escalation") and encourage Ukraine to continue fighting and repudiate negotiations and make absurd ultimatums (such as the negotiation can happen after Russia leaves all of Ukraine), as somehow good for Ukraine, is simply living in a delusional mythical echo chamber (that you so happily fill with noise with your fellow US sycophants whenever critical voices are absent from the thread for even a day).

I post RAND's report explaining that support for Ukraine fighting the separatists is "bleeding" Russia (their words) and that further support could "extend" Russia further (notice they don't use the word "defeat") and explicitly say this policy is at the expense of Ukraine (they don't explain how this benefits Ukraine or protects some categorical imperative and just "has to be done" for moral reasons) and furthermore state the obvious that Russia has significant military advantages in the region and warns that such a policy would need to be "calibrated" to avoid escalating into further Russian incursions into Ukraine where Ukraine would lose territory and likely be forced into a "disadvantageous peace". Most interestingly, RAND analysis does not then conclude "oh, but we'll have harmed Russia a bunch so that would be a good thing ... just at the expense of Ukraine so we can feel a bit bad about that, but we get what we wanted! USA! USA! USA" but rather views escalation into a large conflict in which Ukraine loses as a significant strategic defeat for the US and loss of prestige.

The report does explain that supporting Ukraine in escalating the conflict with Russia could be good for US strategy (again, in the context that this is at the expense of Ukraine) ... but only if Ukraine "won"—if Ukraine won there would be wider geopolitical benefits of shoring up US allies, giving confidence that US can and will defend them— but the report goes into some detail of why that is not so possible. Basically this whole business of supporting Ukraine is framed as one additional threat that the US could use in negotiation, not actually do. The RAND report does not even include arming Ukraine in its concluding list of recommended actions.

So, not only do you have US senators explaining exactly what US policy is (fight Russia to the last Ukrainian) but you have in depth analysis by the US "go-to" policy analysis group that explains pretty clearly that Ukraine cannot win a war with Russia and further military support that leads exactly to this war would be at the expense of Ukraine.

Now, other pro-Western policy posters here have often simply explicitly stated that yes this is a war to benefit US hegemony, US hegemony is better than the alternatives and if Ukraine is completely destroyed to advance US interests, then so be it.

You do not seem to have this view, but rather share my view that policy should be based on (in not entirely, then with strong consideration for) reduction of harm, in which case avoiding war is best and once the war starts then negotiating a peace sooner rather than later is also better than continued death and destruction, and that seeking to harm Russia at the expense of Ukrainians is not morally justifiable (I would also argue that this doesn't even seem to be happening, so a "careful what you wish for" warning to the pro-more-war proponents, but rather the war is strengthening Russia, but this is a secondary debate to the issue of whether it is morally acceptable to seek to harm Russia "somewhat" at the expense of near total destruction of Ukraine).

Now, if we agree on the moral fundamentals, then it doesn't seem even up for debate of what the purpose of Western policy has been leading up to the war ("extend" Russia at great risk and peril to Ukraine) and what the Western policy has been during the war (fight Russia to the last Ukrainian ... but not escalate more than that and risk Russia using Nukes).

What would be up for debate is 1. why does such a disastrous policy (at least for Ukraine, if not for the West) get put into place in the first place despite warnings directly from RAND that Ukraine have little chance of "winning" and that their losing will be a significant loss of US prestige and power, 2. how best to end the war now, and 3. understanding how the myth building works and fools people such as yourself into believing that disastrous policy is either somehow necessary or then at least "hearts were in the right place". For example, what exactly is wrong with fighting a geo-political adversary to the last citizen of a non-allied country?

Case in point:

I think it's implied. How could it be anything else when US imperialism is the singular force that determines events around the world.

Well maybe only the bad ones. — Echarmion

Which is simply masterbating with a fellow US sycophant with more myth and propaganda.

If you took interest enough in this war and the plight of the Ukrainians to be discussing here since the beginning, you'd know we've gone over this subject multiple times.

The focus on criticizing Western policy by us critical Westerners in this thread, is because we are Westerners and citizens of countries that are part of the Western institutions organizing the policies in question as well as directly participating in sending arms and thoughts and payers.

As citizens of Western countries we not only feel more responsible for what our governments do, rather than other countries, but we are in a better position to affect the policies of our own countries compared to other countries.

No one here has framed the "US imperialism" as "the singular force that determines events around the world". However, if we look at bad things other countries do—such as Saudi Arabia literally cutting the heads off people in the town square oh and starving the Yemenis, or Ukraine tolerating and arming literal Nazi's, China creating a truly dystopian techno-police state and poised to export that around the world, or indeed Russia invading Ukraine—then again the question for us humanist critical thinkers is what can the countries and the alliances and institutions our countries participate in (i.e. the policies we affect as citizens) do about these problems.

However, if we debated these other "bad things" other countries do, what is the response from US mini-"hegemons" out here on the web? Is the answer "oh, we should definitely implement policies to try to deal with those bad things" or is it "well US power needs the Saudi's as an ally, certainly not an enemy, so we sort of need to arm Saudi Arabia and tolerate whatever bad things they do in their own country and in other countries. You know, US interests, oil, hegemony, it's all very clever. And for the Nazi's in Ukraine, that's ok if they want to fight Russians, and maybe they aren't so many or aren't so bad after all. And of course we need China to make our stuff and profits for US corporations!! So we may disapprove and China does things and maybe China is also a rival in Asia that we try to contain, but there was zero problem in transferring all the means of production to Communist china in order to depress wages and 'socialist' activity at home and make corporations tons of money being able to leverage environmental, working conditions and humans rights arbitrage in any country willing to do business that way ... not our problem if they do bad things to their own citizens!!!."

So where would that conversation go exactly? A total focus on Uzbekistan? With a human rights situation described by Wikipedia as:

Non-governmental human rights organisations, such as IHF, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, as well as United States Department of State and Council of the European Union, define Uzbekistan as "an authoritarian state with limited civil rights"[14] and express profound concern about "wide-scale violation of virtually all basic human rights".[70] According to the reports, the most widespread violations are torture, arbitrary arrests, and various restrictions of freedoms: of religion, of speech and press, of free association and assembly. — Uzbekistan, Human Rights - Wikipedia

Which, as far as I know, is a human rights situation that may indeed have little to do with US imperialism.

So, please, link to where you've been discussing and working towards reducing the bad things being done by the Uzbekistan government, or then if you've "missed it" in your humanitarian mission, then what do you feel about it now and what is to be done about it? The "proper course of action" to use your words.

Personally I think this war was going to happen no matter what. Many presidents, including Trump and Obama, tried to change the course of US foreign policy, but were unable to fight 'the Blob'. — Tzeentch

Well I agree the war was extremely likely and it's definitely a testament to the power of the neo-cons that they can simply continue the policy without presidents having much say in it.

Nevertheless, I have no problem recognizing Ukrainian "agency" in parallel to the US policy.

It may certainly be true that Zelensky is Nuland's "our man" and the leverage and compromat Nuland has on Zelensky essentially guaranteed rejecting any peace or negotiation before the war.

However, not only are there other actors in Ukrainian society, once the war started and the stakes were clear I think Zelensky did have real agency. In extreme circumstances many previous obligation, pressures and considerations that seemed important before are swept away in force majeur. Had he wanted, Zelensky could have chosen to be something other than be a patsy and instead play an astute diplomatic game playing the sides off each other and making use of his leverage to cut a deal, playing the Americans and the Europeans, while keeping a step ahead of hardliners (aka. literal Nazi's) in Ukraine.

Of course, you may retort that Zelensky is an idiot and could not possibly come up with some sophisticated play that would have shoved a peace down the throats of Nuland and fellow patsies in the EU. And for myself, personally, I would not care much to defend more than the agency of an idiot.

However, it is a common refrain from apologists for US foreign policy that the disasters are co-created with "agency" of local players. It may not seem too relevant to you that the US is "invited in" to get a bunch of people killed, poisoned, maimed and tortured, but it is very important in the foundation of psychopathic analysis that victims "want it", or then at least had hypothetical chance to prevent it. So, for the sake of these fragile souls I have no problem admitting the agency of American agents does in fact exist—yeah, sure, why not I say—, but I would still leave it to them to argue what kind of agency we're talking about. The agency of a moron like Zelensky maybe little more than hypothetical and seen as Nuland elects the Ukrainian leader since 2014 then it would follow that Ukrainians have little say in the matter.

In my view, it is thinkable that they knew the Russians were going to invade, and also knew the Russians would eventually prevail, since the decision not to put NATO boots on the ground was obviously made in advance of the conflict. — Tzeentch

Agreed.

To add to your observation, there's no actual rush to make Ukrainians as effective as possible. Drip feed theory, the centre piece of my analysis here, of only supplying the next weapons system when the previous weapon system fails to deliver any sort of victory for Ukraine, I would argue definitive proof there's no real intention to even try to defeat the Russians.

US officials have managed to impress upon the fungible minds of even the most ardent war zealot that there's some rational reason for holding back weapons all while "doing whatever it takes" to win ... but this is clearly untrue given that they can send the very weapons one day they presented as simply common sense they could not possibly send the day before. What changes as time passes is not some reevaluation of these "of course not" arguments for not sending more sophisticated weapons, but rather the destruction of Ukrainian's war fighting capability.

As the RAND paper insists upon multiple times, support to Ukraine must be "Calibrated" to avoid any real inconvenience to Russia that risks escalation, which isn't good for anyone.

Maybe the goal of project Ukraine really was to incorporate Ukraine into NATO/EU, but perhaps this was just the red herring to provoke Russia, and the actual goal of project Ukraine lies elsewhere - perhaps the goal was a forever war between Russia and Europe. — Tzeentch

Well, I'm sure if Russia just "let it happen" then Ukraine and Georgia would be in NATO already, but since Russia didn't the neo-cons saw the opportunity for a new war that would be good as far as war making is concerned. The gas and destroying the Euro as a competitor the USD as well as making European states essential permanent vassals without the possibility of "playing off both sides" anymore were additional benefits. However, I'm pretty sure the neo-cons just like killing as many people as bureaucratically possible (they can't just launch nukes at random and live out their fetish of rebuilding civilization in a bunker, for example, because other bureaucrats would stop them ... for now).

So, I certainly agree with your point:

For example, European energy dependency has been a thorn in the United States' side for at least a decade, and it ties in nicely with the US blowing up Nord Stream. — Tzeentch

But that's just dirty money business, Tim Cook has money for god's sake; no, money isn't the main motivation, you really know you're powerful when you get a lot of people killed due to your creative engagement with the world. Money is only a tool, not an end in itself you know.

Apologies, it seems I have mixed up our discussions with someone else's. — Jabberwock

That's good to know.

It wasn't intended as a complaint. — Echarmion

Well then it seems we are of one mind on the matter and Zelensky disagrees with what is obvious truth to us.

I haven't said anything about what I think the terms actually were, and I have already decided that it's pointless to discuss specifics with you as our views just diverge too much. — Echarmion

I agree it's mostly an academic exercise and speculation what the best deal possible was at the time, though I would not say useless; what would have been the best diplomatic strategy (what concessions were achievable not only from Russia but the US, NATO, EU) could inform similar situations in the future.

As for the subject at hand, seems we agree that Zelensky should have been willing to accept neutrality, recognizing Crimea and some degree of independence for the separatists, certainly getting as many concessions as possible from all the involved parties for agreeing to those points.

Whether the Russian offer was "bad faith" or would result in some future war seems also now of academic interest.

Though, as I mention, if an offer is in bad faith it is still good to accept it. Likewise, even if you think a war would only be postponed for later one still needs to be confident of winning a sooner war.
[/quote]

Clearly we do not inhabit a shared reality (mentally, that is). — Echarmion

We seem to agree on the major points.

Whether the Northern operation was worth the cost (which we actually know Russia casualties), and whether there was a better strategy available, it made military sense to undertake and did help achieve the military gains in the South.

Of course, geo-politically, economically, in terms domestic politics, the whole war certainly has many consequences. On these issues my position is that it is not a given that Russia is being harmed by the war, or then being more harmed than NATO as a whole (even if there is relative benefit to the US relative Europe), and of course the big winner is China (and whether Russia is a relative loser vis-a-vis China, strengthening the China block is not necessarily productive for the West). The latter point even US mainstream analysts seem to be adopting as well.

Mostly all the fighting in 2022 after the first couple of weeks. — Echarmion

Then we are in agreement, by start of the war I mean the general period from before the fighting even starts to then the first weeks of fighting.

My point being that period of time Ukraine had more leverage than now. At what point it had maximum leverage is again a somewhat academic speculative exercise. The Kremlin may have been willing to make more concessions to avoid the war entirely, in which case maximum leverage was before the war. Once fighting begins then "exact leverage levels" I would argue are pretty volatile as a lot depends on perceptions and worries of decision makers.

There's huge risks in military operations of this size so as days go by the major risks may seem to be radically bigger or smaller.

What military leaders, the Kremlin and Putin are most worried about and would motivate them the most to settle the conflict so as to be sure to avoid, are potentially things that Ukraine doesn't even have the capacity to do or then doesn't ever attempt to do even if they could.

To give an extreme example, a major invasion and/or missile attacks on undisputed Russian territory is certainly something Ukraine could do, and even if doing so would likely solicit Russia responding with massive military call up (not only "unlocking that ability" in the Russian legal code but the Kremlin may feel obliged for international prestige to react as hard as possible), Russia still needs to deal with the sanctions and so such events, even if terrible for Ukraine, risk also havoc in Russia that the Kremlin legitimately believes maybe overwhelming. Maybe the Russian people band together to crush the insolent Ukrainians or maybe things start falling apart militarily or economically.

So, at the start of the war, Ukraine has this theatre level chaotic wildcard sort of leverage over Russia as well as simply the costs and risks of the fighting itself.

If it interests you, or then anyone following, to evaluate risks and stakes on this level you need to keep in mind all the possibilities. By committing to the defence Kiev and re-posturing forces for that, Russia anxiety may significantly decrease as the possibility of Ukraine actually invading Russia decreases.

The Russian plan is to prosecute the first phases of the war with 200 000 troops supplemented by mercenaries, so, at minimum, Ukraine invading Russia would cause a problem to the Kremlins preferred strategy.

I use this example not simply because it's extreme to illustrate the point of risk perception, but also Ukrainians and neo-cons have (after nearly 2 years) realized this themselves that forbidding Ukraine from invading Russia was a significant strategic weakness.

But for the subject at hand, Russia could not know for certain in any case at the start of the war that the US would forbid Ukraine from invading Russia nor that Ukraine would head such limitations; it is the risk, not what actually happens in the future (that is not known at the time), that is leverage at the negotiating table. Of course, Zelensky having zero experience was likely clueless about anything and just a snow flake on spring breeze blowing higher and tither in his understanding of the situation.

Making irrational ultimatums in public to close the door on negotiation entirely, is a sign of a weak mind that is unable to deal with complexity so seeks to simplify the situation by making the choice of the day (or hour or minute) permanent and so not need to think about the options anymore; certainly serves no diplomatic or military purpose.

Yeah, at least in terms of relative battlefield advantage. You can of course argue that the russian losses will make it harder for Russia to justify any kind of settlement, but psychological effects like this are hard to measure.

It's possible that Ukraine has passed it's peak and the war of attrition will slowly accumulate russian battlefield advantage, as well as erode Ukrainian will to fight. Certainly the very public show of disunity recently is not a good sign. — Echarmion

Well I think it's more than possible Ukraine has passed its peak, but for the sake of completeness "we don't know for certain" relative casualties.

We will see how the war unfolds.

But there doesn't seem to be a reason to assume either side will collapse any time soon and a lot can happen in a long war. — Echarmion

A war of attrition at this scale of intensity leads to sudden collapse of the one side if it continues.

This is not an insurgency where the insurgents mostly hang out among the civilian population, in well hidden and remote bases, as well as other countries entirely and can sustain a low level conflict indefinitely.

At this intensity of fighting, continuous supply of munitions is required, continuous replacement of casualties adequate enough to hold the entire front.

It's only difficult for either side to advance insofar as they must penetrate heavy fortifications and mine fields into artillery bombardment and under risk / pressure of counter attack and degradation by suicide drones, and if you manage to advance despite all that it's simply all redeployed and rebuilt 5 or 10 km further away and you need to do it all over again.

A total collapse of one part of the line would allow deep penetration where none of these things exist anymore likely leading to a cascade of collapse along the entire front.

Now, Ukraine is massive so they can always retreat far enough that they are simply out of range of Russian logistics to chase them, but it would be a massive win for Russia. If Russian history is anything to go by, collapse of the front results in political changes in the capital.

Even so, as has been discussed at length with @ssu, Ukraine could still hold plenty of defendable positions (such as the giant river in the middle of the country) as well as sustain an insurgency for years if Russia did occupy the whole country (which is unlikely for this reason), but collapse of the front would mean Russia could take more territory, possibly significantly more.

Collapse of one side of the other is essentially guaranteed at this level of intensity.

"Freeze theory" depends on the Russians giving up on advancing and so lowering the intensity to a sustainable level. Why I think this is unlikely is due to there being too many standoff munitions and drones being too effective and Russia being now totally committed to doing whatever it takes to win the war (Russia started the war with significant self-limitations clearly to make a way back to peace with the West easier' progressive deescalation was perhaps feasible before Nord Stream was blown up).

In principle, Ukraine could hold out and the Russians exhaust their offensive capability (what Western media keeps saying), but as it stands my own view is that Russia has simply too many advantages, in particular artillery and in the air with heavy standoff munitions.

Fair enough. I was just reminded of the phenomenon that, in the proxy wars of the 20th century, junior partners often acquire outsized influence, because the prestige of either the US or the USSR was bound up with their fate. So both powers ended up much deeper in wars than they really wanted. — Echarmion

We're in agreement here. If you read carefully the RAND report cited above, they emphasize repeatedly that escalation of the conflict is not good for the US and advise resolving the Donbas conflict, using arms support only in the context of essentially a negotiating tactic to achieve the best resolution.

There's certainly forces in Ukraine that wanted a war and played the part exactly as you say.

However, a bigger factor I think is that the war festers during the Trump presidency and Russia gate was an overriding US political game that prevented the Trump administration from doing what RAND suggests for domestic political reasons.

What I notice about your view, and this also goes for Tzeentch to a different extent, is that in your "myth", or perhaps we should use a more neutral term like "narrative", noone has any agency. Decisions are ultimately just reactions to the shadowy machinations of an abstraction like "US imperialism" or "the neocons". Hence why Zelensky must be manipulated by a myth. Perhaps he is even entirely a puppet. The russian actions, too are ultimately just a reaction to the actions of the masterminds. — Echarmion

You obviously didn't read what I wrote.

I explicitly stated I disagree with the narrative that the US forced Zelensky to abandon negotiating but needed to persuade him. I even go so far as use the word seduce.

The reason I use myth instead of narrative for things like Putin wanting to conquer all of Ukraine, or Russian military incompetence and Zelensky as the modern Churchill, is because there's not enough elements in these ideas to even constitute a narrative.

The other reason I use the word myth is that there's an epic dimension to these ideas; heroic defence of freedom and so on.

I wouldn't have much of a problem with the use of the word narrative but I feel myth building is more appropriate in this case.

Now, the US not being able to literally force Zelensky to do or not do things doesn't mean they didn't do their best to convince him. Where they did clearly intervene is in the coup of 2014, so that was more US agency than Ukrainian but Ukrainians had 8 years to make peace with Russia if they wanted to.

What is also of note is that all the imperialists in the Kremlin also want this war as well. Imperialists look at a map and ask why this part here isn't ours, and wars as the opportunity to make it theirs.

The US and Russian imperialists are more freinemies then actual adversaries when it comes to this particular war.

This is almost a truism, isn't it? If the deal is good enough to avoid fighting then the deal is good enough to avoid fighting. — Echarmion

It's a truism that you state.

I agree with your truism and then you complain about me agreeing with your truism.

What is not a truism is that we agree that the Russian terms on offer, at least as they appeared to be and were interpreted by diplomats and the West's own media, were reasonable, you even go so far as to say generous (a term I would hesitate to use; generous would be just leaving all the occupied territory).

Now, what is notable, is who doesn't accept this truism is Zelensky. He rejects further negotiation until his demands are met, rather than negotiate and see if there's a deal good enough to take and thus he should take it.

But it's an additional truism that you negotiate before an agreement not after your counter-party accepts your terms.

So maybe it is an obvious truism that you should negotiate and take a good enough deal if it's on offer, but it's clearly not so obvious as to be accepted by Zelensky nor his cheerleaders in the Western media.

Ukraine rejects the terms before the war and also, we are told, the whole Minsk process of diplomacy before was just a ruse and those previous settlements to the conflict were agreed to in bad faith.

And further fighting did improve Ukraine's position. Whether that will be be the case going forward is another question. — Echarmion

What further fighting improved Ukraine's position?

You think now Ukraine is in a better negotiation position than it was at the start of the war? And only going forward from now their negotiation position might decrease?

That is particularly apparent in their complete misunderstanding how and why Poland, the Baltics and other EE countries have joined NATO. — Jabberwock

What misunderstanding?

Can you even cite where we've even discussed Poland, the Baltics and other EE countries joining NATO?

You're literally making up conversation that has not occurred, but please cite where we even discuss other countries joining NATO and explain again what we don't understand about the reasons for doing so.

The reasons Ukraine would want to join NATO before or even now are obvious: not only direct military protection but nuclear deterrence.

The problem is that, if you haven't noticed, Ukraine isn't in NATO. NATO could have flown to Kiev and made Ukraine apart of the club one night by surprise anytime in the last 8 years, or even right now. The explanation of why that doesn't happen by explaining that plenty of countries (including the US) doesn't want Ukraine in NATO simply expounds the obvious reason why Ukraine isn't in NATO as we speak.

If there are "rules" that would prevent NATO allowing Ukraine to join, those rules could be changed if NATO was so motivated to help their friend Ukraine. If there are common sense reasons why no one would change the rules for Ukraine, that is simply another way of saying NATO (and its parts) does not want Ukraine in NATO.

The whole point of being in NATO is to avoid exactly the war that is happening now.

So, if NATO isn't going to do you the favour of rushing over and making you apart of the club and defending you, fighting the war that you want NATO to protect you from to defend the principle of "having the right" to join NATO, is dumb.

And that was the argument for a while, that Ukraine has the "right to join NATO" and so Russia does not have the right to ask neutrality as part of a peace agreement and so Zelensky is right to reject negotiation.

Russians never got into position to shell the city itself with artillery, so all they could shell were the far outskirts of the city and even those were sporadic. That is why there was no massive shelling reported and that is why the number of victims is low and most of those are attributed not to shelling, but to missiles. So if massive shelling of Kiyv was one of the goals of the Northern operation, it failed. — Jabberwock

But I did not assert anything of that kind. I have claimed that Russian shelling had a negilgible effect. Given that you were able to produce evidence for only two targets, I fully support my claim. — Jabberwock

Your first claim was literally:

All i can find are residential areas on the outskirst of the city. — Jabberwock

So for the benefit of anyone following that does not already think you are a complete fool, that is called moving the goal posts.

You literally "can't find", despite an honest search, anything other than residential areas on the outskirts of the city being shelled.

I explain the "outskirts" is exactly where industrial zones are situated, provide the most reported shelling on an entire industrial zone, then literal "military facilities" being shelled.

Anyways, here's more evidence:

Unlike on Monday, Russia did not shell central Kyiv in the first weeks of its invasion. Instead, it primarily targeted the city’s outskirts and a military plant where advanced weaponry is manufactured. — Aljazeera

Casualties would be low if Russian focus is on shelling industrial facilities, such as factories for advanced weapons manufacture mentioned above, rather than residential areas.

It's called propaganda. Western propaganda only reported when shells landed on residential areas, but since there wasn't all that many civilian casualties you then conclude that therefore Russia must not have shelled all that much after all.

Truly marvellous specimen of someone who is willing to believe anything that fuels their preferred narrative.

No, the road traffic was not disrupted, as Russians did not get into range, as I wrote repeatedly (the rail travel was suspended in a larger area due to the risk of air attacks). And people were hiding in subways because of air/missile strikes, which was unrelated to the ground operations. — Jabberwock

Road traffic was not disrupted on the roads Russia literally occupied?

Anyways, it was widely reported when Russia got into artillery range of the remaining Southern road, and as you note yourself rail was suspended due to the risk of air attacks.

In other words, Russia is significantly hampering supply roots into Kiev, also known as blockading the city, also known as a siege.

No, the Northern campaign played mostly a negative role. Had those same troops stood at the border of Belarus, the fixing effect would be the same, because Ukrainians would still have to commit forces to the North and Russians would not sustain such losses. — Jabberwock

This is so stupid it is almost not worth responding to at all.

Actual fighting is going to absorb more troops, more resources, more amunition, more C&C reaction and planning capacity, than just sitting on the other side of a border and there being no fighting.

No, the Russian plan most likely assumed that there would be resistance, but it would not be able to react and hold against the blitz movement from the North. That is why there was an attempt to take Hostomel and Vasylkiv. — Jabberwock

Again, as actual experts have already informed you, Russia did not have the troops to effectively occupy a large city such as Kiev, much less the other major urban centres, and even if Russia took major urban centres without costly and long Urban combat (which unlikely) that would not end the war due to there being zero reason to believe Ukrainian partisans won't continue fighting from elsewhere in Ukraine.

The Northern operation obviously had the military effect of aiding Russia's conquest of the South, because that is what literally happens. Certainly the Kremlin would have preferred the pressure was enough to pressure Kiev into a peace agreement, but if that doesn't happen the Russians take also shell targets of industrial and military value while they are there.

Even if you don't believe Wikipedia's estimate that 15 000 to 30 000 Russian troops took part in the siege of Kiev (7 - 15 % of the overall force), the entire 200 000 Russian force is not enough to occupy major Ukrainian urban centres, likely not even sufficient to occupy only Kiev, especially if the population is extremely hostile to the Russians (which plenty of Ukrainians are).

The alternative view is, instead of attempting to do something that is basically unfeasible, the Northern operation puts pressure on Kiev, keeps Ukrainian resources and operational focus there instead of in the South, shells a bunch of valuable targets, and when the South is secure and it becomes clear peace is unlikely, the Russians retreat (as expected in a fixing operation once the principle objective is accomplished elsewhere).

So you claim that the Russian diversion was so cunning that they have knowingly sent their elite troops to be massacred, just to pretend they want to take an airport? — Jabberwock

First, there is zero evidence that the battle at the airport was some sort of "massacre".

Conversely, CNN described the airport's fall as "the first major victory notched by the Russians" in the invasion.[48] The Washington Post also stated that "still, the Russians had their bridgehead" after capturing the airport on 24 February. — Battle of Antonov Airport - Wikipedia

All the analysis that concludes the battle was a failure for the Russians presumes their goal of capturing Kiev, which doesn't happen so the argument goes that failing to completely secure Hostomel is the critical event that prevents taking Kiev.

Now, if the Northern operation was a fixing operation, makes sense anyways to attack the airport to destroy the AA and other assets that are there, which Wikipedia informs us were destroyed in precision strikes, prevent Ukraine from making use of the airport, but also make it seem right off the bat that Russia is committing to taking Kiev, which the whole narrative around Hostomel definitely served to establish.

As for sending special forces on special missions ... that's pretty much what they are for in conventional warfare. What you want to avoid is throwing in special forces into a large infantry formation doing conventional manoeuvres where there's little or no difference between special and regular infantry.

Whether they suffered greater than expected losses or not, an air assault on an airbase to both destroy assets there as well as make the enemy believe "the real goal" is Kiev is exactly a mission where special forces can do their special thing and have an disproportionate effect on the theatre.

So, the use of special forces in a special mission is entirely expected.

Furthermore, your objection that this would be too cunning for the Russians to try to solicit over commitment from Ukraine to defending Kiev, while the entire South is conquered, is just bizarre. These are extremely banal and standard military ideas that are literally thousands of years old. If you want to take position A then if you can you will try to get your enemy to be at not-A.

If we are discussing the allies in WWII deceiving the Nazi's as to where they plan to land in Normandy it goes without saying that this this is both a good military idea as well as there are officers that can plan and execute a deceptive campaign.

However, if we consider the idea that the Russians deceived the Ukrainians as to their primary military goal and getting Ukraine to overcommit to defending Kiev, suddenly its ludicrous that Russian officers have even read a single book on military tactics and strategies.

The sticking point is of course what you consider "neutrality" to mean. If it just means "don't join NATO but you get some multilateral security arrangement" then yeah that sounds like a pretty good deal that I would definetly take over fighting. — Echarmion

We seem then to be on agreement of the principle point that if there was a suitable peace available based on an "acceptable neutrality", before or at the beginning of the war, then that was far better for Ukraine as a state and Ukrainians as living breathing people compared to the situation now.

If we furthermore agree that using the Ukrainians to their detriment simply to harm Russia some is immoral, which I assume if you agree peace is preferable you'd agree with this additional point, then the West rejecting peace on such a basis rather than the interest of Ukrainians was certainly an immoral decision, whether it succeeds in some grand geopolitical strategic sense or not (which I have my serious doubts, countries generally getting stronger militarily, rather than weaker, from this kind of war).

Of course if "neutrality" is understood to mean that Ukraine ends up internationally isolated, with no ability to, for example, join the EU or make security arrangements with anyone but Russia, then that's a far worse deal, and would likely just be postponing the conflict. I would only accept that if I had some plan to make sure I don't just end up invaded 5 years later in a much worse situation. — Echarmion

Yes, certainly if a deal would likely end up in a worse situation later, then it's better to reject it.

Nevertheless, the logic of "better to fight now than later" still requires the expectation of winning. For example, the criticism of appeasement is levied against the great powers of the time - France, UK and the United States - who have reasonable chance of stopping Nazi Germany and completely defeating if need be. We do not direct the criticism towards Poland for not fighting to the last Polish.

What deal would have been attainable at the time we can never know for sure now, but what I think is clear is that Ukraine, particularly Zelensky, believed further fighting would improve their position; my argument of why Zelensky believed further fighting to be a better course is the various myths quickly built up around the war: Russia was incompetent and easy to beat, Putin an irrational actor as well as some sort of nostalgic reenactment of WWII Western allied solidarity ... just without anyone coming to actually help.

And we have evidence that they have shelled ONE FACTORY. Given that your initial argument was LITERAL QUOTE: 'shelling targets of military value for 2 months', giving evidence for shelling one factory is coming up a bit short, I would say. Even if you do it twice. — Jabberwock

This was the most widely reported and only one example is required to disprove your assertion that Russia did not shell anything of military / industrial value.

Here's another example of shelling something of military value:

A military facility in Brovary, outside Kyiv, was destroyed in recent shelling. (Genya Savilov/AFP/Getty Images) — Another example of shelling stuff - CBC

But let me get this straight, shelling is cheaper than missiles, Russia has artillery with a range of up to 30km, Russia is in position around Kiev where we now agree much of the industrial capacity will be outside the city ... but you are arguing Russian forces elect not to use this opportunity to shell targets of military value, such as industrial zones and literal military facilities?

Your argument is Russia didn't shell much of anything? Or only shelled residential areas of no military value?

In any case, my point that the Northern operation allows Russia to shell targets of military value and that's one advantage of undertaking such an operation is obviously true even in a bizarre scenario where Russian forces simply elect not to shell anything of military value.

It WOULD be a siege, if, as the colonel said it, if Russians did manage to 'isolate and completely detain Kiev and start applying pressure'. The obvious issue is that they never did that. They shelled one factory and a few residential suburbs and they were never close to blockading the city, as most of the roads were outside of their range. — Jabberwock

A siege, how the word is usually employed, starts when an army gets to a city or fortification and starts the process of assaulting it or then starts the process of blockading it.

There are plenty of sieges throughout history that were not successful, the defenders manage to prevent complete encirclement, or then were always partial with supply roots in and out of the city (for example a coastal city being under siege from the land) but nevertheless the siege succeeds.

Even the term blockade does not require the blockading force to "isolate and completely detain" the defending force, but simply disrupting supply roots is still a blockade. Indeed, most sieges and most blockades in history are not perfect for obvious resource reasons that perfecting something takes exponentially more resources and resources are needed for other things; restricting most supplies to a city is perhaps sufficient and obviously still blockading said city; likewise attacking a city, aka. besieging the city, does not require a perfect blockade of the city nor any blockade of the entire city at all.

It's honestly bizarre your fixation on not only me using the word siege but as you admit yourself the mainstream media.

Saying a city is under siege is conjures up a different idea than saying a battle took place near a city, a much better idea to describe Russia's approach to and process of encircling Kiev. Obviously the siege of Kiev is not successful in terms of taking the city by force or then pressuring a peace deal, but no where in the definition of a siege is need be successful. There are plenty of sieges throughout history that were not successful and the attacker failed to completely encircle the city, failed to starve the city into submission or then failed to storm and take the city by force.

You seem to be living in a world where we should only use the word siege if the attacker perfectly implements a blockade. That is not how the word is used.

No, they were not. That is obviously false and repeating that will not make it any more true. If you have trouble finding the map in the very article you quote, I will provide it here for you: — Jabberwock

That map you post shows Russians blockading, to use your definition, essentially half of Kiev and due to the range of artillery able to significantly disrupt traffic on the remaining roads and rail into Kiev, which is a perfectly sensible siege of a city. People are literally living in subways at this time and you're telling me that if you were there you'd be willing to go down into the subway system and explain to them that Kiev is not under siege?

Sure, but I do not question that. The point of the discussion were the planned purposes of the northern campaign and assessment of their successes. — Jabberwock

As I've stated several times, insofar as the purpose was to compel a peace deal, the Northern campaign failed to do that.

Insofar as the purpose was to absorb focus and resources in the North so as to contribute to success in the South, the Northern campaign was a success.

The Russians do conquer the strategically critical land bridge to Crimea so overall the initial invasion is a military success and the Northern campaign played a critical military role.

Did Russia commit the troops necessary to conquer Kherson in siege and urban combat? And yet they have taken it. Did Russians commit enough troops for a siege of Melitopol? And yet they have taken it. Not to mention that forces required for a siege also typically need to be larger than the defending forces, for the simple fact that they need to be spread around a large area, while the defenders can attempt to break the blockade at any given point, not to mention to defend the blockade ring from the outside attemps at rescue. So if the siege was the supposed plan, Russians would need even more troops. — Jabberwock

Where cities simply capitulated obviously Russia did not have to besiege the city and take it by force. If there was fierce resistance in Kherson then either Russia would have needed to commit the troops required to take the city or then not take it.

I'm not sure what your point here is, that the Russian plan was based on assuming Kiev would just capitulate without a fight?

The only issue with the theory that the northern campaign was just a diversion and a fixing operation is that it is complete nonsense contradicting all the basic facts of the campaign. You do not send your best VDV troops to get massacred in Hostomel in a 'fixing operation'. — Jabberwock

Actually you often do send your best troops on the fixing operation since it is a more difficult mission that requires greater skill and discipline and military wisdom and also greater bravery knowing one is in fact facing superior numbers. It is a much more sophisticated operation than just busting through with overwhelming force. If you send your worst troops they risk just getting completely destroyed or captured immediately and then the enemy can anyways reinforce where you are actually attacking.

Indeed, that is exactly one purpose of elite forces in conventional warfare, is to go and deceive the enemy of where the main attack will take place.

So if indeed elite troops were committed to the North that is not unusual.

Attacking Hostomel with elite troops and making it appear that the plan is to take the airport and then fly in reinforcements to take Kiev is exactly the kind of plan special forces would come up with if they are tasked with a fixing operation.

In fact we can be sure of this because it happened. In 2014. — Echarmion

Yes, obviously the separatists cannot prevail by themselves and already required support in 2014 and support would inevitably require escalation to either a peaceful settlement of the Donbas conflict or then a full blown war.

So the evidence we do in fact have that Russia offered some extremely generous terms to Ukraine and the west prohibited Ukrain from taking the deal are: Schröders vague allusion and the statements of Mr. Michael von der Schulenburg (who provides no further justification). I guess we could also count the coincidence of Boris Johnsons visit and the end of the negotiations as evidence that Boris Johnson somehow did it, as the article does. — Echarmion

Interesting that you describe the alleged deal as extremely generous.

Are you agreeing that assuming such terms were on offer (neutrality, recognizing Crimea, Russian speaker protections in the Donbas) that, at least in hindsight, that was a far better deal at that time than continued fighting turned out to be?

The main point of issue in the present debate is whether (since all present seem to agree a peace agreement is the only viable end to the conflict) Ukraine's leverage increased or decreased since the first phase of the war. Whatever Russia was offering, if Ukraine's leverage was higher in the past then they had the best chance of getting the best deal at that time in the past along with avoiding further loss of Ukrainian lives.

What a deal would have actually looked like is subordinate to whether it was a better deal than whatever Ukraine can ultimately negotiate from here.

As for what the terms actually were, Russia made the offer and key points publicly so Ukraine could have accepted publicly. One topsy-turvy narrative is that Russia was making the offer in bad faith and therefore Ukraine was right to reject the offer and insist on a military defeat of Ukraine; however, the correct negotiation move when a good offer is made in bad faith is to simply accept it and if the counter-party renegs then one's position is improved by clearly demonstrating the bad faith of the opposing party.

One issue I think is important to address is the framing are statements such as "the west prohibited Ukraine from taking the deal". US / NATO I do not think had any hard leverage that essentially means they were deciding for Zelensky / other Ukrainian leaders, but they needed to persuade Zelensky et. al. and absolutely essential to this was the mythology that was rapidly constructed to portray the Russian invasion as somehow a complete failure, Ukrainians fiercer fighters that are more motivated, Zelensky himself a brazen war hero and so on.

In short, Ukrainian decision makers, and in particular Zelensky, needed to be seduced to the neo-con world view that what actually matters is what Western people can be made to think and somehow reality will flow from such beliefs, whether they be true or false initially or at any point in the future. The promise of military aid, "whatever it takes", and tens of billions of dollars certainly helped.

If these are the deal-breaker conditions for a peace negotiation, is it completely irrational for Ukraine and its Western allies (like the United States) to resist peace talks, even assuming a COMPETENT and HARD TO BEAT Russia? Teach me your theory of rationality, I'm eager to learn from you. — neomac

No problem, I am happy to teach you.

First as I've already explained, it's completely irrational to refuse negotiating as the weaker party to a conflict. Not only are Russia's demands maybe their starting position and through negotiation you "talk them down" but Ukraine was also in a position to get concessions also from both Europe and the United States.

So if you don't negotiate you can't know what exactly is on offer. Perhaps Russia is offering some compensation for Crimea that makes a peace more palpable and so forth. Perhaps other European states that do not want a protracted war with Russia would also offer compensation that would make life better in Ukraine.

As for your point about deal breakers, if you mean giving up claim to Crimea or declaring neutrality are deal breakers, those are irrational deal breakers. If Ukraine has not military option to retake Crimea then maintaining that as a deal breaker is simply irrational, it is much more rational to seek to get as much compensation for recognizing reality that you have no hope of changing through military intervention. Likewise, if Ukraine has no hope of joining NATO anyways and no hope of defeating Russia in military terms, then the rational course of action is to seek as much compensation as possible for accepting neutrality.

The justification for Ukraine's refusal to negotiate and declaring delusional objectives and ultimatums, such as only being willing to negotiate once Russia leaves all of Ukraine, was the theory of victory that Russia would fall apart under the pressure of the war, Western sanctions and domestic opposition to the war.

None of that I would argue was rational for Ukraine to believe, but the US made quite clear that their theory was a protracted war with Ukraine, sanctions, blowing the up the pipelines, would weaken Russia long term. This is made quite clear by

“I like the structural path we’re on here,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham declared in July 2022. “As long as we help Ukraine with the weapons they need and the economic support, they will fight to the last person.” — Aaron Mate

Which makes clear the US does not view Ukraine's choice as a rational one, but a good path for the US (what "we" refers to in this context).

And this is nothing new, using fanatical fighters as a proxy force to weaken a rival is post-WWII great-power conflict 101.

For Ukraine, the point of maximum leverage was in the initial phase of the war (or even before the war) and the rational thing to do is negotiate when you are strongest.

The myth building undertaken by the United States that the time to negotiate is not at the start of the war but Russia is incompetent and weak and can be pushed back, was to encourage Zelensky to reject peace as well as reassure European allies that supporting Ukraine militarily is a worthwhile endeavor (rather than forcing Ukraine to accept a peace deal, which the Europeans could have done even without the United States). Some parties in Europe were of course as enthusiastic for Ukraine to fight the Russians as you could possibly be, but many people in Europe were skeptical.

Now, certainly your reply is that Ukraine really wants Crimea back and really wants to be in NATO, perhaps agreeing already with:

It's beyond me how anyone can take this seriously.

Not only was there no way for Ukraine to join NATO with the Donbas conflict unresolved.

Launching a demonstrative attack on your neighbours capital to get them to not join a defensive alliance with your enemies must be the dumbest plan I've ever heard. "Hey look how easily we can threaten your capital and take your land. Better not get any protection, that'd be bad. Also we're going to retreat after loosing some of our best troops and a bunch of equipment, so you'll know we mean business". — Echarmion

Of which the answer is literally right there in these statements.

Ukraine has no hope of actually joining NATO as @Echarmion literally states. Obviously it would have been nice for Ukraine to join NATO anytime before the war or even now and have other countries come and fight your battles.

... However since Ukraine has essentially zero hope of joining NATO, then what is rational is to try to seek compensation for recognizing what you can't have anyway. What is totally irrational is to fight a costly war to defend "the right to join NATO" even if you can't actually join NATO.

To answer the question of why Russia invades to try to force Ukraine to give-up it's goal of joining NATO when Ukraine has essentially no hope of joining NATO, again the answer is right there in @Echarmion explanation of the situation.

Ukraine can't join NATO due to the war in the Donbas, but continuing that war indefinitely is not a reasonable solution for Russia. Just like Ukraine is clearly at a massive disadvantage in a war of attrition with Russia, the Donbas separatists were at a massive disadvantage in a war of attrition with the rest of Ukraine. There is clear limitations of sending "volunteers" and other covert actions to help the separatists rather than formal military formations. Eventually Donbas would be attritted away (or just leave or die of old age) and Ukraine would prevail without direct intervention of the Russian army.

Therefore, the plan of keeping the Donbas conflict alive in order to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO essentially necessitates an eventual escalation of direct intervention of Russian forces to prevent the collapse of the separatists.

The conflict in the Donbas and the cutting of fresh water to Crimea were also serious political problems. Ordinary Russians expected the Russian government to "solve" those issues one way or another.

Again, the portrayal of the invasion as some some sort of whimsical irrational act on the part of an obsessed imperialist in the Kremlin was again myth building to portray Ukraine as an innocent victim, rather than creating problems for Russia that would inevitably lead to escalating the de facto war with Russia in the Donbas since 2014.

The reason so much effort was spent by the Western media to assert there was no "provocation" was that there was obvious provocations that are easy to understand (such as cutting off fresh water supply and killing ethnic Russians, in one case locking them in a building and lighting it on fire, as well as going around with Swastikas and espousing Nazi ideology), and accepting the reality of these provocations significantly reduces a feeling of moral imperative to help a victim that provokes aggression.

If you recognize the obvious reasons for Russia seeking a military solution to obvious problems, then corollary is that Russia is a rational actor with reasonable concerns and perhaps a peace can be negotiated that is better for everyone, and likewise greatly diminishes a feeling of obligation to send free money and arms to Ukraine.

The myths required are founded on mostly just ignoring obvious facts but also just Western ignorance. Since the Western media mostly ignored the conflict in the Donbas and ordinary Westerners mostly ignore the Western media anyways, the Russian invasion came as a surprise (to them) so it is easy to build on that and portray the invasion as irrational and unprovoked, just sort of out of the blue.

You can of course argue Lindsey Graham's point that it was good for the US to create the myths required to encourage Ukraine to give up their leverage through fanatical fighting as that will "damage" Russia, but it's difficult to argue that it was rational for Ukraine to do so.

Once it started to become clear that Russia was not weak and would not be easily beaten, the new justification was that the war was existential for Ukraine, again based on the myth that Russia wants to conquer all of Ukraine: therefore it is reasonable to fight even "to the last Ukrainian" because the battle is existential. However, that argument is not only simply wrong (Russia doesn't have the force necessary to conquer and occupy all of Ukraine and there's no gain in doing so) it is also a fallacy anyways confusing what is existential for a state and what is existential for a people. The only time it is reasonable to fight to death against impossible odds is if the aggressor anyways plans to murder you if you surrender.

If I am attacked by a larger and more skilled opponent that I am convinced is trying to murder me (not coerce me into giving him my watch) then it's reasonable to fight back even if I am fairly certain I will lose, as there is always some chance, no matter how small, of prevailing due to luck in fighting or then the lucky intervention of external forces.

However, not only is there zero evidence Russia plans to conquer and occupy all of Ukraine, there is even less evidence Russia wishes to do so in order to murder every Ukrainian.

The war maybe existential for Zelesnky, but it is not existential for the average Ukrainian and there is no rational basis to fight a losing war.

If you are losing a war then your leverage decreases over time and does not increase. The closer the war comes to a military termination (where you lose) the less reason the opposing side has to offer any concessions and of course the more people and infrastructure you lose due to continuing to fight; and to make matters even worse, the more you lose a war the faster you lose the war in the future as the destruction of your fighting capacity means further disadvantage and asymmetry of losses.

For people interested in actual reality, the second most basic of all military strategies immediately following the use of force, is deceiving the enemy.

If your objective is A you want your enemy to believe your objective is B.

If you want to break through at a point at A, let's call is A1, then you want to trick your enemy into reinforcing other points other than A1, ideally not even in the vicinity of A but to move forces to B and C and so on.

This is called "Defeat in Detail" or more popularly "Divide and Conquer" described by Wikipedia as:

Defeat in detail, or divide and conquer, is a military tactic of bringing a large portion of one's own force to bear on small enemy units in sequence, rather than engaging the bulk of the enemy force all at once. — Defeat in detail - wikipedia

The end result of all these deliberations is that Russia divides Ukrainian forces between defending the North and the South, allowing Russian forces to overwhelm Ukrainian defenders in the South and conquer critically strategic terriroty.

The opposition here wants us to believe that this happened accidentally or then as a "consolation prize" to Russia's actual plan of defeating and occupying the North and installing a puppet regime, dedicating about 10% of their overall force in Ukraine to this primary objective.

This latter narrative has so little support that proponents are reduced to simply refusing to accept the common use of words like "siege".

What is more interesting than debating what "siege" means, is why the myth is developed that Russia has completely failed, incompetent, irrational, in disarray, in comparison to a standard of performance expected from the Russians (easily defeat all of Ukrainian forces in a few days, as little as 3, and occupy Kiev) that no expert expected before the war, is that it supports refusing negotiations, which is what the West, in particular the US, wants Ukraine to do.

That's not what happened. — Echarmion

That's exactly what happens.

The "limited excursion" into South-Eastern Ukraine refers to establishing a land bridge to Crimea.

Literally called by the author "Sub-COA 1c: Create a Land Bridge from Rostov to Crimea".

Which is the third "Courses of Action Subordinate to COA 1" in an order of likelihood, following the most likely in the authors opinion:

1. Sub-COA 1a: Deploy Forces to Belarus

and 2. Sub-COA 1b: Overt Deployment in Donbas

Both of which also happen.

The situation on the ground at the moment is that Russia implemented exactly this reports top 3 likely things.

The options to view actions in the North that were abandoned are:

A. Putin and his generals also believed he could waltz in and take Kiev with 20 000 troops.

B. The northern operation was primarily representing a little thing in military parlance called "deception", to divert focus and resources in the North, while more feasible military objectives are achieved in the South.

The evidence for B is that Russia does not commit the troops remotely necessary to take a city of 3 million people, bypasses all urban centres (which are critical to capture for the purposes of long term occupation, but better to avoid if the operation is ephemeral) and does not engage in any Urban combat at all, whereas in the South fierce Urban combat takes place, particular in Mariupol, as the author predicts is necessary:

Securing a land route from Rostov to Crimea would require taking the heavily defended city of Mariupol — FORECAST SERIES: Putin’s Likely Course of Action in Ukraine - Institute for the Study of War

So, what is more probable? That Russia tried and failed to conquer and occupy Northern Ukraine with 20 000 troops ... or that the plan to do what Institute of the Study of War finds feasible with Russia's available forces involves a tiny bit of subterfuge and making the Ukrainians believe, at least at the very onset of the war, there is a full scale invasion with the purpose of taking the capital. Subterfuge perhaps aided by the West repeating at face value a "leaked plan" where Russia would take Kiev, Kharkiv, Odessa, and all of Ukraine in one blow.

What is remarkable, and rather ridiculous, is the need of some people to paint any Russian failure (because the northern WAS a failure, by any reasonable means) as some kind of cunning Russian plan — Jabberwock

It needs to be pointed out that the whole theory of 'just threatening Kiyv' with an army that was supposedly obviously and clearly incapable of threatening Kiyv, is simply incoherent. — Jabberwock

It needs to be pointed out that the whole theory of 'just threatening Kiyv' with an army that was supposedly obviously and clearly incapable of threatening Kiyv, is simply incoherent. — Jabberwock

As far as I can see the common charge is incompetence, not irrationality. — Echarmion

I was pointing out that the article specifically described missile attacks as 'shelling'. — Jabberwock

Well, considering the shelling I was referring to is explicitly described as artillery shelling by the primary source for the information (the municipality of Kiev) in Ukrainian based publications, your issue with the article is totally irrelevant to our debate.

Yes, that is one target of shelling which we have already mentioned. Russians were able to target it, because it was far on the outskirts of Kiyv. — Jabberwock

As I already pointed out, industrial zones are usually beyond the residential zones, and artillery can have up to 30 km, so your point that Russia gets to the residential zone of Kiev should indicate to anyone familiar with "cities" generally speaking that the Russians would have a position to shell industrial zones (that have military value in terms of producing, or being retooled to produce, military hardware), that it would be one thing the Russians might do ... and indeed the Russians do shell industrial targets and so that it one positive (for the Russians) of their Northern operation.

Except the military expert himself never used that word... And yes, encirclement of Kiyv was one of the expected scenarios. — Jabberwock

You are correct, as far as the original source goes, the citation is:

If the Russian troops move forward at the same pace, it will be two days before they reach the suburbs of Kiev, followed by an operation to isolate and completely detain Kiev and start applying pressure. — Col. Margo Grosberg

Which Wikipedia correctly paraphrases as "siege".

All of which is a response to your claim that:

No, the Wikipedia does not say the 'siege' lasted in that period, in fact it did not use that term at all (only you and the sensationalist press insist on using that term, clearly not understanding what it actually means). — Jabberwock

Which is even more directly contradicted by the Wikipedia authors themselves paraphrasing the colonel with the word "siege" as it is at their discretion to describe the situation as a siege, which it obviously is.

Another appearance of the word "siege" in the Wikipedia page is a source, The Washington Post, who publishes an article literally called:

European leaders travel to Kyiv as Russian siege of Ukrainian capital continues — European leaders travel to Kyiv as Russian siege of Ukrainian capital continues - The Washington Post

But I guess this is the "sensationalist press" that wants to sensationalist an army encircling most of a city as "a siege".

Sure, but it does not apply to the battle of Kiyv in any way. As you see, the necessary condition for a siege is a 'blockade'. — Jabberwock

The Russians are definitely blockading Kiev by the process of encircling it and cutting off most roads to Kiev.

Your complaint is that the siege is not entirely complete or not entirely successful, which is fine, a siege does not require perfection or then a siege must be successful to be a siege. Which is simply not the case.

It's honestly a strange obsession of yours to refuse to characterize something that is so obviously a siege as a siege.

I am sure you have no problem watering down your arguments to the point that they do not resemble what you have previously argued for, in order to maintain the illusion you were somehow right. — Jabberwock

The issues of contention in this particular part of the debate is:

1. Incompetence, as expressed by Jabberwock explicitly stating:

As far as I can see the common charge is incompetence, not irrationality. — Echarmion

2. Whether the intention of the Russians was to take and occupy Kiev, as expressed by you stating:

It needs to be pointed out that the whole theory of 'just threatening Kiyv' with an army that was supposedly obviously and clearly incapable of threatening Kiyv, is simply incoherent. — Jabberwock

I, and also @Tzeentch, explain why the Russian actions are neither incompetent nor incoherent, that they make sense and achieve plenty of military objectives while also applying pressure on Kiev to accept peace terms (which clearly does not happen), to which you reply to these points with the straw man that:

Yes, the southern campaign was much more successful. What is remarkable, and rather ridiculous, is the need of some people to paint any Russian failure (because the northern WAS a failure, by any reasonable means) as some kind of cunning Russian plan, in spite of quite obvious facts. — Jabberwock

No where do I say the Northern operation is some "kind of cunning Russian plan".

What are the obvious facts:

1. The Russian military operation as a whole secures the land bridge to Crimea and the Northern operation clearly contributes to the military success in the South by diverting Ukrainian resources and attention.

2. Russia does not commit the troops necessary to conquer Kiev in Urban combat and occupy the city.

From this we can conclude that insofar as the Northern operation was designed as a fixing operation to be sure to take critical strategic targets in the South, it is a success.

Insofar as it is designed to pressure Kiev into accepting a quick peace, it is a failure.

Nowhere do I say the Northern operation is entirely successful. When I explain one purpose of the Northern operation is to pressure Kiev into accepting peace terms, I am very well aware that did not happen and the war continues.

Likewise, no where do I state that the Russian actions represent the best possible strategy. Perhaps things would have gone better for the Russians without the Northern operation, or then perhaps they would have been bogged down in trench warfare trying to break through the Donbas and their columns would have never left Crimea as Ukraine would have done the obvious thing of blowing up the bridges and digging in to prevent that from happening if they were free to focus on what is happening in the South.

The position I am defending is that the Russian plan makes sense and achieves some critical military objectives.

I state clearly that I do not know what probability the Kremlin assigned to Kiev completely capitulating or then accepting peace terms early on, but what is clear is that preparations are made for that not happening and the major military focus is placed on securing critical gains to have "something to show for it" if there is no peace agreement.

The key paragraph to understand the report is on page 14:

Unless the United States and some NATO states actively participate in the fighting, the major variables are the time it takes the Russian military to achieve these aims and the cost it will have to pay in blood and equipment. The outcome of the initial fighting itself is not in doubt.

Reports of the plan and most discussions of the invasion stop at this point. — Report in question

The report explains the narrative in the media of what Putin is allegedly planning to do, and notes that the analysis then just stops at "Russia wins".

However, the author then explain how the alleged plan makes absolutely no sense if it were to be executed. Russia does not have enough troops to occupy all of Ukraine, nor the troops for massive urban combat in multiple cities, and even if cities would surrender as desired (which the author finds exceedingly unlikely), Ukrainians would very likely then conduct an insurgency and trying to do this thing of full scale conquest, even if initially successful, would not achieve any political objectives; it would be just attempting to conquer Ukraine for the sake of it and then have massive problems to deal with.

So either Putin is irrational or then whether intentional or not, Western media plays into what the actual plan is: a fixing operation in the North while the South-East (a feasible objective that serves a strategic purpose and conquers Russian speakers that are easier to pacify) is achieved, which is what happens. Also of note, many parts of the alleged plan do not ever happen, such as an amphibious assault on Odessa.

If the report is read carefully, the only military objective that is feasible with the forces under consideration is taking the land bridge to Crimea / Kherson ... which is what ultimately happens.

For example:

However, the deployment of man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) at scale would pose a considerable challenge to Russia’s ability to flow supplies and reinforcements in by air until they established a wide perimeter around the airfield and along the landing approaches to it. — the report

To explain (one of many reasons) why taking Odessa in an amphibious assault would be exceedingly difficult.

Furthermore, the noted effect of MANPADS is what happens in the actual war, forcing Russian air power to stand-off positions, and so would have basically stranded any landing party trying to take Odessa in a full scale invasion as explained ... which maybe explains why that didn't happen, but ultimately only feasible military objectives were taken and occupied long term.

Russia conducts no urban combat in the North (essential for long term occupation) again: because there is no intention to occupy the North long term is the reasonable explanation.

Yeah, and if you'd continue reading rather than take out of context the one paragraph that seemingly agrees with you, you'd notice that the report is laying out exactly the plan Jabberwock and me consider to have been the likely intent. — Echarmion

What are you talking about? Are you unable to read??

The report literally starts by stating that conquering all of Ukraine is basically impossible if you take a closer look but Putin may conquer South East Ukraine ... which is what happens.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is amassing a large force near the Ukrainian border and reportedly has a military plan to invade and conquer most of unoccupied Ukraine. Western leaders are rightly taking the threat of such an invasion very seriously, and we cannot dismiss the possibility that Putin will order his military to execute it. However, the close look at what such an invasion would entail presented in this report and the risks and costs Putin would have to accept in ordering it leads us to forecast that he is very unlikely to launch an invasion of unoccupied Ukraine this winter. Putin is much more likely to send Russian forces into Belarus and possibly overtly into Russian-occupied Donbas. He might launch a limited incursion into unoccupied southeastern Ukraine that falls short of a full-scale invasion. — Literally the first paragraph of the report in question

Now, the report uses the term "invasion" to mean intent to fully conquer Ukraine, and "limited incursion" for doing something like take a land bridge to Crimea.

I would not use this terminology as clearly invading anywhere in a country is still an invasion, but the paper is meant for other experts and the "invasion / incursion" distinction is made clear.

It analyses what an invasion would entail and that it's basically impossible with the forces Russia has so concludes it's exceedingly unlikely ... but what Putin "might" do is "a limited incursion into unoccupied southeastern Ukraine that falls short of a full-scale invasion".

Which, if you haven't noticed, is what Putin ultimately does.

So, is 20 000 troops in Norther Ukraine really Putin ignoring the "risks and costs" and believing he can completely conquer Kiev and all of Ukraine with 20 000 troops from the North ... or is the purpose of the Northern operation something that makes sense and is feasible to achieve with 20 000 troops of a fixing operation so focus is on Kiev and away from the South-East?

The end result is rational and achievable (limited incursion to establish a land bridge to Crimea) and accomplishes critical strategic objectives such as securing a long term defence of Crimea and something as trivial (in your analysis) as fresh water ... but somehow the start is irrational and the plan is to fully conquer Ukraine with 200 000 troops and only 10% of that force committed to the capital?

Why would irrational actors have rational results in a process as chaotic and complicated as a war?

What was RAND corporation saying before the war:

Alternatively, Russia might counter-escalate, committing more troops and pushing them deeper into Ukraine. Russia might even pre- empt U.S. action, escalating before any additional U.S. aid arrives. Such escalation might extend Russia; Eastern Ukraine is already a drain. Taking more of Ukraine might only increase the burden, albeit at the expense of the Ukrainian people. However, such a move might also come at a significant cost to Ukraine and to U.S. prestige and credibility. This could produce disproportionately large Ukrainian casualties, territorial losses, and refugee flows. It might even lead Ukraine into a disadvantageous peace.

Some analysts maintain that Russia lacks the resources to escalate the conflict. Ivan Medynskyi of the Kyiv-based Institute for World Policy argued, “War is expensive. Falling oil prices, economic decline, sanctions, and a campaign in Syria (all of which are likely to continue in 2016) leave little room for another large-scale military maneuver by Russia.”22 According to this view, Russia simply cannot afford to maintain a proxy war in Ukraine, although, given Russia’s size and the importance it places on Ukraine, this might be an overly optimistic assumption.

There is also some risk of weapons supplied to the Ukrainians winding up in the wrong hands. A RAND study conducted for the President of Ukraine found reasons for concern about the potential misuse of Western military aid. While Ukraine has been tarred by Russian propaganda claims that it mishandled Western military aid, the RAND team also found that “Ukraine’s paper systems for tracking equipment are outdated and vulnerable to corruption.”23 Moreover, the RAND team also expressed concern that, absent reforms to Ukraine’s defense industry, Western military equipment might be reverse- engineered and enter the international market in competition with U.S. suppliers. — Extending Russia - RAND Corporation

RAND essentially argues against what the US policy ultimately does:

The conclusion of the brief of their report on extending Russia is:

Thus, besides the specific risks associated with each option, there is additional risk attached to a generally intensified competition with a nuclear-armed adversary to consider. This means that every option must be deliberately planned and carefully calibrated to achieve the desired effect. Finally, although Russia will bear the cost of this increased competition less easily than the United States will, both sides will have to divert national resources from other purposes. Extending Russia for its own sake is not a sufficient basis in most cases to consider the options discussed here. Rather, the options must be considered in the broader context of national policy based on defense, deterrence, and—where U.S. and Russian interests align—cooperation. — Overextending and Unbalancing Russia, Brief - RAND corporation

The whole idea that Russia was expected to easily win is total mythical fabrication that was created after Russias initial success that saw some of the fastest armour advances in all of history so did seem (to lay people who have no clue) that Ukraine was collapsing and Russia was easily going to take the whole country.

However, anyone who has experience of soldiery or done honest study of war could easily point out that sustaining such advances at the same rate is logistically impossible, that Ukraine is huge and cannot possibly be overrun entirely in a matter of days or weeks, that one part of the Ukraine built up defences in the South collapsed but other parts didn't move at all, and that US intelligence capabilities is a massive advantage in coordinating a defence, Ukraine has hundreds of thousands of troops and many hundreds of thousands more that can be mobilized etc.

Therefore, when Ukraine arrests the initial invasion / Russia reaches logistical limits, it seems like a great and unforeseen victory and we can all enter magical thinking land where it will be easy to defeat the Russians and no need to ever negotiate!! Hurrah!!

Of course, arresting the initial invasion does not mean being poised to win the war, even if completely uncontested Russia could not occupy all of Ukraine with 200 000 troops.

What ultimately occurs was not unexpected. Ukrainians will likely fight back; that's what they've been preparing for and training for and what soldiers are conditioned to do. Ukraine can resist ... for a time. Russia has certainly the capacity to achieve some objectives (such as the land bridge to Crimea), but not all. The war could last but Russia has a heavy advantage.

We've discussed this already at length, what experts were saying before the war:

Likewise, article also gets right:
Likely Ukrainian Initial Responses to Full-Scale Invasion

"The Ukrainian military will almost certainly fight against such an invasion, for which it is now preparing.19 Whatever doubts and reservations military personnel might have about their leaders or their prospects, the appearance of enemy mechanized columns driving into one’s country tends to concentrate thought and galvanize initial resistance. It collapses complexities and creates binary choices. Military officers and personnel are conditioned to choose to fight in such circumstances, and usually do, at least at first. There is no reason to think the Ukrainian military will perform differently in this case."

— PUTIN’S MILITARY OPTIONS — boethius

This is from conversation here nearly two years ago.

Of course, boethius knows, but people for example in the White House had "zero clue". :roll: — ssu

He is saying the same thing as I just said, that Ukraine can put up fierce resistance but

The Ukrainians have learned an enormous amount, but the advantage is still heavily in Russia's favor,

So you're talking about a scenario where there could be heavier casualties, but the outcome doesn't really change. — what SSU literally just cited

Their helicopter and jet fleet could be essentially "wiped out quickly" (which is essentially what happens and the West needs to scrounge up MIGs from elsewhere).

The author is not explaining how Ukraine will collapse in a matter of days but that Ukraine has "learned a lot" and does have fighting potential, just that Russia has a heave advantage and fighting the Russians will result in heavy casualties that does not ultimately change the outcome.

This is pretty much what all the analysts were saying before the war: that Ukraine can put up a fight, they do have hundreds of thousands of soldiers, a lot of equipment, and an immense territory.

Now, where analysts said Ukraine would lose relatively soon was in the context of zero support from the West, which I think we all agree here that if the West did not intervene Ukraine could not have lasted this long (at least in terms of conventional military fighting).

Hence you are simply wrong in saying that "people who have no clue" making these pessimistic predictions. People simply thought that the Russian army was way more better than it was in 2022. — ssu

The average public indeed have zero clue, the Russian invasion was ultimately arrested by massive support from the West.

This is the mythology, that somehow the small country of Ukraine that has basically no army and should be easy for Russia to simply knock over in a few days, somehow beat the odds and it therefore must be due to Russian incompetence and weakness, rather than massive support and intervention from the West (weapons systems, intelligence capabilities, finance of the entire Ukrainian military and government).

Of course, the West did not intervene enough to actually threaten a Russian defeat, and therefore, like the author you cite notes, the outcome does not ultimately change.

What is interesting here is that despite the Russian military clearly not being incompetent, achieving and then securing against Ukraine's much advertised offensive, critical strategic ground, effectively destroying not only Ukraines Soviet equipment but a large part of the entire regions, and now destroying Western armour in large quantities, there is still this adherence to what should by now be obvious propaganda.

Propaganda that was critical to justify Ukraine repudiating any negotiation and promising the World victory over the Russians.

Which now we're told was never "really a thing" just something people say to motivate the troops to fight to a better negotiation position that no one can explain how Ukraine's current negotiation position is remotely improved in anyway compared to the start of the war.

My god you have completely lost it. — Echarmion

Russia has now more soldiers and more experienced and battle hardened soldiers and have learned how to effectively employ combined arms at scale (which they did not have experience with until this war, but only on a much more limited scale) as well as integration with drones. This kind of war makes an army (especially the one that wins) far more dangerous than at the start.

In parallel, Russia has greatly increased arms production.

Of course, a lot of capacity is continuously destroyed in Ukraine, but as soon as the war ends there will be a significant arms built up as well as availability for export.