Anonymous wrote:Let's take on your dumb math number by number. First of all, business insider a legitimate source?

Yes, because they quoted other sources that they had to verify before publication and generally care about business liability or getting sued for lying. It's a non-Russian, non-Iraqi concept, so you probably wouldn't get it, but ask a foreigner to explain it to you?

Anonymous wrote:We'll begin with your first attempt to muddy the water by cleverly inserting "civilian" deaths. You don't think the US is responsible for the Iraqi military deaths? .. A country's military is allowed to fight invaders. And as surely as Ukrainian military deaths are a fault of the Russian army, Iraqi military deaths, TOO, are the fault of the US army.

Not arguing. The American military is exceptionally efficient at eliminating their targets - in this case, the Iraqi military. Please keep this in mind when picking fights.

Anonymous wrote:America invaded without provocation.

I wouldn't say "without provocation", but I won't object if you want to blame the Far Right and Cheney..

Anonymous wrote:I'm replacing "coalition" with "US", because the US is the country that pushed for the invasion, and nothing would have happened with its pushing. There is no coalition without the US

America does not order or command others in a 'coalition'. Their participation is voluntary and their actions their own. The US will communicate, coordinate, and cooperate. That is all.

Anonymous wrote:Oh I see. That's a clever little trick. It says "I will invade the country, remove its regime by force, blow up its institutions, bomb its infrastructure to the ground, destroy every deterrent factor that kept the country stable, even if by a brutal dictator. But if a bloody mess occurs AFTER that? Why, I'm not responsible for that at all! Yes, I doused the house in gasoline and lit the match, but it's not my fault the house burned down! How was I supposed to prevent that?" Iraq was ruled by a US provisional coalition authority between 2003 and 2007. Was it not supposed to take care of the country it invaded and destroyed? How is the resulting damage NOT its fault? Surely you are familiar with the "you break it, you buy it" rule? Oh, was the coalition authority incapable of containing the sectarian violence and civil unrest AFTER the invasion? Well WTH did it invade for? Iraqi food? Sightseeing? By every rule of war, the occupying force is responsible for running the country it occupies. If you run it badly, it's on you. Nice bit of "it says this but I estimate". Let's just look at the sources, shall we? And let's remember: it's not just the "civilian deaths". Military deaths, deaths by unrest, deaths by sectarian violence, deaths from destroyed infrastructure and blown-up institutions, all of these deaths are on the invaders because if not for the invaders, they would not have happened. You break it, you buy it. .. (I am highlighting this because you seem to feel no accountability at all for the infrastructure damage caused by the war)

Huh? lol. Who's rule is that to continue fighting? Please. You're embarrassing yourself. The people in Bosnia *chose* to maintain the peace. The people of Iraq *chose* not to.

Anonymous wrote:Russia has been very critical of the Iraqi invasion as it was happening and resisted the international machinery as best it could. Unlike you, I don't have to wonder about their role at all, because lord knows, America has enough of homegrown stupid, and criminal warmongers like John Bolton, let all dogs of the world piss on his mother's grave.

Then you should be outraged by the 2M Afghanis Russian soldiers slaughtered; the rapes, murders, kidnappings in Ukraine; Wagner Groups murders in Africa and Syria.. correct?

носит однобокий и пред- взятый характер, милая моя параша

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Ukraine will have to cede territory to Russia and guarantee non nato status.

What's ironic is that if Russia had simply left Ukraine alone in 2014, Ukraine today would likely be a pliant pro-Russia state as it was throughout the 90s and early 2000s. Sure it was a corrupt state - like Russia itself - but it was firmly in the Russian orbit. By seizing Donbass and Crimea and its largely ethnic Russian population, what remained of Ukraine became a unified, ethnically homogenous nationalist state. Zelenesky did not arise in a vacuum. And now, after a year of brutal war in which more than a 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died and numerous cities and towns like Mariupol and Marinka have been utterly destroyed, a negotiated land for peace deal has become politically impossible. Ukraine, unlike Russia, is a democracy. There is no politician in Ukraine who can deliver a deal in which Russia gets thousands of square kilometers of Ukrainian land and in return Ukraine gets... nothing. Not even a security guarantee. It's not happening in a democracy.

So to blithely say "Ukraine will have to cede territory to Russia and guarantee non nato status" is completely unrealistic. It's like asking Americans to give up New England and Texas and quietly accept it. There is no realistic peace deal on the horizon between Russia and Ukraine. After all the devastation Russia has caused, Ukrainians are completely united. They will fight to the end. As the Spring offensive begins, hundreds of thousands of poorly trained and equipped Russian soldiers are going to die. This war ends when they finally turn on their officers and walk away from the killing fields - as they did in 1915 - and put a bullet in Putin's head. This is going to be a long, brutal summer and it will be a prelude to the unrest that will soon sweep through Russia as thousands of war-hardened, disillusioned, and often criminal war veterans return to their towns and villages. The chaos is only beginning.

Crimea and Donbas have been out of Ukraine's control for years. It's not really a "loss" per se. It's more like officiating the status quo. But Russia should give up Kherson and Zaporozhye in return for a land connection to Crimea.

I am also mildly amused by the rhetorical device that describes soldiers alternately as "poorly trained and equipped" and "war-hardened criminal veterans" all in the same paragraph.

A soldier that was useless on the battlefield can still be a terror in the village. And there will soon be thousands of them sweeping through the far reaches of Russia. Imagine if the US had emptied its prisons of murderers and rapists to fight a brutal unjust war and the survivors - violent felons and now combat hardened - were suddenly released back into their communities, untouchable by the law. Russia is unleashing chaos. And remember many of the Wagner fighters are not ethnic Russians. The troubles are only beginning..Ukraine is just the prelude.

Not just combat hardened, but likely now suffering from severe PTSD to add to their previously warped mindsets. Bakhmut, where many Wagner have been stationed, is the definition of living hell.

Wagner just killed 9 Chinese miners in Africa so Russia now has to atone for that with the country that now owns them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Ukraine will have to cede territory to Russia and guarantee non nato status.

What's ironic is that if Russia had simply left Ukraine alone in 2014, Ukraine today would likely be a pliant pro-Russia state as it was throughout the 90s and early 2000s. Sure it was a corrupt state - like Russia itself - but it was firmly in the Russian orbit. By seizing Donbass and Crimea and its largely ethnic Russian population, what remained of Ukraine became a unified, ethnically homogenous nationalist state. Zelenesky did not arise in a vacuum. And now, after a year of brutal war in which more than a 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died and numerous cities and towns like Mariupol and Marinka have been utterly destroyed, a negotiated land for peace deal has become politically impossible. Ukraine, unlike Russia, is a democracy. There is no politician in Ukraine who can deliver a deal in which Russia gets thousands of square kilometers of Ukrainian land and in return Ukraine gets... nothing. Not even a security guarantee. It's not happening in a democracy.

So to blithely say "Ukraine will have to cede territory to Russia and guarantee non nato status" is completely unrealistic. It's like asking Americans to give up New England and Texas and quietly accept it. There is no realistic peace deal on the horizon between Russia and Ukraine. After all the devastation Russia has caused, Ukrainians are completely united. They will fight to the end. As the Spring offensive begins, hundreds of thousands of poorly trained and equipped Russian soldiers are going to die. This war ends when they finally turn on their officers and walk away from the killing fields - as they did in 1915 - and put a bullet in Putin's head. This is going to be a long, brutal summer and it will be a prelude to the unrest that will soon sweep through Russia as thousands of war-hardened, disillusioned, and often criminal war veterans return to their towns and villages. The chaos is only beginning.

Crimea and Donbas have been out of Ukraine's control for years. It's not really a "loss" per se. It's more like officiating the status quo. But Russia should give up Kherson and Zaporozhye in return for a land connection to Crimea.

I am also mildly amused by the rhetorical device that describes soldiers alternately as "poorly trained and equipped" and "war-hardened criminal veterans" all in the same paragraph.

A soldier that was useless on the battlefield can still be a terror in the village. And there will soon be thousands of them sweeping through the far reaches of Russia. Imagine if the US had emptied its prisons of murderers and rapists to fight a brutal unjust war and the survivors - violent felons and now combat hardened - were suddenly released back into their communities, untouchable by the law. Russia is unleashing chaos. And remember many of the Wagner fighters are not ethnic Russians. The troubles are only beginning..Ukraine is just the prelude.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Ukraine will have to cede territory to Russia and guarantee non nato status.

What's ironic is that if Russia had simply left Ukraine alone in 2014, Ukraine today would likely be a pliant pro-Russia state as it was throughout the 90s and early 2000s. Sure it was a corrupt state - like Russia itself - but it was firmly in the Russian orbit. By seizing Donbass and Crimea and its largely ethnic Russian population, what remained of Ukraine became a unified, ethnically homogenous nationalist state. Zelenesky did not arise in a vacuum. And now, after a year of brutal war in which more than a 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died and numerous cities and towns like Mariupol and Marinka have been utterly destroyed, a negotiated land for peace deal has become politically impossible. Ukraine, unlike Russia, is a democracy. There is no politician in Ukraine who can deliver a deal in which Russia gets thousands of square kilometers of Ukrainian land and in return Ukraine gets... nothing. Not even a security guarantee. It's not happening in a democracy.

So to blithely say "Ukraine will have to cede territory to Russia and guarantee non nato status" is completely unrealistic. It's like asking Americans to give up New England and Texas and quietly accept it. There is no realistic peace deal on the horizon between Russia and Ukraine. After all the devastation Russia has caused, Ukrainians are completely united. They will fight to the end. As the Spring offensive begins, hundreds of thousands of poorly trained and equipped Russian soldiers are going to die. This war ends when they finally turn on their officers and walk away from the killing fields - as they did in 1915 - and put a bullet in Putin's head. This is going to be a long, brutal summer and it will be a prelude to the unrest that will soon sweep through Russia as thousands of war-hardened, disillusioned, and often criminal war veterans return to their towns and villages. The chaos is only beginning.

Wagner Private Military Corporation (PMC) recruited tens of thousands of hardened Russian criminals from Russian prisons, with the promise of commuting their lengthy sentences in exchange for fighting against Ukraine.

Approximately 50% of the convict / soldiers were killed on the battle.

But the other 50% survived, and their 6-month contracts are now ending.

Surprisingly, Wagner and the Kremlin are actually honoring the contracts, and releasing them from service with a clean record.

Tens of thousands of combat-scared, convicted criminals who’d otherwise still be in jail, will soon be roaming free all over Russia, many with untreated PTSD.

How do you think that’s going to go?

Russia wants to be done with Wagner because Prigozhin is now a political rival. Wagner wants to be done with Ukraine because they're getting crushed and Africa is easier/more lucrative.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Ukraine will have to cede territory to Russia and guarantee non nato status.

What's ironic is that if Russia had simply left Ukraine alone in 2014, Ukraine today would likely be a pliant pro-Russia state as it was throughout the 90s and early 2000s. Sure it was a corrupt state - like Russia itself - but it was firmly in the Russian orbit. By seizing Donbass and Crimea and its largely ethnic Russian population, what remained of Ukraine became a unified, ethnically homogenous nationalist state. Zelenesky did not arise in a vacuum. And now, after a year of brutal war in which more than a 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died and numerous cities and towns like Mariupol and Marinka have been utterly destroyed, a negotiated land for peace deal has become politically impossible. Ukraine, unlike Russia, is a democracy. There is no politician in Ukraine who can deliver a deal in which Russia gets thousands of square kilometers of Ukrainian land and in return Ukraine gets... nothing. Not even a security guarantee. It's not happening in a democracy.

So to blithely say "Ukraine will have to cede territory to Russia and guarantee non nato status" is completely unrealistic. It's like asking Americans to give up New England and Texas and quietly accept it. There is no realistic peace deal on the horizon between Russia and Ukraine. After all the devastation Russia has caused, Ukrainians are completely united. They will fight to the end. As the Spring offensive begins, hundreds of thousands of poorly trained and equipped Russian soldiers are going to die. This war ends when they finally turn on their officers and walk away from the killing fields - as they did in 1915 - and put a bullet in Putin's head. This is going to be a long, brutal summer and it will be a prelude to the unrest that will soon sweep through Russia as thousands of war-hardened, disillusioned, and often criminal war veterans return to their towns and villages. The chaos is only beginning.

Wagner Private Military Corporation (PMC) recruited tens of thousands of hardened Russian criminals from Russian prisons, with the promise of commuting their lengthy sentences in exchange for fighting against Ukraine.

Approximately 50% of the convict / soldiers were killed on the battle.

But the other 50% survived, and their 6-month contracts are now ending.

Surprisingly, Wagner and the Kremlin are actually honoring the contracts, and releasing them from service with a clean record.

Tens of thousands of combat-scared, convicted criminals who’d otherwise still be in jail, will soon be roaming free all over Russia, many with untreated PTSD.

How do you think that’s going to go?

In terms of population studies, extrapolated to total population of Russia, that's not very much at all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Ukraine will have to cede territory to Russia and guarantee non nato status.

What's ironic is that if Russia had simply left Ukraine alone in 2014, Ukraine today would likely be a pliant pro-Russia state as it was throughout the 90s and early 2000s. Sure it was a corrupt state - like Russia itself - but it was firmly in the Russian orbit. By seizing Donbass and Crimea and its largely ethnic Russian population, what remained of Ukraine became a unified, ethnically homogenous nationalist state. Zelenesky did not arise in a vacuum. And now, after a year of brutal war in which more than a 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died and numerous cities and towns like Mariupol and Marinka have been utterly destroyed, a negotiated land for peace deal has become politically impossible. Ukraine, unlike Russia, is a democracy. There is no politician in Ukraine who can deliver a deal in which Russia gets thousands of square kilometers of Ukrainian land and in return Ukraine gets... nothing. Not even a security guarantee. It's not happening in a democracy.

So to blithely say "Ukraine will have to cede territory to Russia and guarantee non nato status" is completely unrealistic. It's like asking Americans to give up New England and Texas and quietly accept it. There is no realistic peace deal on the horizon between Russia and Ukraine. After all the devastation Russia has caused, Ukrainians are completely united. They will fight to the end. As the Spring offensive begins, hundreds of thousands of poorly trained and equipped Russian soldiers are going to die. This war ends when they finally turn on their officers and walk away from the killing fields - as they did in 1915 - and put a bullet in Putin's head. This is going to be a long, brutal summer and it will be a prelude to the unrest that will soon sweep through Russia as thousands of war-hardened, disillusioned, and often criminal war veterans return to their towns and villages. The chaos is only beginning.

Crimea and Donbas have been out of Ukraine's control for years. It's not really a "loss" per se. It's more like officiating the status quo. But Russia should give up Kherson and Zaporozhye in return for a land connection to Crimea.

I am also mildly amused by the rhetorical device that describes soldiers alternately as "poorly trained and equipped" and "war-hardened criminal veterans" all in the same paragraph.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Ukraine will have to cede territory to Russia and guarantee non nato status.

What's ironic is that if Russia had simply left Ukraine alone in 2014, Ukraine today would likely be a pliant pro-Russia state as it was throughout the 90s and early 2000s. Sure it was a corrupt state - like Russia itself - but it was firmly in the Russian orbit. By seizing Donbass and Crimea and its largely ethnic Russian population, what remained of Ukraine became a unified, ethnically homogenous nationalist state. Zelenesky did not arise in a vacuum. And now, after a year of brutal war in which more than a 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died and numerous cities and towns like Mariupol and Marinka have been utterly destroyed, a negotiated land for peace deal has become politically impossible. Ukraine, unlike Russia, is a democracy. There is no politician in Ukraine who can deliver a deal in which Russia gets thousands of square kilometers of Ukrainian land and in return Ukraine gets... nothing. Not even a security guarantee. It's not happening in a democracy.

So to blithely say "Ukraine will have to cede territory to Russia and guarantee non nato status" is completely unrealistic. It's like asking Americans to give up New England and Texas and quietly accept it. There is no realistic peace deal on the horizon between Russia and Ukraine. After all the devastation Russia has caused, Ukrainians are completely united. They will fight to the end. As the Spring offensive begins, hundreds of thousands of poorly trained and equipped Russian soldiers are going to die. This war ends when they finally turn on their officers and walk away from the killing fields - as they did in 1915 - and put a bullet in Putin's head. This is going to be a long, brutal summer and it will be a prelude to the unrest that will soon sweep through Russia as thousands of war-hardened, disillusioned, and often criminal war veterans return to their towns and villages. The chaos is only beginning.

Wagner Private Military Corporation (PMC) recruited tens of thousands of hardened Russian criminals from Russian prisons, with the promise of commuting their lengthy sentences in exchange for fighting against Ukraine.

Approximately 50% of the convict / soldiers were killed on the battle.

But the other 50% survived, and their 6-month contracts are now ending.

Surprisingly, Wagner and the Kremlin are actually honoring the contracts, and releasing them from service with a clean record.

Tens of thousands of combat-scared, convicted criminals who’d otherwise still be in jail, will soon be roaming free all over Russia, many with untreated PTSD.

How do you think that’s going to go?

Anonymous wrote:

It was a nice try. 0.5M is an imaginary number.

Iraqi civilian deaths: 182,272 — 204,575
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-people-have-been-killed-in-iraq-and-afghanistan#244124-266427-civilians-5

Let's take on your dumb math number by number. First of all, business insider a legitimate source?

We'll begin with your first attempt to muddy the water by cleverly inserting "civilian" deaths. You don't think the US is responsible for the Iraqi military deaths? America invaded without provocation. A country's military is allowed to fight invaders. And as surely as Ukrainian military deaths are a fault of the Russian army, Iraqi military deaths, TOO, are the fault of the US army. I'm replacing "coalition" with "US", because the US is the country that pushed for the invasion, and nothing would have happened with its pushing. There is no coalition without the US.

Anonymous wrote:As far as deaths actually caused by US troops, there are documented incidents adding up to about a thousand, but the remainder were Iraqi-on-Iraqi deaths from Civil War, coalition and insurgent military action, sectarian violence and increased criminal violence.

"Our findings indicate that IED explosions contributed to 31% of civilian deaths, while direct fire contributed to 7% of civilian deaths. A comparison of how civilian deaths related to insurgent and allied intent shows that more civilians were killed by insurgents than by allied troops. Surprisingly, however, nonmilitary murder accounted for 49% of civilian deaths."
https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1067&context=jpur

Oh I see. That's a clever little trick. It says "I will invade the country, remove its regime by force, blow up its institutions, bomb its infrastructure to the ground, destroy every deterrent factor that kept the country stable, even if by a brutal dictator. But if a bloody mess occurs AFTER that? Why, I'm not responsible for that at all! Yes, I doused the house in gasoline and lit the match, but it's not my fault the house burned down! How was I supposed to prevent that?"

Iraq was ruled by a US provisional coalition authority between 2003 and 2007. Was it not supposed to take care of the country it invaded and destroyed? How is the resulting damage NOT its fault? Surely you are familiar with the "you break it, you buy it" rule? Oh, was the coalition authority incapable of containing the sectarian violence and civil unrest AFTER the invasion? Well WTH did it invade for? Iraqi food? Sightseeing? By every rule of war, the occupying force is responsible for running the country it occupies. If you run it badly, it's on you.

Anonymous wrote:What this means is that collateral damage by US forces could not exceed 18,277 to 20,457 - and this is the high water mark. Although war deaths are always murky (did the bullet come from Army A or Army B?), one estimate is approximately 14,330 civilian deaths were attributable towards Coalition forces.

"According to Iraq Body Count, which has been keeping track of fatality reports since the onset of hostilities in 2003, of the approximately 119,400 documented civilian deaths between the beginning of the war and the US' withdrawal, 14,330 were a result of Coalition actions."
https://www.quora.com/How-many-Iraqi-civilians-did-the-U-S-Army-kill-in-the-Iraq-War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War

Note that the 14,330 killed by "Coalition action" includes non-US troops. The estimates I've seen about US troops killing civilians are by far (a) accidental / incidental death reports, and (b) are less than about 2,000.

Although 2,000 civilian deaths are admittedly unfortunate and not acceptable from the US military POV, it is certainly not the 0.5M that the poster (e.g. the lying sack of poo) falsely claimed.

Nice bit of "it says this but I estimate". Let's just look at the sources, shall we? And let's remember: it's not just the "civilian deaths". Military deaths, deaths by unrest, deaths by sectarian violence, deaths from destroyed infrastructure and blown-up institutions, all of these deaths are on the invaders because if not for the invaders, they would not have happened. You break it, you buy it.

US Peace Institute
As a self-declared occupying force, the U.S. military was responsible for national security, but at least 100,000 people died during its eight-year intervention (some estimates were as high as half a million). https://www.usip.org/iraq-timeline-2003-war

Wikipedia, that veritable workhorse:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
Iraq War logs: just under 110K between 2004 and 2009, so excludes the death count from bombing Baghdad in 2003

The Health Ministry of the Iraqi government recorded 87,215 Iraqi violent deaths between January 1, 2005, and February 28, 2009.


Associated Press stated that more than 110,600 Iraqis had been killed since the start of the war to April 2009. This number is per the Health Ministry tally of 87,215 covering January 1, 2005, to February 28, 2009 combined with counts of casualties for 2003–2004, and after February 29, 2009, from hospital sources and media reports.

The Iraq Body Count project (IBC) figure of documented civilian deaths from violence is 183,535 – 206,107 through April 2019.

The Lancet study's figure of 654,965 excess deaths through the end of June 2006 is based on household survey data. The estimate is for all excess violent and nonviolent deaths. That also includes those due to increased lawlessness, degraded infrastructure, poorer healthcare, etc. (I am highlighting this because you seem to feel no accountability at all for the infrastructure damage caused by the war)

The PLOS Medicine study's figure of approximately 460,000 excess deaths through the end of June 2011 is based on household survey data including more than 60% of deaths directly attributable to violence. The estimate is for all excess violent and nonviolent deaths. That also includes those due to increased lawlessness, degraded infrastructure, poorer healthcare, etc. 405,000 deaths (range of 48,000 to 751,000 using a 95% confidence interval) were estimated as excess deaths attributable to the conflict.

268,000 - 295,000 people were killed in violence in the Iraq war from March 2003 - Oct. 2018, including 182,272 - 204,575 civilians (using Iraq Body Count's figures), according to the findings of the Costs of War Project, a team of 35 scholars, legal experts, human rights practitioners, and physicians, assembled by Brown University and the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, "about the costs of the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the related violence in Pakistan and Syria." The civilian violent death numbers are "surely an underestimate.

Anonymous wrote:It is understandable that internet searches will produce unverifiable articles with this false narrative. Russian propaganda does try to push the narrative of the Iraq War as the US equivalent of Russia's Afghanistan, but it's not a very good analogy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHdpjqLER1c
https://russiaun.ru/en/news/pressconf_200323

"About two million Afghan civilians were killed."
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet–Afghan_War

Although it's unclear the percentage of Afghan civilians killed by Russian soldiers vs Coalition forces, from the actions of Russian forces actively targeting Ukrainian civilians, it's far more plausible that the majority of civilian Afghan deaths were at the hands of Russian soldiers.

One additional point - after seeing the association between Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller staff and Cheney's office, given that the US-Iraq War was initiated by Republicans, I have to wonder if the pot could have been stirred by the pro-Russian / subversive crowd seeking to weaken the US?

Russia has been very critical of the Iraqi invasion as it was happening and resisted the international machinery as best it could. Unlike you, I don't have to wonder about their role at all, because lord knows, America has enough of homegrown stupid, and criminal warmongers like John Bolton, let all dogs of the world piss on his mother's grave.

Anonymous wrote:The Ukraine will have to cede territory to Russia and guarantee non nato status.

ROFL - no. Not happening.

Ukraine will not cede a single square centimeter to Russia. Once Russia is expelled, I guarantee Ukraine will join NATO.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Ukraine will have to cede territory to Russia and guarantee non nato status.

What's ironic is that if Russia had simply left Ukraine alone in 2014, Ukraine today would likely be a pliant pro-Russia state as it was throughout the 90s and early 2000s. Sure it was a corrupt state - like Russia itself - but it was firmly in the Russian orbit. By seizing Donbass and Crimea and its largely ethnic Russian population, what remained of Ukraine became a unified, ethnically homogenous nationalist state. Zelenesky did not arise in a vacuum. And now, after a year of brutal war in which more than a 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died and numerous cities and towns like Mariupol and Marinka have been utterly destroyed, a negotiated land for peace deal has become politically impossible. Ukraine, unlike Russia, is a democracy. There is no politician in Ukraine who can deliver a deal in which Russia gets thousands of square kilometers of Ukrainian land and in return Ukraine gets... nothing. Not even a security guarantee. It's not happening in a democracy.

So to blithely say "Ukraine will have to cede territory to Russia and guarantee non nato status" is completely unrealistic. It's like asking Americans to give up New England and Texas and quietly accept it. There is no realistic peace deal on the horizon between Russia and Ukraine. After all the devastation Russia has caused, Ukrainians are completely united. They will fight to the end. As the Spring offensive begins, hundreds of thousands of poorly trained and equipped Russian soldiers are going to die. This war ends when they finally turn on their officers and walk away from the killing fields - as they did in 1915 - and put a bullet in Putin's head. This is going to be a long, brutal summer and it will be a prelude to the unrest that will soon sweep through Russia as thousands of war-hardened, disillusioned, and often criminal war veterans return to their towns and villages. The chaos is only beginning.

Marinka?

Anonymous wrote:The Ukraine will have to cede territory to Russia and guarantee non nato status.

Why do I picture a villain shaking his fist in the air angrily shouting, "we lost this time, but we'll be back with more tanks and win!!!!"

Anonymous wrote:The Ukraine will have to cede territory to Russia and guarantee non nato status.

What's ironic is that if Russia had simply left Ukraine alone in 2014, Ukraine today would likely be a pliant pro-Russia state as it was throughout the 90s and early 2000s. Sure it was a corrupt state - like Russia itself - but it was firmly in the Russian orbit. By seizing Donbass and Crimea and its largely ethnic Russian population, what remained of Ukraine became a unified, ethnically homogenous nationalist state. Zelenesky did not arise in a vacuum. And now, after a year of brutal war in which more than a 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died and numerous cities and towns like Mariupol and Marinka have been utterly destroyed, a negotiated land for peace deal has become politically impossible. Ukraine, unlike Russia, is a democracy. There is no politician in Ukraine who can deliver a deal in which Russia gets thousands of square kilometers of Ukrainian land and in return Ukraine gets... nothing. Not even a security guarantee. It's not happening in a democracy.

So to blithely say "Ukraine will have to cede territory to Russia and guarantee non nato status" is completely unrealistic. It's like asking Americans to give up New England and Texas and quietly accept it. There is no realistic peace deal on the horizon between Russia and Ukraine. After all the devastation Russia has caused, Ukrainians are completely united. They will fight to the end. As the Spring offensive begins, hundreds of thousands of poorly trained and equipped Russian soldiers are going to die. This war ends when they finally turn on their officers and walk away from the killing fields - as they did in 1915 - and put a bullet in Putin's head. This is going to be a long, brutal summer and it will be a prelude to the unrest that will soon sweep through Russia as thousands of war-hardened, disillusioned, and often criminal war veterans return to their towns and villages. The chaos is only beginning.

The Ukraine will have to cede territory to Russia and guarantee non nato status.

Anonymous wrote:What does 'Ukraine victory' mean, which the OP said is inevitable.

Russia expelled entirely from Crimea and the rest of Ukraine.

Ukraine will also eventually join the EU and NATO.

Good job, Putin! You are clearly a master strategist.