Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Iormlund]

I think I can count on the Russians to be motivated to end sanctions.

Sanctions have to be kept in place, or the Russians will just attack again when they feel strong enough.

There is one enormous problem with a deal, above and beyond any other considerations: the Russian word is not good. They cannot be made to keep terms, except by force. If that force is available, why not simply impose terms such that Russia gets nothing post-2014? If that force is not available, any agreement reached will be meaningless.

The force available to resist future encroachments increases massively once they have joined NATO.

Not if a GOP-dominated Congress is seen as pressing Ukraine to end the war.

Then we can kiss the Non Proliferation Treaty goodbye. In the absence of credible US support every Russian and Chinese neighbor will need The Bomb.

[Berkut]

I see this very simply.

There are two basic ways one can resolve disputes about borders.

You can go with negotiation, the law, and the standards of human politics.

Two sovereign nations can vehemently disagree on their border, and they can argue in the court of public opinion, the courts, or whatever. If you can manage enough legal or practical justification for an adjustment, some political process occurs, and the border changes as an agreement (maybe one entered begrudgingly for one party) between two sovereign states that an adjustment is desired.

If you think Crimea should be part of Russia instead of Ukraine - make the argument. The problem of course, is that you don't get to pick and choose which pieces of history to consider, or which people get their views on the matter considered. You don't get to say "Well *Kruschev* did this...." while ignoring every other historically relevant fact. You have to consider them all.

When you do that, you quickly run into something of a problem for the Russian view. The most relevant legal fact is not what some leader in some now non-existent political entity did 80 years ago, but what the current country did just 20 years ago when they signed a fucking agreement that said Crimea was part of Ukraine.

Ukraine has an iron-clad case under every possible interpretation of the rule of law. Hence the reason nobody recognized the illegal invasion and conquest of the Crimea when it happened.

Option #2 when the legal part doesn't go your way is force. You can simply tell the world to go fuck itself, you are going to take what you want by force. If you can do this, and hold onto it for long enough, eventually the sovereign nation you took it from might agree that resisting you is not worth it - you can win the war for your conquest.

If we are going THAT route, well....that is happening right now. The war is raging, and the outcome remains to be seen. War has it's own process, and it is playing out. I don't think this one is going to end well for the Russians either.

But when option 2 doesn't go your way, why in the world would we let the aggressor then demand to fall back on option #1? They tried that, it failed, and they decided to start killing people rather then accept the results of the previous "negotiation". 

If Ukraine wants to negotiate the status of bits and pieces of their country with Russia, then by all means, they should do so. I don't see what anyone in the US has to say about that. Our support for them in resisting an aggressive neighbor cannot be contingent in any way on them conceding that they should give up their sovereignty to Russia or to the USA.

I don't understand the idea that we should be looking for a negotiated settlement from the standpoint of the West.

[Berkut]

I think I can count on the Russians to be motivated to end sanctions.

Sanctions have to be kept in place, or the Russians will just attack again when they feel strong enough.

Furthermore, if a GOP-dominated Congress is seen as pressing Ukraine to end the war we can kiss the Non Proliferation Treaty goodbye. In the absence of credible US support every Russian and Chinese neighbor will need The Bomb.

Of course.

Everyone will need a nuclear deterrent if the West decides to concede to Russian threats.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Problem is Crimea historically belonged to neither Ukraine nor Russia.  It belongs to the Tatars, the Ottomans, the Genoans, the Byzantines...

The problem is Russia and Russians are revanchist, imperialist imbeciles and fascists.

There was a Kenyan diplomat who made a comment on this war early on that I found insightful. He said that in Africa, the borders were drawn by colonial powers. Traditional lands associated with clans and tribes sometimes as far back as oral history goes, were violated rampantly. Family lines were shattered across borders, groups that historically did not get along were forced to exist within the same country where before they had a relatively stable peace between tribes with delineated tribal lands.

By and large, and there are a few exceptions, the peoples of Africa decided that it was better to move on with the borders as they were, and to pursue peace. This was done largely because there is no way to resolve what would be thousands of border disputes all over the continent. The colonial power borders were not good, but they are what they have, and changing them means war and devastation. The peoples of Africa had the maturity to move on making lives for themselves without deciding it is worthwhile to kill each other over ancient grievances.

You would think a country sophisticated enough to send men into space and detonate atomic weapons would have the same capacity.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKlIh_-U4bU&ab_channel=Perun

Making the weekend more interesting. It's the new Perun video

[The Brain]

Russia is signaling gradual escalation for every Ukrainian battlefield success.  Now's a good time for a deal.

I would offer UN supervised referenda in the Donbas and Crimea on Russian annexation in exchange for NATO membership.  Free movement of people for some fixed time period that want to immigrate either direction.

Say the offer is valid for two weeks, as the battlefield is still fluid and terms might change.

GOP has said they will cut Ukraine aid if they win the House, so that clock is ticking.

Ukraine should give things but Russia shouldn't give anything?

[Josquius]

Russia is signaling gradual escalation for every Ukrainian battlefield success.  Now's a good time for a deal.

I would offer UN supervised referenda in the Donbas and Crimea on Russian annexation in exchange for NATO membership.  Free movement of people for some fixed time period that want to immigrate either direction.

Say the offer is valid for two weeks, as the battlefield is still fluid and terms might change.

GOP has said they will cut Ukraine aid if they win the House, so that clock is ticking.

Ukraine should give things but Russia shouldn't give anything?

Bazillions of rubles in reconstruction and reparation funds.

Referenda that are actually legitimate on lands they control.

[Iormlund]

Referenda that are actually legitimate on lands they control.

It's impossible to have legitimate referenda following ethnic cleansing.

[Berkut]

Russia is signaling gradual escalation for every Ukrainian battlefield success.  Now's a good time for a deal.

I would offer UN supervised referenda in the Donbas and Crimea on Russian annexation in exchange for NATO membership.  Free movement of people for some fixed time period that want to immigrate either direction.

Say the offer is valid for two weeks, as the battlefield is still fluid and terms might change.

GOP has said they will cut Ukraine aid if they win the House, so that clock is ticking.

Ukraine should give things but Russia shouldn't give anything?

Bazillions of rubles in reconstruction and reparation funds.

Referenda that are actually legitimate on lands they control.

So we should establish that if you invade another country, you can then ask for a "referendum" for the parts you control to see if you get to keep them?

Can the Ukraine then just do it back again?

Does this principle apply everywhere?

[Josquius]

Referenda that are actually legitimate on lands they control.

It's impossible to have legitimate referenda following ethnic cleansing.

It would be difficult for sure and I really can't see Russia agreeing to it. But considering this is just something that happened within the past decade in a country that keeps decent records of its population, it should be perfectly possible in theory.

Russia is signaling gradual escalation for every Ukrainian battlefield success.  Now's a good time for a deal.

I would offer UN supervised referenda in the Donbas and Crimea on Russian annexation in exchange for NATO membership.  Free movement of people for some fixed time period that want to immigrate either direction.

Say the offer is valid for two weeks, as the battlefield is still fluid and terms might change.

GOP has said they will cut Ukraine aid if they win the House, so that clock is ticking.

Ukraine should give things but Russia shouldn't give anything?

Bazillions of rubles in reconstruction and reparation funds.

Referenda that are actually legitimate on lands they control.

So we should establish that if you invade another country, you can then ask for a "referendum" for the parts you control to see if you get to keep them?

Can the Ukraine then just do it back again?

Does this principle apply everywhere?

So we should establish if a fascist dictator invades a land then the people there lose their right of self determination?
Does this principle apply everywhere?

[Berkut]

I do not understand your question.

[Josquius]

I do not understand your question.

It's rhetorical. Answering your questions by pointing out the flaws in that line of thinking.
People, all people everywhere, deserve self determination.
 That Putin decided to invade and decide for them doesn't mean the world should forbid them ever having a free choice just because even after all this shit they might decide to go with Russia.

As said I can't see Russia ever agreeing to a fair referendum as it seems very likely to go against them. If they did agree do it they'd doubtless work to undermine it and ignore the results if they don't go their way.

Nonetheless as an ideal giving the people in the annexed territories a real choice is absolutely the optimum scenario. They are entitled to this by default and Putin can't erase this right.

[Jacob]

"Krutschev 'randomly' 'for some reason' 'giving' Crimea to Ukraine" is straight up a Putin talking point.

Suggesting referenda in the lands annexed by Russia is a bit like suggesting referenda in Sudentenland after Hitler invaded. Also - don't forget that Russia has removed hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of Ukrainians from the annexed areas, have moved in settlers from Russia, and have killed thousands upon thousands more.

Besides, the way you determine who is eligible to vote in the referenda determines the outcome - so pretending there's some sort of "objective and fair" way to purely determine "the people's will" is pretty daft.

But beyond all that - you don't reward outright attacks on sovereign nations by giving the attacking party what they want when they're losing.

[Josquius]

"Krutschev 'randomly' 'for some reason' 'giving' Crimea to Ukraine" is straight up a Putin talking point.

Suggesting referenda in the lands annexed by Russia is a bit like suggesting referenda in Sudentenland after Hitler invaded. Also - don't forget that Russia has removed hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of Ukrainians from the annexed areas, have moved in settlers from Russia, and have killed thousands upon thousands more.

Besides, the way you determine who is eligible to vote in the referenda determines the outcome - so pretending there's some sort of "objective and fair" way to purely determine "the people's will" is pretty daft.

Everyone who was living there before the conquest and who would normally have the right to vote gets to vote.
It's pretty simple when it's a very recent event.
The amount the Russians have killed is a complicating factor but this would be more than countered by the amount they've brutalised the population and used them as cannon fodder.
Far more of a concern than ethnic cleansing would be brain washing. 8 years plugged into Russian state TV can't be great for rational thought processes.

But beyond all that - you don't reward outright attacks on sovereign nations by giving the attacking party what they want when they're losing.

You're falling into the same faulty thinking of Russia somehow being rewarded out of this theoretical.

It's far more that the innocent people suffering most from all this shouldn't be punished because of something that happened to them. It's their land and their future so they should get to decide it.

To use your nazi comparison it's like saying Slovakia didn't have the right to become an independent country because of its past history as a nazi puppet.

Not to mention the core idea that this thing that Russia would never agree to is somehow what Russia wants.

[Berkut]

I do not understand your question.

It's rhetorical. Answering your questions by pointing out the flaws in that line of thinking.
People, all people everywhere, deserve self determination.
 That Putin decided to invade and decide for them doesn't mean the world should forbid them ever having a free choice just because even after all this shit they might decide to go with Russia.

As said I can't see Russia ever agreeing to a fair referendum as it seems very likely to go against them. If they did agree do it they'd doubtless work to undermine it and ignore the results if they don't go their way.

Nonetheless as an ideal giving the people in the annexed territories a real choice is absolutely the optimum scenario. They are entitled to this by default and Putin can't erase this right.

No, people everywhere do not deserve self determination.

This is so trivially easy to disprove, I am kind of amazed it is still up for debate.

What is you line - how many people have to decide to agree to destroy a sovereign nation? 50.0000000000000000001%? Is that enough?

If 51 out of 100 people all vote to secede from the middle of some country and join their neighbor, does that mean that the remaining 49 can all vote to secede from the new enclave and go back? Oh sorry  only 25 of the 49 would need to so vote, of course.