Zelensky rifiuta di cedere Donbas, dice che farebbe Putin “trampolino” per le future offensive

Good decision.

Do not give the bear anything.

[Bear is Russia]

I spoke to my Russian colleague today (former vdv). We were talking about the upcoming meeting and I told him nothing would come of it. He just said “whatever happens, it’s already been decided”.

Not that I think he has insider info, but I think he’s right. This is all a big dog and pony show. Most likely, it will be more of the same. Trump will cosplay as a mediator and Putin will make ridiculous demands and Zelenskyy will say no to said demands. Then trump will pretend like Zelenskyy is hindering the peace process.

Zelensky did everything right in 22, but I think the spin on “territorial concessions” has been wrong since then.

Think of it like the winter war in Finland: sure, they lost and had to surrender some land including what at the time was the second largest finnish city; but the point is that the Soviets attacked, thinking it was going to be an easy win, and the Finns heroically resisted inflicting catastrophic losses. Nobody in Finland today thinks of the Winter War as a defeat.

It could’ve been the same in Ukraine: a freeze of the 2023 frontline would have been a clear Ukrainian victory

Give a Russian an inch and they’ll murder your family

While the rest of power players pretend like Putin would be satisfied with current demands or actually deserves any of it, Donny boy literally is not aware why his boss should not just get what he wants.

Ignorance is bliss and being kremlin employee makes it even easier to roll over for Donny boy

If there will be some direct statements that they made a deal, then Europe can mobilize the armies for next war…

Reminds me of the time during the Cuban missle crisis when castro asked Krushev to ignore Americas demands and instead launch a premptive strike. Even the krushev was suprised and lost respect for castro and considered him a fool. It was becuase Castro couldnt see his country would be the first to be wiped out if this happneed. A similar thing is taken place in ukraine. U elect a comedian and become a joke. Dont get me wrong im happy theyll keep fighting. But he is what castro is at that moment. A fool. They can fight till the year 2045. Theyre not winning againt the 2nd most powerful army in the world. Hes doomed Ukraine to being a wasteland.

There’s no refuse.
Ukrainian constitution, that Ukrainian’s are defending, states that nobody can cede Ukrainian lands.
That’s their law

Cede nothing.

from a realpolitik perspective, Russia is being afraid of Ukraine’s shift towards the West, and NATO, which it sees as a threat. When Ukraine had pro-Russian leaders, Russia was fine with Ukraine keeping Crimea and the Donbas region.

However, having annexed Crimea, Russia views control of the Sea of Azov as necessary, to prevent Crimea being encircled from the Odessa port and the Mariupol port. This is why they refuse to budge on the Donbas region.

Note: I say this from a utilitarian and realpolitik perspective, it does not mean I agree with their actions.

With the limited intel I, as a westerner citizen, have access to, and with my laymen knowledge of modern warfare and strategy, I find myself at odds with Zelensky’s position. Yes, you shouldn’t take whatever comes from Russians for granted. But you also have to realise the situation you are dealing with : Ukraine is running out of soldiers to man up the entire frontline. It simply is too big. They wasted whatever spared units they had left in small, deadly and useless offensives in Russian territory. And right now, they are failing their yearly recruitement quotas by 30%. They can’t rotate their units, can’t replace them, and can’t man up the trenches fast enough.
It’s one thing to accept a shitty deal while retaining some army with barely enough teeth to old it’s ground, with little to no certainty of preventing future hostilities. But it’s another one to see your frontline collapsing and having to completely surrender without any kind of negociation. Ukraine has not reached this point. But unless, by some kind of miracle, something topples off the Russian slow but steady grind, it twill happen eventually, time is against Ukraine.
Maybe they have some kind of plan in the making, I don’t know. Still, it definitely looks like they have absolutely no tools to regain the initiative.

I’d rather have them -and us, the european nations – swallow a military defeat than a military collapse. That’s a common failure from the west. A lesson to be learned to avoid future mistakes. Next time, send the whole package of tanks, shells, planes, ammunitions, missiles, and all the equipement immediately from the get go, rather than slowly delivering peanuts to try to appease the scum.

The only other course of action that could prevent that would be a direct military intervention from the EU states, maybe not even talking about directly fighting the Russians, but rather securing western Ukraine – up to the Dniepr. But that is very unlikely to happen.

With the recent breakthrough there is a real possibility that Russia might just collapse the defense of Donbas capture it on its own anyway, and then it will start demanding other pieces of land.

It is basically a huge sunk cost at this point and Ukraine should really seriously consider “cutting its loss” or risk losing even more.