I found this interesting. Gallup has found that 52% of Ukrainians want the country’s war with Russia to end as quickly as possible including making territorial concessions to do so.
That sounds to me like the Biden Administration is moving in a different direction than the Ukrainians themselves.
Even more interesting is that the Ukrainians see the European Union as a better interlocutor in negotiations with Russia than the United States.
“….including making territorial concessions to do so.”
I ain’t no foreign policy expert. But some of us have been saying this for a long time. I’d sue for peace. And don’t you think Russia would really like to get down to Odessa? Total isolation.
Andy?
Sue for peace.
I’ve been pretty clear from the beginning that the chances for Ukraine to retake all its lost territory were extremely low at best, especially in an attritional war like this one, which is ruinous on multiple levels.
It takes time, however, for governments and societies to realize the limits of what is possible, but once they do, then war aims and conflict cessation become more malleable.
Of course, it takes two sides to negotiate. We’ve seen with Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah that you can more than decimate an enemy, and they still won’t change their terms. And it is often the case that one side will perceive it is winning which tends to make that side want to continue the war to make terms in a future negotiation better, or perhaps to actually win. That’s been the case in the Ukraine war.
At this particular point in time, I don’t think Russia is interested in negotiation. Perhaps after their current operations have culminated in a few months. I think they will want to retake all of the Kursk area territory to take that off the table in an eventual settlement. How long and how costly that will be is yet to be seen.
Does anybody think that the more Ukrainian territory the Russians occupy the MORE interested they will become in negotiations?
What the Ukrainians want is irrelevant. The US neocons wanted this war. They moved Heaven and Earth to get it going. And they have prevented every attempt to end it.
Two years ago, Ukraine could have have a Minsk-like agreement, with no territorial losses other than Crimea. The US sent its messenger boy Boris Johnson to quash that. So, now Russia will continue the war itself, without negotiations, until it gets what it wants.
To remind ourselves, what Russia wants is: regime change in Kiev, no Nazis/Banderites; demilitarization, police only; no NATO; no foreign troops in Ukraine; EU by permission only, with conditions; Crimea plus the four oblasts already annexed; a buffer zone to be determined.
In the runoff election in 2012, Yanukovych won every oblast east of the Dnieper, plus Crimea, by majorities of 60 to 90%. Timoshenko won every oblast west of the Dnieper by similar majorities. The Dnieper is a natural cultural, political, religious, geographic, and ecological boundary. Russia’s hard liners want the entire Black Sea coast up to Transnistria plus Kiev.
The US will continue to escalate this war until Russia actually attacks some target in the continental US. Then the real fun begins.
“Does anybody think that the more Ukrainian territory the Russians occupy the MORE interested they will become in negotiations?”
I think it depends on their estimates of the future course of the war and how close they are to achieving their objectives. Their two main goals are to cement control over the Oblasts they’ve annexed and to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO.
On the other side of the ledger are their own costs and ability to sustain effective operations. Russia can’t sustain what it’s doing forever, and the negative effects of the war on the economic, social, and political levels will continue to grow. The idea of attritional warfare, however, is to force the opponent to exhaustion in these areas first and, right now at least, Russia seems able to do that.
The poll doesnt ask what territorial concessions they would be willing to make. I suspect most would accept Crimea. Not so sure about the rest. My sense is that after performing so poorly, especially early in the war, Putin cant accept anything less than territory he already controls. That means that Ukraine, knowing how badly Russians have treated them in the past needs to weigh that against current continuing losses. Best guess is that in the next year or two they give in, maybe sooner if Trump tips things more in Putin’s favor.
Steve
Russia is not without problems:
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-drones-shahed-africans-11602ab837f0ff4635926d884b422185