Russian President Vladimir Putin may be open to a cease-fire in his war with Ukraine, so long as the country could still declare victory, a new report by the New York Times found.

Putin, still confident in his forces, said that Russia’s goals have not changed. In his annual year-end press conference last week, Putin warned that there would be no peace solution in Ukraine until Russia achieves its overarching goals, the “denazification” and demilitarization of Ukraine.

Putin’s message might be different now, as he has reportedly signaled he is ready to make a deal. Since September, Putin has signaled that he is open to a pause in fighting along the current lines, which is much shorter than his intention to dominate Ukraine, according to the Times who cited two former senior Russian officials.

According to the United Nations, more than 10,000 civilians have been killed and 18,500 have been injured since the start of the war nearly two years ago.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    So let me get this straight- are you arguing that the smart thing for Ukraine to do is just let Russia take them over?

    • xarexyouxmadx@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Your argument is that it was smart to go this route and let thousands be killed only for them to end up (at best) in the same place they would’ve been had they just negotiated a peaceful resolution in the first place.

    • jasory@programming.dev
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      11 months ago

      Basically. The smart thing for Hussein was to step down. Even if the US wasn’t justified in invading, Hussein was an utter moron and made the situation far worse.

      For some reason there is this assumption that “national sovereignty” is morally relevant. It’s not states are not subject to moral harm, you have to show that losing national sovereignty results in worse outcomes for the population.

      Ukraine would almost certainly be in a better position if they remained Russia-aligned or even joined them. By virtually every metric the Ukrainian population had worse standard of living than Russia, lower birth rates, higher death rates. That was before the war started in 2014, there situation is even worse now. Millions of people fled, and they aren’t coming back, Ukraine has a very bleak future even if they do win all their territory. And they still don’t have any guarantee of joining the EU or NATO (primarily due to corruption and territorial dispute issues).

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        You seem to think what is good for Russia is good for Ukraine. I doubt many people who don’t worship Putin agree with you.

        • jasory@programming.dev
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          11 months ago

          No. The policies that lead to higher quality of life in Russia would probably not lead to lower quality of life in Ukraine.

          In other words we have no reason to believe that aligning with Russia would have resulted in worse outcomes than Ukraine already had. The reason they aligned with the West was primarily to join the EU, which due to corruption and markets they weren’t even eligible to join (and still aren’t).

          This resulted in conflict with Russia and the current circumstances which are far worse than they started with and are essentially irrecoverable at this point (certainly population wise).

          In summary it was Ukraine’s pursuit of an idealised goal that resulted in negative outcomes. And you are asserting that this is actually a good thing.

          Remember when you admitted to me that you were a total moron? Yeah. Your evaluation of every circumstance is super juvenile.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Remember when you admitted to me that you were a total moron?

            Then I guess it doesn’t make you look very good to talk to me. No one’s forcing you to waste your time with a moron.

            • jasory@programming.dev
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              11 months ago

              You realise these discussions are public right?

              I don’t write to address an audience of one, it’s to publicly refute vapid nonsense.

              In fact I immediately block people who DM because if you don’t want a discussion public to convince other people, I’m not going to waste my time convincing a single person.