Putin has already won this war hands down - he's broken many rules such as using banned weapons, and he's prepared to lie many times over, claiming his troops aren't aiming at civilian targets etc.
That is very far from certain…
Yes, he’s broken many rules, which is why ‘the West’ should not just sit back and watch and wait. If you let someone get away with breaking rules, they will continue to do so, and are likely to be encouraged to continue to test the envelope to see how far they can go.
Putin is openly stating that he wants to restore Russia to what it was prior to Yeltsin, which clearly includes Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Georgia, Moldova etc. All he's doing now is sussing out how the West will respond, and he must be laughing at the lack of response. Sanctions will hurt his people, but how much does that matter when his position doesn't depend on a vote? They won't actually hurt him much at all, nor those close to him. What else are the West doing, banning athletes who were already tarnished by drugs? It's something of a joke thinking that anything the west is doing is hurting Putin at present, so after this present test of his, invasion of other former Russian countries may follow with similar impunity in a few years' time. And then what.
That’s the problem if we don’t do enough to dissuade him now.
Poland, Slovakia, even East Germany? After all, NATO and/or the UN can't resolve to take any action in case Russia exercises its veto at the meeting where it's discussed.
I don’t think he is stupid enough to attack a NATO member country. And if he does, NATO members don’t need any vote in the UN in order to take action.
So yes, the West must be to prepared to concede (eg. recognise Crimea and likely at least half of the rest of Ukraine as parts of Russia too) as well as offering all manner of pardons to Putin for what he's already done. Because Putin has already demonstrated that he can outwit the West very easily.
Now please tell me why I'm wrong. I hope I am.
Why must we concede anything, it’s Russia under Putin’s leadership that is the aggressor. NATO member countries have not threatened to invade Russia. And we have no right to throw Ukraine, which is an independent democratic country under a Putin bus.
He really does need to stop the calls for a no fly zone. NATO made it abundantly clear why it it won't work. My concern is that the hotheads in Washington will win out on this one. Most if not all military pundits agree it won't work, as well as being dangerous. Yet there are columnists out there saying yes it will cause WW3, and yes it will go nuclear, but we have to do it anyway.
It’s far from automatic or inevitable that a no fly zone patrolled by Western military aircraft will cause world war three.
And in any case, we already have a world war. Many countries are engaged in a world wide financial and trade war with Russia right NOW.
Before any military conflict, the relevant military leaders and the government have to decide on what the aim of the action will be, what resources are available, how long it may take, and what the outcome may be. This includes deciding if ‘our’ forces are likely to quickly or eventually overcome the opponent’s forces.
I don’t know about you, but I would suggest that our (the Western) airforces are superior to the Russian airforce. Both in numbers and capability. So if the governments do decide to patrol the Ukrainian airspace, either Russia will decide not to engage with the Western aircraft, or it will decide to engage. If they do engage, it’s likely that they will be shot down.
Would there then be a risk of a wider conflict? Yes. But how much of his forces has Putin put into Ukraine? Would his remaining forces really be a match for fresh, well equipped NATO forces? I think not. So it’s unlikely Putin would want to expand the conflict. Especially if he is worried about Western forces smashing his forces apart.
Would he threaten to use nuclear weapons? Yes. But he knows that if he did actually use them, then the Western countries would erase him and Russia from the world. So I don’t think he would actually use them.
Humans are like most other mammals, the primary instinct is to survive.
Putin will not lose the war. Ukraine will succumb, and the war ends at a negotiating table. Nobody actually needs Putin to "lose", we actually need to give him a way to back out of it and present it as a victory, at least just for the short term.
Putin will lose the war. He may eventually defeat the Ukrainian military, but I don’t think Russia will be able to hold all of Ukrainian territory. Therefore he will not win in any meaningful way. Already Russian forces are taking a painful punishing. This must be costing Russia a small fortune just in lost military equipment and lost military personnel. And that’s not even including the financial war and trade war costs.
Besides, I really don’t see any good way out of this for Putin now. Remember, Russia started this. So unless Putin backs down, there will be no basis for any negotiations.
It is not up to Russia to decide for Ukraine - certainly not.
However, Ukraine is in a very unfortunate position. It has an aggressive, well-armed, and belligerent neighbour with whom it shares thousands of km of border. The tragedy of Ukraine is that it should not have sought to join the EU or NATO even if those were its heartfelt wishes, because doing so provoked conflict with the enormous bully next door.
Russia has been making it clear that NATO (read: the No Russia Club) should not have kept expanding eastward as far back at the 90s when Yeltsin was in power.
None of this excuses the abominable invasion or justifies Russia's irredentism but it is deeply unwise to be Russia's neighbour and act in the way Ukraine has done.
There was no significant trouble between Ukraine and Russia until after Russia started causing problems in the area. Russia started this with what they did in Crimea. As with many places, the history is complex, but basically Russia started all this trouble back in 2014.
Can you blame Ukraine for wanting to improve their security after what Russia did in 2014?
The mistake that was made, was NATO not accepting Ukraine into NATO. Had that happened, it’s very likely that Putin would not have commenced this war.
Whether it is the reason or not, it is certainly the pretext used. Ukraine should not be in NATO and its wish to join is understandable but unwise.
Putin has a long standing thing about Ukraine - much stronger than he has about any other former Soviet country - in that it is definitively Russian in his eyes.
I am personally quite glad Ukraine is not a NATO member, because it means we are not risking British lives over Ukraine, a country with whom we have neither quarrel nor unbreakable bond. Nothing has happened which would justify our direct involvement. *Yet*.
That is unfortunately the way of the world for many countries. Ukraine - a victim of geography - was always destined to be a vassal state of some description if it did not declare neutrality.
I totally disagree. I see no reason why an independent democratic European country that meets the requirements as decided by the other NATO member countries should not apply for, and be granted NATO membership.
Oh, and the whole point of our military forces IS to risk the lives of our military people.
I would bet money on that not being the case. Ukraine will not join NATO and will not join the EU.
The conflict ends when Russia’s sphere of influence is acknowledged and there are firm agreements about military installations. Russia has a big, big thing about the Soviet Union’s collapse. The Warsaw Pact was dissolved yet NATO remains and I think understanding how that addles the Russian popular psyche around security. Russia is an extremely large, hyper-diverse, inherently unstable country. It will never be a “normal country” and will always be Russia. We cannot wish it away.
No, Putin has a big thing about the Soviet Union’s collapse. I suspect (but have no way to find out) that the vast majority of ordinary Russian citizens probably don’t give a damn about attempting to build a new Russian/USSR empire.
And I disagree that Russia is an unstable country. Putin may be unstable. The problem with Russia is that once Putin got into power, he would not relinquish power. So has changed the law (and many other things) to enable him to stay as long as he likes.
Exactly the kind of thinking which has proved so unhelpful in the past. Poking the bear. Naturally, as a far away country we have no fear of Russian invasion, just the odd polonium event. I’m cautious of random Brits who advocate irritating what, in foreign policy terms, is a mental patient (Russia!) knowing that whatever consequences there are won’t be visited on us first.
Excuse me, first, yes, you should poke a bear. If you don’t scare a bear off, it will keep coming back. And secondly, it’s Russia which is doing the poking here. They started this.
And thirdly, it’s too late, we have poked back. With financial warfare, trade warfare, and by supplying and supporting Ukraine with military weapons.
Another aspect on this thread might be to consider a bit more deeply, what we're hearing from our media and politicians. Anyone who has seen or heard clips of what the Russian media is saying will know that their people are being told a completely different story, which "the West" is saying is propaganda.
Now I'm not disputing that, and I think the Russian people should be entitled to hear whatever they want to. The fact that their Government is cutting off their people's access to stories as told by the West certainly smacks of having something to hide, such as the Russian army doing many disgraceful things and Putin being unreasonable in many ways.
BUT ... when the USA went into Iraq around 20 years ago, there were many demonstrations in many places, but the USA didn't listen or care, just as Putin doesn't care about demonstrations now. And wasn't the main motivation to go into Iraq because they were desperate for a scapegoat for 9/11, rather than because Saddam Hussein was actually intending to send nuclear bombs to America? But many of us listened to the USA then, and as a country we were far, far less outraged by those American actions than we are by today's Russian actions.
What I'm saying is that while I'm certainly against the war in Ukraine and I despise almost everything that Putin is doing, I do think "the West" isn't exactly whiter than white on this, and rather than taking the view that Putin is completely wrong in everything he does as our media tends to portray, we should at least listen to what he says. Then condemn him by all means if you still think it's justified, but at least make some attempt to consider his arguments first. After all, I think many of us were somewhat hoodwinked by Bush when he invaded Iraq.
I was totally against the war and invasion of Iraq. I was not convinced at the time about Iraq having any weapons of mass destruction. And as we now know, it turns out that they had none. So yes, the West does have dirty hands.
But that is not reason enough to just stand and watch by the sidelines as innocent European people get killed and injured by Russian aggression. Aggression done simply to make Putin feel good about himself.
I fear that any "golden bridge" would be seen as an invitation to continue or go further.
The point of a golden bridge is that it avoids that by give Putin enough so he saves face. Problem I know is that means Ukraine gets a raw deal with further loss of territory and having to be at least neutral but it gives the West breathing space although I would be first to acknowledge that im not sure that any of its current leaders have a scooby doo about how to deal with Russia anymore.
I don’t agree that finding and giving Putin a "golden bridge" would be a good idea. He may view that as an encouragement. Or treat it with mistrust. But the bigger problem is, I do not see any sign whatsoever of any acceptable "golden bridge".
There is no way that Ukraine will agree to any further breakup of its territory. And I don’t think the Western countries should even entertain such a possibly.
The possible peaceful and democratic breakup of the U.K. is contentious enough.
Did Hitler have several thousand nuclear weapons?
No, but then, neither did anyone else at the time. But Germany was developing the technology for both the missiles and the warheads (where do you think the Western forces got some of the technology from).
Germany did have a formidable army and an effective airforce. It took the Western forces a hell of a lot of effort to fight to get to Germany. If Germany had not invaded Russia, the Western forces may have never have achieved this.
So in an alternative timeline, if Germany had waited until after they had developed nuclear weapons, would the U.K., France and the U.S.A. have just said “well, Germany is now a nuclear weapon power, we may as well give up now”?
If the Western countries are not willing to take on the Russian airforce (and take out any Russian anti-aircraft surface to air weapons systems), then the next best thing is to continue to supply the Ukrainian military and government with any and all weapons systems, ammunition, food, fuel and medical supplies that they ask for. Plus provide financial help.
Meanwhile continue to isolate Russia, especially Putin and his friends and associates. Keep increasing sanctions. And encourage other countries around the world to do the same.
The year is 2022. Why are human beings still having wars on this planet of ours? It’s just madness. This particular war, which is all about power, as in Putin wanting to cement himself as the Russian that restored Russia as a great world power, just makes it even more mad.
