NO BUTS. That’s IT. Russia is IN THE WRONG.
No argument from me. I wasn’t condoning the Russian invasion so much as explaining what Russia’s grievances were.
How do you ensure a tyrant doesn’t regroup under a ceasefire and strike again after he gained a prize?
It was not Putin’s intention to stay in Ukraine for long and the war has proven to be very costly. What he really wanted was to show the world that he would stand up to what he saw as the bullying of NATO, the EU, and the US.
A diplomatic solution that would have given Putin a chance to save face while also ensuring a ceasefire would have likely been enough for him, since he knew that Russia didn’t have the military strength to beat NATO and Euro forces in an outright ground war. This, incidentally, is why I don’t buy the direct comparison to Hitler, who actually had both the will and the military / economic might to take over Europe.
As to the very reasonable question of how: One suggestion I remember liking the sound of was the idea to establish a de-militarized zone along the Russian-Ukrainian border in the contested Donetsk-Luhansk region under the joint supervision of Kiyv, Moscow and the European Union.
Either way, I’m not saying it would have definitely worked out, but it seemed to me that not enough effort was given to trying to find a relatively peaceful alternative to a war that was always going to last years and costs tens of thousands of lives.
Again, while there are definitely some parallels between Putin’s annexation of Crimea and Hitler’s of the Sudetenland, there are also plenty of differences that make a direct comparison complicated and not altogether helpful. Hitler’s goals were obviously more wide-ranging, proactive, and expansionist, whereas Putin’s were much more localized and reactive to a perceived threat. A diplomatic solution didn’t work with Hitler but it might have for Putin.
I understand and sympathize with Ukrainians who want to fight to the bitter end, but how much longer will that take? How many more lives will be lost? Is a military victory even likely?
With Ukraine recently being given access to long-range US missiles with which they have conducted strikes within Russian territory, the war seems to be gradually escalating with neither side willing to back down.