Putin Still Holds All the Cards in Ukraine, With No Reason to Fold
Putin Still Holds All the Cards in Ukraine, With No Reason to Fold
www.bloomberg.com
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35 comments
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This is what the EU should propose to Putin. Russia will withdraw from all land it seized from Ukraine after the 2022 invasion. NATO would be dissolved and replaced with a European alliance. Ukraine and Canada would be permitted to join but not the US. If Putin doesn't accept the proposal, the UK and France would send troops to Ukraine.
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This is delusional. It's not a personal vendetta against the USA. Nuclear Europe fielding military in Ukraine is a red line for Russian national security. Until people understand the reality of security, you're all going to be blathering idiots.
There are two positions on security - it's either I am secure while you are not or it's we're both secure. Mutual security is the only way that peers can engage sustainably. Assymetrical security cannot be sustained by peers.
Ukraine being a non-militarized buffer between Europe and Russia is critical to Russian national security. Any arrangement where Ukraine is militarily aligned with the rest of Europe is an asymetrical security situation where Europe has security at the expense of Russia losing security.
It will never be sustainable.
Russia will either establish Ukraine as fully demilitarized with its constant oversight for the next several decades, as a result of the violation of trust that the US and EU committed, or Russia will occupy Ukraine. These are the only two options that establish mutual security and thus are the only sustainable options. Anything else is an escalation by Europe.
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There is zero chance of Russia withdrawing from the current territories at this point. Also, why would Russia give shit if France and UK sent troops to Ukraine. Russian army is at around 1.5 million troops, while the EU could scrape up a few thousand troops at best. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-army-troops-ukraine-defence-b2701635.html
Meanwhile, the US provides the bulk of NATO accounting for over 70% of arms and majority of the troops. Without the US, there is no NATO. Anybody who understands basic arithmetic can see how absurd this whole notion is.
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I don't understand why this was downvoted, if such a proposal had been made in 2022 during first Istanbul talks, it could have prevented another three years of meatgrinder. As during those talks Russia openly discussed getting troops back to pre-2022 border as possible option, and European alliance instead of NATO (i.e. no US troops and nukes in Europe) is also offer that is hard to ignore. So after some negotiation it might become a deal; sadly noone offered that.
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Because this isn't 2022, territorial reality has changed, the deal Russia was offering back then is no longer on the table, it's gone forever and not coming back.
The new regions are part of Russia according to the Russian constitution and will not be given up, and even in 2022 Russia would not have accepted Ukraine in any European military alliance, when the whole reason for this war is that a militarized and hostile Ukraine is unacceptable to Russia's security. And Europe has chosen to be intractably hostile to Russia for the time being.
This won't change even if the US disappears out of Europe entirely, and the deal Russia is willing to offer will keep getting worse for Ukraine the longer this goes on.
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Because the idea of a European alliance is nonsense. NATO IS the European alliance. And NATO's strategy for defending against Russia is a nuclear killchain with one critical position in Ukraine. What would a European alliance do? Not defend against Russia? Or defend against Russia in a different way? Would they do that while still in NATO or would they have to dismantle NATO first and then build this alliance?
It's nonsense. You can't just make a new transnational military that is capable of defending against Russia by just saying "European Alliance".
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The difference is that Trump doesn't seem interested defending Europe. The EU should use this to bargain with Putin regarding Ukraine.
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35 comments