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.

    •  A1kmm   ( @A1kmm@lemmy.amxl.com ) 
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      311 year ago

      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.

      • 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.

    • 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?

  • 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!

  • 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!

        •  dsmk   ( @dsmk@lemmy.zip ) 
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          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.