Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin – the Russian mercenary leader whose plane crashed weeks after he led a mutiny against Moscow’s military leadership – shows what happens when people make deals with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
As Ukraine’s counteroffensive moves into a fourth month, with only modest gains to show so far, Zelensky told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria he rejected suggestions it was time to negotiate peace with the Kremlin.
“When you want to have a compromise or a dialogue with somebody, you cannot do it with a liar,” Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Withdrawing troops, returning stolen land, children, prisoners and paying for damages… thats all i would accept. Nothing less.
A ‘Treaty of Versailles’ type solution is not a good idea for durable peace though, harsh reparations, despite any sense they might be ‘fair’, seldom lead to both countries returning to be prosperous democratic countries (and to be clear, neither is a capitulation by Ukraine - that would be seen by Putin as locking in its current gains, with no real incentive not to try again for more despite what the treaty might say).
The best outcome for everyone is if Russia ends up being a genuinely pluralistic democracy (i.e. anyone in Russia can have political views, and the public selects its leadership in free and fair elections). Then Ukraine can normalise relations with Russia, and Russia stops being a threat to democratic institutions across the world as a whole.
I think the best way of thinking about it is not that Ukraine has a Russia problem, but rather that Ukraine and Russia have an oligarch problem (with Putin chief amongst them). Therefore, in a fair world, the oligarchs, and not the Russian people, would pay. It is true that Russians (and indeed some Ukrainians in occupied regions) have been radicalised by the oligarchs, so some kind of deradicalisation would be needed even if the oligarchs disappeared.
Solutions that look to negotiate how to reduce corruption and authoritarianism in Russia from the top are therefore the most likely to succeed long term. Shorter term solutions could include a negotiated end to hostilities coupled with agreements for Ukraine to join a defensive alliance that the oligarchs wouldn’t consider provoking - which could be followed up by a carrot approach to easing sanctions in exchange for progressive movements towards genuine Russian democracy. This might give oligarchs enough push to take off ramps to cash in what they have plundered already, and slowly be replaced by less corrupt alternatives going forward.
Recovery from oligarchy for Russia might also by costly for Russia though - essential assets plundered from the USSR are now in private hands through crony capitalism; the best solution would be for many of the major ones to go back to or be rebuilt under state ownership, under genuine democratic leadership. But that is likely easier said than done given the state of Russia.
Socialism worked in Russia: it dragged hundreds of millions of people out of subsistence farming and turned the USSR into an economic powerhouse. Of course, the collapse of the USSR showed the failings of an aggressively socialist state, but the funny thing is that China already has the solution: a market-based economy with strong state control. Putin doesn’t dare piss off the oligarchs though, so we’re stuck with this crony bullshit.
China’s also showing the problem of that. The state control is too susceptible to corruption. That’s how they have a whole industry if fake construction, fake goods etc… And why they’re on the brink of a massive Construction bond related crash.
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Solutions that look to negotiate how to reduce corruption and authoritarianism in Russia from the top are therefore the most likely to succeed long term.
This may be true but the negotiations are with a dictator. It’s not like Putin is going to step down so that the problem is resolved peacefully.
And a 3rd party enforced DMZ on the border.
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Eastern European countries love their “macho” leaders. Putin has been doing the whole shtick since forever and Zelensky started it too since 2022. Fucking hate this shit.
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Lots of countries have this problem. Their people are looking for strong leaders, not smart leaders, and many interpret bullying as strength.
Democratic leadership hasn’t really done much for Ukraine. The Russians still have Bakhmut (their big gain from last winter). Almost the entirety of the Ukrainian counteroffensive has been dedicated to an area of land less than twenty kilometers across. Meanwhile, Russian forces are massing North of Kupyansk and Ukrainian supplies are drained.
The West doesn’t seem to really care about Ukraine - while Russia has been able to bring their economy into war footing in about a year, the West is happy to dig around and play accounting tricks to scrounge up what they can. The recent shipment of ATACMS missiles was, well…
“A surprising discovery could also ease the administration’s choice to send the weapons: The U.S. has found it has more ATACMS in its inventory than originally assessed.”
That’s what we’re stuck with? Hundreds of billions of dollars down the drain and aid is only being sent because they miscounted inventory?
We’ll see. Ukraine is still regaining land, albeit slowly. In some moments - rather fast and cheap even.
But also yes, the Russian forces have learned something.
Fast and cheap? Is that what you call losing 60 thousand lives to eke out a salient on low ground?
I said “in some moments”. There were days and places under Kherson a few months before.
Okay then the war would go on and on until your government collapsed. A peace agreement is actually good here given that they just showed they were unable to reclaim much land with their counter offensive.
They’ve shown no such thing. Stop believing everything you hear in the media.
I’m literally basing this on bloodthirsty weapon manufacturer adjacent media, who’s interests are unaligned with saying things are going badly. Even they are getting cold feet on the war, or saying there never was an offensive or the offensive hasn’t really started yet.
do you live there
How? Ukraine’s made like a few square kilometers of progress with hundreds of billions of dollars of funding while Russia has just fallen back from their low ground territorial gains to the more easily defensible high ground.
What leverage does Ukraine even have for those demands?
The reason for those small gains instead of hard ones is largely air support. The fighting on the ground is very reminiscent of world war I. That is not a good thing. They may seem like modest gains but in terms of that type of warfare they are pretty huge gains. The problem is that without air support it is going to be a long hard battle.
All that said, it is Ukraine’s territory. Russia could pack up and leave at any time.
How is Ukraine ever going to get air superiority? The West is basically trickle-feeding then equipment.
Yes, that is exactly what I implied.
If only you also were in the position to dictate this to Russia. Even the US isn’t in this position, and will never be.
Russia is a terrorist country. Terrorists can’t be negotiated with. #SlavaUkraini
Russia can’t be accepted back into the international community until Putin is in a jail cell or in the ground.
While I’d like to believe this, if Putin comes to some peaceful agreement with Ukraine, the international community will just wait until people are distracted by the next big news story and then let Putin back in.
I’d rather be cynical and happily surprised than optimistic and disappointed.
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simply said, a pidor.
isn’t that some kind of Turkish pizza?
Well, in Russian it’s a swear word meaning a faggot, which refers to prison hierarchy.
I mean, by that logic we might as well dump everyone who’s started a major land war recently into the ground.
Iraq, Ukraine, Afghanistan… ah fuck, eh?
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Shut your face, ruzzian troll
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I really think “Slava Ukraini” is a fascist slogan, because it is. Since you’re mad at me for pointing it out, I suspect it might be you who would get banned if you said what you really think.
In April 1941 in German-occupied Kraków, the younger part of the OUN seceded and formed its own organisation, called the OUN-B after its leader Stepan Bandera. The group adopted a fascist-style salute along with calling “Glory to Ukraine!” and responding with “Glory to the Heroes!”. During the failed attempt to build a Ukrainian state on lands occupied by Germany after its invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, triumphal arches with “Glory to Ukraine!”, along with other slogans, were erected in numerous Ukrainian cities.
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So it’s perfectly normal to revive a slogan that was last used by fascists? I’m sure the fact that Ukraine also made Bandera a national hero and put up statues of him and named streets in his honor right around the same time that slogan made its comeback is just a coincidence? Totally innocent slogan my ass.
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Have a good day.
Look, you can’t just present an argument and then tell me not to reply.
The history of Ukrainian support of him is fairly new and is far more complicated than “we like fascists”,
I’d like to hear your arguments why worshiping the leader of an organization that took part in the Holocaust is somehow “complicated”. It’s not like this isn’t some well-known fact. Seriously, this is obviously totally fucked. Why would you feel to need to defend this? It’s not, actually, fucking complicated.
hostility so far
And whose fault is that?
ok bye now
No, it’s neither fascist, nor mainly associated with mass murderers to anyone except redfash
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Slava Ukraini was literally the battle cry of the OUN, which collaborated in the holocaust. Find a different motto.
I block all ruscist trolls. You’re up!
SLAVA UKRAINI tell your czar putler his time is up. :)
K scratched liberal
.
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I’m only repeating what Ukrainians say. They know any concession with ruzzian terrorists now will only lead to ruzzian terrorists regrouping and reloading to perfom more genocide in a few months/years all over again. The fascist moscow regime needs to be stopped NOW.
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Murdering, kidnapping and brainwashing Ukrainian children is genocide. Attempting to exterminate the Ukrainian people is genocide.
Murdering, kidnapping and brainwashing Ukrainian children is genocide.
Then we’ll have to introduce degrees of genocide.
Attempting to exterminate the Ukrainian people is genocide.
Which is not happening.
I block all russian trolls.
You don’t fucking know which things the words you use mean. And since you still dare voice your opinions on real world - blocking me is an important first step at stopping that.
I would understand if at least 20% of the Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel would be comprised of western volunteers talking about terrorists and no negotiations.
Now do Russia. There must be more western volunteers on that side, I take it?
I obviously mean that you are talking too tough for somebody not participating.
Foundations of geopolitics? Fuck that, more war. More Ukrainians will die, and that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
More Ukrainians will die, and that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
I genuinely can’t tell if you are saying this ironically considering you are all over this thread defending Russia’s invasion.
Lol right? I mean why would literally anyone trust Putin at this point?
I’m kind of confused why Prigozhin did what he did, even. He knew Putin was going to try to kill him afterwards, I had assumed he had his own play but I guess not.
His entire plan made very little sense. And he’s dead now so clearly whatever he thought he was doing definitely did not work out.
Yeah. I eagerly await whatever book will come out about it in a couple decades.
IIRC, I believe Putin found the family members of the people in his chain of command and threatened with their safety.
It’s pretty weird if Prigozhin didn’t have those people all locked down already, too. He knew the gravity of starting an armed rebellion and he knew as well as anyone how Putin operates.
As far as I recall, I read on a random article that his family was secured, but not the family of his close chain of command or something.
So he just messed up, then. Oops, now you’re dead.
Hasn’t he had pretty good relations with, like, literally all of BRICS?
So good he didn’t even show up there at the last conference in person because of pretty legitimate concerns they’d arrest him? https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/putin-remotely-attends-brics-summit-in-south-africa-while-facing-war-crimes-warrant
Oh no! Not international law!
So are you arguing his relationship with BRICS is actually good despite them probably arresting them if he shows up? What would make a bad relationship in your eyes?
Hasn’t Lula already declared Putin is free to enter Brazil regardless of international law and potential sanctions?
We’ll see if he’s still dictator in a year to take advantage of that!
Lula walked this back literally just today btw.
Very true. Russia (well, putin) has shown over and over that he can’t be trusted, he will stab you in the back and he will murder you.
Hell, the entire land grab from Ukraine was going against accords made where Russia promised to allow Ukraine to exist as a sovereign nation and Russia would get all their nukes. Russia got the nukes and theb went on to invade and steal Crimea and then to just drop all pretence and invade the entire Ukraine.
Just give some shitty transparent excuses, mumble something about non existent Nazis, and just steal lands.
So no, you can’t make deals with Putin
However, Ukraine is in a tight spot. They still rely on the west (and mostly United States)for the Weapons and gear they use on the war. Russia has the Republican party in their pocket and if the Republican party (or worse trump) wins the election, they’ll at the least stop all Help and likely hand the Ukraine to Russia on a silver platter.
This means they basically gotta gain as much as possible before the US elections, which is why they’re grinding on so much without the proper air support they’ll start having at the end of the year. It sucks, but it’s the situation they’re in.
It’s impressive though to see how much they advance without air support. Slava Ukraine!
Ironically the CIA believes Putin killed Prigozhin to defuse tensions with NATO for exiling Wagner to Belarus.
If Putin wants to defuse tensions with NATO, he knows what to do.
Right, pullout, like Putin’s daddy should have done.
I’m skeptical the government would allow him to do that.
He’s not actually a god-king. If a leader ever became a threat to the power structure, he’d be eliminated. Just ask JFK 🙃
I mean, obviously?
But that would counter Zelensky’s argument.
You mean Zelensky was wrong? No way!
Facts
This is the best summary I could come up with:
As Ukraine’s counteroffensive moves into a fourth month, with only modest gains to show so far, Zelensky told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria he rejected suggestions it was time to negotiate peace with the Kremlin.
The Wagner leader’s dramatic death, which followed a short-lived rebellion that threatened the authority of the Russian president, was a warning to be heeded, Zelensky suggested.
While the United States and other key Ukrainian allies continue to supply weapons to Kyiv, and stress that conditions to pursue a “just and durable” peace are not yet in place, a handful of world leaders, such as Brazil’s Lula Da Silva, have put the onus on Ukraine to end the war.
As evidence for his position, Zelensky cited other countries which have been attacked by Russian soldiers and continue to be partially occupied by them.
Ukraine has made incremental gains in the south amid fierce fighting with Russian troops, accounts from the front lines suggest.
Geolocated videos on Friday showed a wasteland of shell holes, abandoned trenches and wrecked military hardware in the area between Robotyne, Verbove and Novoprokopivka — a triangle of villages that hold the key for Ukrainians to getting closer to Tokmak, an important hub for Russian defenses.
The original article contains 282 words, the summary contains 201 words. Saved 29%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
People really want to see more Ukrainians die, huh?
I personally don’t want anyone to die, but it’s not like Ukraine asked Russia to invade them, steal their land and kill their people.
You don’t want anyone to die, but that’s effectively what this is calling for.
But hey, it’s just Slavs killing Slavs, right?
I’m not Ukrainian, so it’s not my place to tell them to just bend over and take it. If they want to continue fighting, then it’s their right and I support their position.
I’m also not sure if a compromise is possible when the positions of both sides are so far apart. Ukraine thinks they can win, Russia still thinks they’re the 2nd best army in the world and that all is going well, so even if you trust Putin or Russia (which you shouldn’t, see the 2nd Chechen War), I’m not sure how both sides can agree on a middle ground. There are still too many cards to be played before we reach that point.
Those who truly worry about human life should keep in mind that if it’s too easy for aggressors to start wars, they’ll keep doing it because it works. Do nothing, appease the aggressors, and you might end up with even more dead people.
But hey, it’s just Slavs killing Slavs, right?
All I see is Russia invading another country (2014 and then again in 2022) and bringing war, death, and destruction to a land that had its problems but was fairly peaceful. Them being “slavs” matters little here.
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Zelensky has forgotten to mention Mink and Mink2 agreement that he and EU have broken, thus lying to Russia, and even admitted it.
