What incentive is there for the Kremlin to agree to such terms?

, peace, more accommodating than the original, protection of people (was raised by the Kremlin), would show bona fide interest rather than neo-colonialist/imperialist/irredentist land grabbery, ease up on unpopular conscriptions, cut down on the destruction and killing, some sanctions relief (perhaps including frozen assets), in the general interest of affected citizens, a step towards (re)building international trust, would work against European/whatever rearmament, independent Donbas is reportedly the sort of thing older Donbas folks occasionally dream of anyway, ... There could be further revision, e.g. military non-alignment (was raised by the Kremlin), a fresh Kharkiv style Pact, ... Doable? Kyiv would have to make concessions. Too much peace-mongering for war-mongers? :)


My interest in a revised peace plan such as the above, would be Kyiv's and the Kremlin's responses, but I can only guess.

There's no mention of reparations (potentially apart from 3 or 8 if taken further), which is rather costly, hence a significant burden.

Perhaps this could be another revision:

9. Guarantees against future aggression

I'm guessing something along those lines could be acceptable to a majority of countries. After all, it would mean peace (to the extent that refugees could feel safe going home), and a victory in that respect.

Gross

Aleksander Sładkow reports from the trenches (May 22, 2024 · 2m:8s)

A suggested revision of Ukraine's Peace Formula:

5. Donbas and Crimea to become free transparent independent democracies, under UN supervision (Europol might take a role) until such a time that their developments are deemed sufficiently safe free independent recovered (with borders) for the UN to take leave

7. Investigation of all alleged war crimes, and prosecution where found (e.g. ICJ, ICC)

Seems reasonable enough, as well as technically possible. Or something along those lines. The UN is large enough to handle the load. I'm guessing Kyiv would consider and the Kremlin would deny (pure conjectures on my part). But this could well mean bona fide peace.

Could it be done? — jorndoe

Where are you even getting this from, following your own link:

Number 5 is:

5. Restoration of the Russia–Ukraine border to that prior to the 2014 annexation of Crimea, in line with Article 2 of the Charter of the United Nations — Ukraine's Peace Formula

And 7 is:

Prosecution of war crimes in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including the creation of a special tribunal for Russian war crimes — Ukraine's Peace Formula

Ukraine is in the process of collapse and no longer has any leverage to use in a negotiation.

You can post as much propaganda as you want, but doesn't change the facts on the ground.

Ukraine is running out of people and whether the recent alleged coup attempt (involving Ukrainian colonels) was real or was the fabrication of paranoid delusions, either way it is not a good sign.

The US is just trying to prop Ukraine up until the US election.

↪Tzeentch, peace, more accommodating than the original, protection of people (was raised by the Kremlin), would show bona fide interest rather than neo-colonialist/imperialist/irredentist land grabbery, ease up on unpopular conscriptions, cut down on the destruction and killing, some sanctions relief (perhaps including frozen assets), in the general interest of affected citizens, a step towards (re)building international trust, would work against European/whatever rearmament, independent Donbas is reportedly the sort of thing older Donbas folks occasionally dream of anyway, ... There could be further revision, e.g. military non-alignment (was raised by the Kremlin), a fresh Kharkiv style Pact, ... Doable? Kyiv would have to make concessions. Too much peace-mongering for war-mongers? — jorndoe

@Isaac and I explained how negotiations work, how compromise works, how leverage works, and Ukraine's interest in negotiating while it still had leverage, over 2 years ago.

Repeating these ideas (that you poorly understand) now is just more copium in your copium pipeline of inane propaganda that does not inform the discussion.

Ukraine can no longer credibly threaten (even at low probability), if not defeating, severely embarrassing Russia on the battlefield (such as routing the Russians in Donbas of even just cutting the land bridge and managing to hold it), so that leverage is gone.

Russia has survived and adapted to sanctions, so that leverage is gone.

The Nord Stream pipeline was blown up, so that leverage is gone too.

The US is backing a literal genocide in Palestine right now so whatever "moral high ground" leverage the US had in terms of non-Western nations, that leverage is gone too.

Negotiations happen with leverage in the real world, not pretending there's still leverage when you try and fail to do things the hard way, is just escaping to delusion instead of facing the reality of having made terrible mistakes which, in this case, have killed hundreds of thousands of people.

That's the reality now: that Ukraine spent its leverage and can't go back to the Russian's offer two years ago, or anywhere close.

There is now essentially nothing Ukraine can do, nor the West can do, that can compel Russia to accept anything remotely close to what you're suggesting here.

Ukraine could probably still negotiate:

1. Giving up even more territory
2. Committing to neutrality and restrictions on its armed forces going forward

Of course Zelensky doesn't want to do that because he's now escaped into some sort of delusional religious zealotry (hence a colonel lead coup was pretty likely and likely to happen again, until it succeeds).

However, Russia doesn't need such a deal either as it can just take more territory by force as is currently happening.

Where are you even getting this from, following your own link: — boethius

It was an attempt to converge acceptability, not a recitation of an old proposal, but to revise bits, hypothesize, and derive whatever therefrom. :D

You can post as much propaganda as you want — boethius

Huh? Where do you see that? As mentioned, it was an attempt to revise an old proposal slightly towards more acceptability, and take it (onwards) from there. (Would you like me to reformulate, maybe in Klingon...?)

Alert: Trump's GOP busted for embracing Putin's 'dictator plot': Comedian Klepper x Melber
^{— Jordan Klepper, Ari Melber, Molly Jong-Fast · MSNBC · May 22, 2024 · 6m:57s}

People here in Washington, DC are just ignoring that, making people believe like Ukraine can win, Ukraine can't, Putin won't lose, Putin will not lose, he's not going to lose. — Ron Johnson

MAGA'ers and @boethius echoing the Kremlin circle — "We're invincible" — in words or spirit.
Of course the invaders can be sent home (reportedly a large number already has + o / w). Not via those fatalists though.
By the way, the Kremlin has kicked off another round of their nuclear rattling (rerunning exercises, threatening the UK, France, whoever), I wonder what they're afraid of.

It was an attempt to converge acceptability, not a recitation of an old proposal, but to revise bits, hypothesize, and derive whatever therefrom. — jorndoe

Well two years ago when Ukraine still had leverage, talking independence of some kind (such as Russia's offer of more autonomy for the Donbas but remaining in Ukraine) made a lot of sense; I explained at considerable length why it was foolish advocating and lauding Zelensky's no-compromise position; I don't want to go out on a limb and say you were among those advocates as your posts rarely take any actual position but mostly don't say anything and just link to propaganda.

Huh? Where do you see that? As mentioned, it was an attempt to revise an old proposal slightly towards more acceptability, and take it (onwards) from there. (Would you like me to reformulate, maybe in Klingon...?) — jorndoe

Your posts are mostly links to propaganda generally speaking, the. The "old proposal" you're talking about was just a propaganda move due to even the Western press starting to question Ukraine's no-diplomacy strategy.

You can post as much propaganda as you want, but doesn't change the facts on the ground. — boethius

Now, if you wanted to stop linking to propaganda, the statement remains true.

MAGA'ers and boethius echoing the Kremlin circle — "We're invincible" — in words or spirit.
Of course the invaders can be sent home (reportedly a large number already has + o / w). Not via those fatalists though.
By the way, the Kremlin has kicked off another round of their nuclear rattling (rerunning exercises, threatening the UK, France, whoever), I wonder what they're afraid of. — jorndoe

Russia is not invincible, the whole substance of Drip Feed Theory, may main contention over the course of this dialogue, is that NATO could cause significant problems for Russia if it wanted too, but it doesn't.

NATO could have provided all the advanced weapons Ukraine could possibly make use of day 1 of the war, likewise ramped up ammunition production with a state program. The idea that the entire West simply can't match Russia in ammunition production is just dumb, it could if it was a priority, but it's not a priority.

Likewise, NATO could have sent troops into Ukraine from day 1 of the conflict.

Russia is not invincible, but is winning because that's NATO policy for Russia to win.

Undersupplied, outmatched in every category of weapons, a smaller population and terrible demographic situation, Ukraine simply has very little chance of holding lines, much less "winning" on the battlefield.

Why is the NATO policy to allow Russia to slowly win.

The nuclear weapons.

The reason NATO doesn't escalate to causing Russia a genuine problem in Ukraine is due to nuclear deterrence.

Sabre "rattling" only makes sense as an expression when there is no war and everyone agrees there's essentially no prospect of war, then alluding to or brandishing weapons is a weak diplomatic move. When there's a hot war, however, where everyone agrees could escalate further then force demonstrations are not sabre rattling but both demonstrations and preparations for escalation.

Russia is not invincible, but is winning because that's NATO policy for Russia to win. — boethius

So NATO is winning too now? Or is NATO policy to slowly lose to Russia?

What about Russian security threats from NATO enlargement?
Did Russia get rid of such security threats? Is NATO now more likely unable to threaten the Black Sea fleet or make military drills on Russian borders or put nuclear missiles on Russian borders or to have Ukraine fall within Western sphere of influence or give Ukraine a second chance to attack Crimea, Donbas, and land bridge in ten years or so? Did Russia get its wunderbuffer to contain Western imminent invasion of Russia and genocide of Russians? Are Western provocations finally over?

Attacks are restarting now that there is more dry weather. In 2023 Russia took 1000 sq km of territory while Ukraine only 500 sq km. In 2024 Ukraine hasn't taken anything except an island near Kherson, meanwhile Russia has taken Avdiivka and Bakhmut. So far this year Russia has taken about 450 sq km, which is almost as much as its net gains in the whole of last year. This can't continue for Ukraine. But it's actually going to get worse. Russia can mobilise far more soldiers, but Ukraine already has mobilised everything it can, with no reserves. Almost all the men over 18 who would fight already are fighting. Ukraine's strategy is heavily reliant on drones, which you can't win a war with as they don't have offensive capabilities. Russia is fighting with a sustainable strategy, deploying troops with tank, artillery and missile support, enabled by its ability to replace this equipment. Russia is now making a lot of precise missile strikes, which it wasn't before 2024. Before 2024, Ukraine's interception rate was about 90%, but now that has dropped to 50%. I think the slow downward spiral has begun for Ukraine. By the end of the year, Russia might have taken another 700 sq km, possibly more if Ukraine gets pushed past a tipping point.

Interestingly, the Kremlin offered a cease-fire and granted Ukraine an opportunity to return to the negotiating table with the March/April 2022 Istanbul accords as a basis.

Personally, I think Ukraine would be crazy not to at least take a seat at the table. But I know better.

I think we ought to read this latest offer by the Kremlin as a "last chance" type deal, before they will ramp up the pressure on Ukraine another time and this time probably with the intention to definitively cripple it until they can impose their desired conditions unilaterally.

The US is just trying to prop Ukraine up until the US election. — boethius

And "Tovarich Trump" will likely disappoint Putin again.

, wait, that's ^(5,7)(9) propaganda in your book? No wonder you see propaganda and conspiracies everywhere. :grin: Especially against Putin. :chin:

Try this (for a change): Entertain a thought experiment or hypothetical to think about what changes and what doesn't in the scenario. (Hence putting it out there as a question (that you instead call propaganda).) Common practice.

FYI, here's a piece of lightweight propaganda, maybe you can tell the difference:
US to blame for Iranian president’s death – Belarus (— RT · May 24, 2024)

Russia Moves to Expropriate Homes in Occupied Regions
^{— Ann-Dorit Boy · DER SPIEGEL · May 7, 2024}

Centrally organized land grab, a contemporary Kremlin version of lebensraum, neo-imperialism.
There's been some further reports of these efforts.
(I suppose we can speculate that refugees may not have a home to return to, in the future, unless they buy it back from Moscow (and obtain Russian passports).)
Whatever comes out of the Kremlin, that's part of what they're doing.

And "Tovarich Trump" will likely disappoint Putin again. — ssu

Trump is a corrupt idiot who will disappoint everyone if he's elected.

Biden is a corrupt formerly-clever-but-now-has-dementia with a disturbing tendency to be seen sniffing and touching children inappropriately, who will also continue to disappoint everyone except maybe literally satan.

That Russia has an overwhelming advantage in a war with Ukraine is simply fact.

That the West can't really do anything about that short of nuclear war which apparently even satan doesn't actually want (it is perhaps more optimum amount of suffering to drag this shit show out a bit longer when you think about it), is again simply factual.

Therefore, based on these facts, my policy recommendation is to use diplomacy to try to avoid further warfare. This would involve compromise and recognizing Russia does have some legitimate concerns that would need accommodating to arrive at a peace.

My pointing out obvious facts and the only thing we can do (other than nuclear war) is painted as pro-Putin.

Now I am pro-Putin to the extent that I am anti-being-nuked and Putin hasn't nuked me yet, so he does have that going in his favour as far as I'm concerned.

When I point out Putin can in fact extort us using nuclear weapons, that is not some commendation of extortion, just pointing out the obvious fact. Saying "bah!!! Putin shouldn't extort us with nuclear weapons, bad Putin!!" may very well be true. We can of course debate whether one man's extortion is another man's deterrence, but doesn't change the fact that either way it reasonable limits our scope of action if we want to avoid being nuked.

Therefore, it does not take much analysis to conclude that Russia can defeat Ukraine and anything the West might do to stop that from happening (including arming Ukraine soon enough and "badass" enough, to use US policy makers technical lingo) will very likely result in a nuclear war that the West also cannot win.

It takes little additional analysis that dragging the war out does not actually harm the Russian state but makes it stronger while the consequences to Ukraine are several orders magnitude greater than whatever this assumed harm to Russia even is.

From here it is then quite easy to see that not only is it completely immoral to prop Ukraine up as essentially a punching bag (just real people die with every punch), but it is disastrous also to the West's policy makers stated aim of domination and subjugation of the rest of the world, not to mention the welfare of the West's own citizens, not that polite society takes that into consideration, but still.

As for Russia itself, certainly plenty to criticize if I moved there and had both the knowledge and sense of responsibility to improve the place, but from my own vantage point and actual responsibilities right now there are simply plenty of states that seem a lot worse than Russia that the West doesn't hesitate to ally itself with in the name of "money". So, that being the case, suddenly moralizing about Russia and what happens in Russia from some puritanical point of view is about the same level of intellectual credibility as farting into a bucket of rocks: it looks stupid and it smells bad.

I do not want Ukrainians to die for the vanity of Western power brokers, which makes me pro-Ukraine.

If the pro-Ukrainiains-dying side of the debate could actually overcome criticism to war aims and the diplomatic and warfare strategy, then I would have done the service to Ukrainian soldiers and civilians of bothering to check if people are dying for some sensible purpose.

Unfortunately, criticism cannot be overcome, the conduct of the war by Ukrainian and Western puppets (of war profiteers) does not standup to scrutiny.

The weapons are drip fed into Ukraine to ensure a Russian victory, plenty of money to defence contractors and destroying Europe as a viable competitor to the United States. The money poured into Ukraine is first and foremost a bribe to Ukrainian elite to do what the US wants.

Europe has been eliminated as a geopolitical threat (to the United States), amazingly, to the cheers of Europeans. It is absolutely stupendous how little Europeans have questioned the policies leading to war and then ensuring more war. The only thing European leaders seem to know how to do is oil themselves up to get into their gimp suit. Their economic advisers are like "that's called reducing friction" and they're all like "ah, ok".

This is sad, but it is pro-actual-Ukrainians to recognize.

Interestingly, the Kremlin offered a cease-fire and granted Ukraine an opportunity to return to the negotiating table with the March/April 2022 Istanbul accords as a basis.

Personally, I think Ukraine would be crazy not to at least take a seat at the table. But I know better.

I think we ought to read this latest offer by the Kremlin as a "last chance" type deal, before they will ramp up the pressure on Ukraine another time and this time probably with the intention to definitively cripple it until they can impose their desired conditions unilaterally. — Tzeentch

The offer seems to be "based on current lines" so if Istanbul drafts are a basis then it's for things other than territory.

Putin has also stated that Zelensky is no longer a legitimate leader of Ukraine and it would important for them to sign any peace deal with a legitimate representative in order for there not to be any doubts about the deal.

However, no one in the Kremlin believes Zelensky would start any serious negotiations anyways, so this is more just taking jabs at Zelensky because it's easy to do.

The reason for the offer is because it's an easy diplomatic win that makes Russia look reasonable and also makes the "peace talks" in Switzerland without Russia look even more ridiculous than it already is.

So, yes, I completely agree with you that Ukraine should take essentially whatever offer, and would certainly be crazy to reject anything remotely resembling the offer in 2022, but currently the Zelensky regime have literally talked themselves out of negotiation, having made so many uncompromising declarations.

The only pathway to a peace deal is a coup in Kiev. To the extent the "feelers" are for the purposes of actual negotiation at all, it is a message (perhaps also some encouragement) to whoever wins the coup.

Not to say a coup is guaranteed, just that it's a necessary condition for peace talks.

The US strategy is to keep Zelensky in power by paying off everyone else.

For, even with an essentially broken Ukrainian military it's nevertheless unlikely that Russia can conquer all of Ukraine, so the US can simply live with more and more territory losses, even major losses, since as long as Zelensky is in power they can just spin things as "could be worse" and that "they continue to stand by Ukraine".

Of course, as more and more people, in particular the military chain of command, realizes this strategy of just sacrificing more Ukrainian soldiers and Ukrainian territory and more suffering of Ukrainian civil society, the less stable this setup becomes. Keep in mind a coup does not need to be an assassination or otherwise taking power by high ranking officers but can also be an essentially organic process bubbling up from the rank and file and literally leaving the front and marching on the capital.

So we'll see how it plays out but I would suggest understanding any peace terms being thrown around by Russia as messages to current and would-be coup plotters and participants.

Hence why floating these ideas are made public.

The other reason is that the West spins any Russia talk of peace as Russian weakness and Western media and policy makers really take any such signal to heart, which reduces their sense of urgency to send more weapons.

For example, when Russia stopped launching so many missiles, the Western establishment analysis community took that as basically Ukraine had already won the war. People within the policy making community have even noticed this pattern and "we've underestimated the Russians" has become essentially a meme at this point, but the pattern still holds: the recent Russian breakthroughs have been essentially emergency level events right up until this talk of Russian peace terms > Russia must therefore be weak > all is well.

↪boethius, wait, that's (5,7)(9) propaganda in your book? No wonder you see propaganda and conspiracies everywhere. :grin: Especially against Putin. — jorndoe

Your peace suggestions are propaganda because they are completely unrealistic:

Donbas and Crimea to become free transparent independent democracies, under UN supervision (Europol might take a role) until such a time that their developments are deemed sufficiently safe free independent recovered (with borders) for the UN to take leave — jorndoe

Is so unrealistic it's not worth even entertaining for the sake of argument.

Saying "I suggest a totally unrealistic peace deal that the Russians would never accept" is simply stating you want more war but you have come up with some propaganda cover for your desire for more war.

Now I am pro-Putin to the extent that I am anti-being-nuked and Putin hasn't nuked me yet, so he does have that going in his favour as far as I'm concerned. — boethius

If you would just listen to yourself, you would notice how crazy your specifications for being pro-something are. :smirk:

If you would just listen to yourself, you would notice how crazy your specifications for being pro-something are. — ssu

You do realize how many Ukrainians have died in the war, how many maimed, how much the country has been depopulated (of mostly younger people in what is already demographic collapse), how much territory it has lost with no chance of recovering it?

I look at the result of not-peace is, entirely predictable from the beginning if Ukraine rejected peace terms based on neutrality (ideally before the war even started), and the result of our policy choices is absolutely terrible for Ukrainians as well as "Ukraine" as a nation-concept apart from its people, if that matters to you.

Cheering on Ukraine to fight in extremely adverse conditions with a sort of "Rocky underdog" mythical wishful thinking basis that simply ignores reality, does not help Ukrainians.

It sounds good to the Western ear conditioned by Hollywood movies, but it doesn't help Ukrainians to buildup a fantasy based view of the world and make decisions on that basis.

My position that Ukraine should accept neutrality, negotiate on that basis, take the Russian offer (ideally before the war started) but definitely the offer in 2022, is 100% pro-Ukraine as doing that would have saved so much Ukrainian lives and Ukrainian territory; the best outcome for Ukraine achievable considering the Wests' unwillingness to have skin in the game.

Encouraging (aka. bribing) and propping up Ukraine to go toe-to-toe with the Russian military is anti-Ukrainians-living.

Engaging in magical thinking about Ukraine's war prospects is delusional at best and just cynicism at worst (to have Ukrainians die to achieve US objectives for example).

The Western approach doesn't make sense on any level, does it?

They commit fully to the military option, even though there is no chance of victory.

Meanwhile, they categorically refuse dialogue and diplomatic negotiations, while Russia keeps signaling it wants a diplomatic settlement.

Why would the West insist on fighting a war it is clearly losing?

Victory was never the goal.

And if victory was never the goal, then what is?


My two cents: the US is using this war in an effort to decouple Europe from Russia, and to remilitarize Europe.

Why? Because both Europe and Russia will be crucial to China in the upcoming power struggle between it and the US, and both Europe and Russia stand to profit from said power struggle.

But not if the US manages to embroil the two in a war with each other.

I think this has always been the reason, ever since the US started pushing in Ukraine since 2008, when it was already clear its actions would lead to war.

> But not if the US manages to embroil the two in a war with each other.

Ok let's stick to your reasoning, despite the manipulative framing. Here is my question: by signaling willingness to a diplomatic settlement with the US since 2008 until now AND yet persisting in a conflict with Ukraine where European puppets are cheerfully embroiled into, isn't Putin (along with European political leaders), who all know to be unsurprisingly dumber and/or uneducated than Tzeench on economics, military strategy, politics, finance, propaganda etc. (so much so that he can solve anything in politics with 2 cents anonymous comments on the internet) playing by the US book and failing strategically EVEN IF he is "winning" the war ?

If we should not confuse military achievements with political goals, then we MUST NOT confuse Russia's military achievements with political achievements, even more so if political leaders (like Putin) defined their conflict ends in terms of strategic political achievements (like Ukraine out of NATO, denazification/demilitarization of Ukraine, keeping NATO far from Russia's boarder and out of Ukraine, stop Western provocations, create a non-Western-led world order, etc.). But the manipulative reasoning which certain pro-Russian propagandists in this thread keep showing off, dictates otherwise unfortunately.

, complementing your speculation, let me try some aspects of what's (been) going on (e.g. evidence in posts)

• Russian losses in world war 2 aren't the first thing you hear about around the world (cf the Holocaust)
• Russia didn't "win" the cold war (like "the West")
• Russia hasn't comparatively seen marked development (cf Japan)
• Russia/Moscow lost some control/influence internationally
• Russia isn't really a top-tier economy on the world stage (like the US)
• Russian Rubles aren't common in the international market/trade (like US$s, which came to Moscow)
• Russian isn't commonly spoken internationally (like English, which instead invaded Moscow)
• Russia hasn't been sort of inconspicuously "growing" (e.g. Ukraine and others going West instead)
• Russia isn't really a top influence(r) and power for all to (respectfully) listen or turn to

But

• Russia is the largest country in the world (and powerful)
• Russia can (does) produce impressive amounts of artillery
• Russia does have lots of educated/smart people
• Russia does have lots of resources, including some scientific/technological capacity
• Russia does have the largest nuclear weapons arsenal around

Frustrating for the present old-school autocratic Kremlin. Well, they can do something about that, one indignant way or another. Enemies identified, plans in motion. This stuff has (in part) set the stage for their (current) goings-and-doings.

^{By the way
• the Kremlin (circle) has a background in spycraft and up-scale manipulation
• the Kremlin has anxiety about Russia breaking up into different independent nations
• the Kremlin has seized impressive domestic control}

More samples of the ☢ rattling, in concert, corroborated by whatever sources, seemingly suggesting the circle is afraid of something:

Russian Ministry (May 6, 2024) threatens the UK
Putin (May 29, 2024) threatens "the West"
Ryabkov (Jun 3, 2024) threatens the US
Sivkov (Jun 3, 2024) threatens Poland
Putin (Jun 5, 2024) threatens Germany
Lavrov (Jun 5, 2024) threatens French
Putin (Jun 5, 2024) threatens "the West"
The Kremlin (Jun 5, 2024) threatens (provokes) the US
Putin (Jun 5, 2024) threatens "the West"
Gurulyov (Jun 5, 2024) threatens the Netherlands
Putin (Jun 6, 2024) threatens the UK

I guess the response has always been: leave Ukraine be.

Toth and Sweet opines:

Russian spies, lies and sabotage are coming to America
^{— Mark Toth, Jonathan Sweet · The Hill · Jun 8, 2024}

Well, the article aligns with:

Russia’s Threat Puts Security at Forefront of European Elections (4m:35s interview)
^{— Konrad Krasuski, Piotr Skolimowski, Natalia Ojewska · Bloomberg · Jun 4, 2024}

far right and nazis uncorking bottles of champagne in Europe with Putin's great satisfaction but sure the Ukrainian denazification by Putin is what we should be concerned about and welcome.

Edel writes:

Why Russia Is Happy at War
^{— Anastasia Edel · The Atlantic · Jun 9, 2024}

Incidentally reminded me of some earlier comments, e.g.:

The fact is that Russia simply isn't a normal country that would try to have good relations with it's neighbors. It seeks the role it had when it was an empire/Superpower, makes huge gambles and takes extreme risks. It's extremely reckless. There simply are no benefits in trying to appease Putin. — ssu

There should be another narrative than the imperialist one when it comes to what Russia is. This narrative creates the reality were Russia sees necessary to intervene and dominate it's near abroad. First and foremost, the collapse of the Soviet Union, is seen as a mistake. An unfortunate accident. Russia is seen to be an multi-ethnic Empire and therefore it should obviously control what has been part of the Empire. And this makes everybody so nervous about Russia. It's not acting as a normal country. Yet the imperialist narrative dominates official Russia. It is fomented with the huge conspiracy that the West is against Russia, hence to defend itself, it has to attack. — ssu

For Russia to become a normal country and shed it's bellicose aggressive behaviour a humiliating defeat could do it. The Soviet Union came so splendidly and peacefully apart that people like Vladimir Putin understood it as a mistake, something you can and have to fix. — ssu

But I'm hopeful that Russia can shed it's fascist tendencies and perhaps become a normal democracy someday. But I acknowledge it will be difficult. Yet Spain and Portugal aren't anymore fascist. — ssu

As it's difficult for many of us to understand Russia, it's also perhaps for the Putinist living in Russia to understand the West, especially with the way the West is presented to Russians. For them the West portrays itself with it's public discourse far more weaker, lacking character or simply far more incompetent than it is, because it cherishes a totally different kind of rhetoric. And the true policies are obscured in a cacophony of various messages.

For example, just how long has the inevitable collapse of the Eurozone and more generally, the EU, been predicted? Starting from that, it's easy to construct a vision where the aid to Ukraine is faltering and in deep trouble.

Both sides underestimate each other.

More of the alternate world thing ...

Matviyenko interviewed by Skabeyeva posted by Natalka on Jun 8, 2024 and Gerashchenko on Jun 10, 2024:

Well, we didn't do anything bad to anyone. We didn't attack anyone. — Valentina Matviyenko · Jun 2024

I suppose they could head south and take a look.

(Did you mean "to Russia by" instead of "to Ukraine by"?)

strives to maximize the damage to Ukraine by drip feeding weapons (... just enough to prop it up at an incredible high cost to Ukraine) — boethius

Your "drip feed" theory presumes cohesive organized "feeders" with that (hidden) agenda.
Haven't really heard anyone pushing/discussing that (supposed) agenda, more like the usual debates quarrels dis/agreements bureaucracy.

Sorry to break up the circle jerk again, but the issues of contention here are:

1. Regardless of what you think about Russia, countries in our system have a right, and rationally do anyways, act in preemptive self defence. What's been referred to as legitimate security concerns. A nuclear power creating missile bases nearer and nearer to you is one such obvious security concern.

2. Regardless of what you think about point one above, it is just dumb to provoke a war, then actually fight a war, on the principle of denying Russia has legitimate security concerns that would lead a rational actor in the international system to wage preemptive war ... when apparently we all now agree that Ukraine would never join NATO anyways, but also not really we'll just go ahead and claim that's going to happen someday from time to time. Fighting for something you can never actually have is dumb.

3. Regardless of what you think about how smart it is to fight for a right to have something the relevant parties never give you (which, if they did, the whole point would be to then avoid a disastrous war such as what is happening right now). Fighting a disastrous war to (maybe, hopefully, wishfully) get something to protect from fighting disastrous wars, is completely moronic.

4. Regardless of what you think about fighting a disastrous war to (maybe) get something that would offer protection (maybe) from disastrous wars, it still only makes sense to do if you can actually win.

For example @ssu's argument at the start was that while agreeing with me that he saw no way Ukraine could win, well maybe Ukrainian general have something or know something we don't and will pull off a brilliant victory. Turns out Ukrainian generals had no such thing and exactly what was predictable given the available information is what happened. The corollary of @ssu's position is that if Ukraine had no surprise then their war effort is a disastrous mistake, immoral, got many people killed for nothing, and definitely they should have taken the Russian's offer at the start of the war (or before the war). But these positions are just conveniently swept under the rug of "Ukrainian agency".

5. Regardless of what you think about fighting a war you can't win, the West's policy has clearly been to make sure of this result by drip feeding in weapons systems. Now that the drip feed of weapons systems has run its course, the West has turned to drip feeding "maybe we will, maybe we won't" send in ground troops to turn the tide, to maintain the policy of having Ukraine fight, giving them hope (such as the next wonder weapon or wonder intervention; something we've already seen at the start with all the hullaballoo about a "no fly zone" which was critical in encouraging Ukrainians to fight while the weapons drip feed system was put into place: as that takes logistics).

As I've argued, this is my main problem with Western policy. We are clearly not even trying to help Ukrainians, but just propping them up to take an absolute beating in order to accomplish other things, all harmful to Europe.

6. Regardless of what you think of the drip feed theory, if there was some genuine intent to use the leverage of clearly being willing to drip feed weapons into Ukraine to seek a diplomatic solution that is favourable to Ukraine, the Western leaders would put on their big boy pants and go and try to negotiate that happening and using their leverage (such as the sanctions and so on; whole point of sanctions being to serve as leverage to compel compliance, if the goal to effect Russian decision making and not just have a big giant war for the sake of all the sweet, sweet profiteering).

Furthermore, sending money to a pervasively corrupt polity is a de facto bribe to the elites of that polity. That the West puts zero controls or supervision on the money nor the weapons sent into Ukraine is making explicit there's not even pretence that this money is not a de facto bribe. That the West recognizes a lot of that money and weapons "disappears" but has not found one single Euro of laundered money or laundered weapons outside Ukraine, is explicitly participating in the money laundering scheme.

And I can go on with even more moral and strategic problems from a "benefit Ukrainian" perspective.

However, I'll stop here for now to point out that even if all this was true:

Incidentally reminded me of some earlier comments, e.g.:

The fact is that Russia simply isn't a normal country that would try to have good relations with it's neighbors. It seeks the role it had when it was an empire/Superpower, makes huge gambles and takes extreme risks. It's extremely reckless. There simply are no benefits in trying to appease Putin.
— ssu
There should be another narrative than the imperialist one when it comes to what Russia is. This narrative creates the reality were Russia sees necessary to intervene and dominate it's near abroad. First and foremost, the collapse of the Soviet Union, is seen as a mistake. An unfortunate accident. Russia is seen to be an multi-ethnic Empire and therefore it should obviously control what has been part of the Empire. And this makes everybody so nervous about Russia. It's not acting as a normal country. Yet the imperialist narrative dominates official Russia. It is fomented with the huge conspiracy that the West is against Russia, hence to defend itself, it has to attack.
— ssu
For Russia to become a normal country and shed it's bellicose aggressive behaviour a humiliating defeat could do it. The Soviet Union came so splendidly and peacefully apart that people like Vladimir Putin understood it as a mistake, something you can and have to fix.
— ssu
But I'm hopeful that Russia can shed it's fascist tendencies and perhaps become a normal democracy someday. But I acknowledge it will be difficult. Yet Spain and Portugal aren't anymore fascist.
— ssu — jorndoe

Clearly Ukraine is not teaching Russia this lesson they are supposed to be learning.

Therefore, the policy of propping up Ukraine is to have it destroyed, have hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians killed and maimed and traumatized, depopulate the younger generations making the existing demographic collapse that much more catastrophic, simply for the gesture of "our hearts being in the right place" of wanting Russia to lose a war and "learn a lesson".

Notice also, no where in these positions by @ssu is there any concern for Ukrainian welfare.

The war is not existential for the Ukrainian people, Russia has no way of conquering all of Ukraine anyways and clearly doesn't want that headache if they could, the Russian speaking regions have pretty solid evidence they (a lot, perhaps even a very solid majority) happy being in Russia (considering the real repression they experience by Ukrainian speakers).

Therefore, if the war is not existential, there must be some reasonable cost to waging it to accomplish the objectives.

This is the core question, which no one on the self described "pro-Ukrainian" side has even attempted to answer: no matter what you think of "justice" there must be some limit to the cost to Ukrainians in their war. Likewise, regardless of what you think of Ukrainian just cause, it is not good for this so called just cause nor moral in and of itself for the West to continuously manipulate Ukraine with false promises and false assurances.

(Did you mean "to Russia by" instead of "to Ukraine by"?)

strives to maximize the damage to Ukraine by drip feeding weapons (... just enough to prop it up at an incredible high cost to Ukraine)
— boethius — jorndoe

The policy maximizes damage to Ukraine and damages Russia as a side effect.

Maximizing damage to Russia would be just flooding in all the systems Ukraine could possibly use from day 1. And why even accept the overtone window of Javelins to F-16, why not pour in F-35s and all those fancy drones and so on. Of course, maximizing damage to Russia would likely result in Russia resorting to Nuclear weapons, hence the point of Drip Feed is to make it clear to the Russians that there is no credible attempt to actually cause them much trouble.

As you just posted, Kremlin is happy at war, so the Drip Feed is a favour to the Russian authoritarian power elite (which a large majority of them).

Your "drip feed" theory presumes cohesive organized "feeders" with that (hidden) agenda.
Haven't really heard anyone pushing/discussing that (supposed) agenda, more like the usual debates quarrels dis/agreements bureaucracy. — jorndoe

You haven't heard people openly discussing a hidden agenda?

Hmm, I wonder why that could be.

The policy only requires the United States as the other Ukraine supporters don't have anywhere close the capacity of the United States nor would they escalate beyond what the United States is doing anyways as they know their place: they have neither the means nor the motivation. Germany will supply tanks if the US supplies tanks.

Now, we know there is a hidden agenda because we know we are lied to about the rational behind weapons shipments.

The US spokespeople, including the president, will just take it as essentially common sense that "of course we can't supply Western artillery, of course we can't supply IFV's, of course we can't supply tanks, of course we can't supply short range missile, of course we can't supply long range missiles, of course we can't supply F-16s! we don't want to start WWIII man!!" and then when they change that policy they just ignore what they previously stated.

So, any rational observer can conclude that the reasons behind not only not-supplying the weapon systems in question but stating that it can't possibly be done, and then just going ahead and doing it, is because the criteria of what to supply when is clearly not stated.

The stated reasons for decisions just arbitrarily change without explanation, hence the actual reasons for decisions are hidden from us.

Furthermore, the timing of the escalation to the next weapon system is always in response to Russia getting the upper hand and the new weapons systems trying to restore balance. If you actually wanted to win you'd optimize all your weapons systems at the start; you wouldn't do things like have Ukraine go on an offensive with no air power to support the front nor any no long range missiles to disrupt the Russian rear.

But introducing all the useful systems from the beginning is really absolutely critical as you want Ukraine to not only get experience on those systems that they'd inevitably need to transition to (i.e. have some units using Western equipment as soon as possible so they gain experience and work out doctrine and then can train other Ukrainians in their language with actual battle experience when the transition needs to be scaled up later, when all the soviet equipment has been destroyed), but you'd want to do things like see if sprinkling in more sophisticated Western equipment with soviet systems is a force multiplier. For example, having one or a few Western MBT with better sensors, electronic warfare capabilities, and battlefield awareness with drone and other intelligence connectivity leading a company of soviet tanks and IFV's that are easier to maintain, Ukrainians already know how to use and have ammunition for, are smaller targets and so on, would be something you would want to try out in order to force multiply all the soviet equipment.

Most of all, if you actually wanted to help the Ukrainians, you'd conclude attacking the Russians is really dumb and you wouldn't do that, instead focusing on defence and making Russian progress as costly as possible and holding the card of a credible threat of a major offensive in response to Russian over commitment to their own offensives.

This is what the Finns did in the Winter war; they didn't embark on some suicidal offensive against the Soviets.

The reason this obvious strategy is not employed is because it would then give the game away that the only termination possible to the war is negotiation: we are making Russian progress costly in order to compel them to negotiate.

However, if you admit the only end to the war in negotiation and Ukraine isn't going to achieve any political goal through military conquest, then that obviously begs the question "well what negotiation? why not then go and negotiate an end to the war? avoid more people from dying? why are you here talking to me, go negotiate. I don't get it". Now, since the Russians are happy to negotiate if it was recognized in the West that negotiation was the only termination of the war feasible for the Ukrainians, and the sooner the better (most Ukrainian refugees would have returned if the war ended soonish after beginning, but by now they's largely made entirely new lives), then enthusiasm for the war would have dissipated and focus would have shifted to negotiation and that would have put enormous pressure on political leaders, in the West and Ukraine, to negotiate: sure, maintain the lines, but then use that leverage in a negotiation.

The US didn't want that, therefore negotiations need to be repudiated, the only rational basis to do that in a conflict is because you can achieve your goals by force, if Ukraine can achieve it's goals by force it should definitely go and do that, sooner the better as the Russians are increasing in strength, hence a disastrous offensive into heavily fortified Russian lines without air cover nor long range munitions and plenty of both on the Russian side. Once the offensive starts it's important that it doesn't end quickly as that would again give the game away that Ukraine has no hope of "winning" so it needs to be dragged out to be able to pretend that the offensive lasted so long and accomplished so much (or just people simply forget about their previous anticipation of evaluating Ukrainians offensive capabilities and the implication of that), and before you know it you've burned through your reserves and can no longer even keep up a defensive posture.

It's all very cynical and manipulative and none of this is designed for Ukrainian welfare.

That is my issue here.