Should Ukraine give in to Russia at this point?

[Karmadhi]

I have been following this war for a while now, and I feel like at this point Ukraine 's best option is to give in to Russia demands and make a permanent truce

By that I mean, allow Russia to annex Crimea and the 4 oblasts they occupy forever, basically give them to Russia

In return, they should get a good security guarantee from the West, ensuring that Russia will not invade them again to get more land (very crucial!)

In return, Russia's sanctions will be lifted and Europe will return to how it was before the war

I know it is not nice, but I feel like Ukraine can either do this or just continue fighting, loosing more land and more people

With Trump in the White House I do not see Ukraine getting enough aid to kick Russians out and take back any of their territory

They were struggling to stagnate with all Biden's help, I cannot imagine them even stagnating with the reduced Trump's aid and support

Not to mention their over growing manpower issue

Isnt it better to loose 20% of your land and be able to rebuild while your youth is still alive and able to work?

I mean Ukraine is huge, they will be fine even if they loose some land

Or is that specific land overly important that it is worth all this hassle?

Not to mention most of it is Russian speaking and ethnic Russians so I wonder if those people even see themselves as proper Ukranians

 

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

Why should they? Ofc this is a decision only Ukraine has the rights to make, and noone else. But I don't see any strong evidence Russia is winning this war, and if we examine this whole war, from it's inception back in february 2022 up until today, it all seems like a costly failure and a debacle, really. And there are almost daily reports of their fuck ups, in this and that region, this attack failed, that resuply effort failed, ofc Ukrainean situation is not good either but if they really were on the brink of collapse, we wouldn't see so many failures being reported. This war reminds me of that Winter War offensive Soviets unleashed on the Fins, except that did not last for more than 3 years and Finnish army was a lot weaker in comparison. Ukraine is a whole other animal which Russians underestimated heavilly

[LordFall]

@NewKidOnTheBlock Ukraine is losing most of its young men and their young people are building lives in other countries and won't come back after the war is done. If they keep this going for a couple more years it'll only get worse. 

Russia is in a pretty good position if they keep going their military industrial complex is only getting stronger and the wests attention is getting distracted by other issues like the India/Pakistan conflict that could start at any time and the US trade war. 

I don't think they'll get strong security guarantees if they do make a truce now though. 

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

1 hour ago, LordFall said:

@NewKidOnTheBlock Ukraine is losing most of its young men and their young people are building lives in other countries and won't come back after the war is done. If they keep this going for a couple more years it'll only get worse. 

Russia is in a pretty good position if they keep going their military industrial complex is only getting stronger and the wests attention is getting distracted by other issues like the India/Pakistan conflict that could start at any time and the US trade war. 

I don't think they'll get strong security guarantees if they do make a truce now though. 

The degree to which this is true is up for the debate and depends on the sources from which you took these information. I can say the exact same thing about Russia (massive emigrantion of the young people, - especially at the start of the war - huge ammounts of young men dying, low birth rates). I also see news that Russian economy is kinda irreversably going down the shitter, with really no options left on the Russian side to do anything about it. I don't think BRICS would really save it either. Aren't country's economy and military industry inherently intertwined?

Reality is that Russians failed to take Kiev, got pushed back from Kharkiv and Kherson, and took months to take Melitopol (even tho it was hopelessly surrounded and defended by low ammount of men). They failed to take out Ukraine quickly (which was the original goal) and had to actually start mobilizing men to match the strength of Ukraine army, which already wasn't ideal scenario to begin with.

From that moment onwards they've been stuck in the attritional war they've been hoping they'll somehow going to win eventually, but the territory gains are abysmally small (almost equivalent to WW1 territory shifts) and have to be paid for by large ammounts of technical and manpower casualties. Arguably their biggest victory was imo ironically their defence of Zaporizhzhia oblast back in summer 2023, which was a really bad move on the Ukrainean part, but apart from that... I don't think the ammount of casualties are worth these incremental gains they've been able to get. And it is going to catch up with them eventually

[Hojo]

The smartest thing they could do is surrender that land to united states. In thanks for united states help we donate crimea and surrounding area to USA. Now Russia is invading us land.

Edited Saturday at 09:09 PM by Hojo

[LordFall]

@NewKidOnTheBlock Yes I've heard put that the only way they can recover is turn to a full wartime economy and invade the rest of Europe otherwise if the war stops today their economy is in bad shape.

While Europe has been stuck in leftist fantasies and can't field 64 000 troops so they're in a weak state that incentives invasion. 

Wild times ahead. 

[PurpleTree]

Whatever they want to do it’s not my country.

imo the best thing for Ukraine would be to get nukes.

[BlueOak]

No guarantee from Russia is worth anything without a military alliance, and no alliance will be allowed by the Russians, so there is nothing to offer Ukraine. Europe won't risk getting into conflict directly if it can sit back and let Russia just waste itself in the east of Ukraine. Russia is in a dire position economically, militarily, politically, and demographically in terms of trade or further development in the future. They just hide it better than most. But some people are willing to accept dire positions, and others are not.

This is the final decades of dominance for central European powers, Russia, eventually the USA etc just because of demographic concerns alone, let alone things like water and resource shortages.  Unless AI really kicks into high gear.

Anyone who comments that Russia or Ukraine is 'doing well' after this much death and economic downsizing, in a global recession, is honestly is blinding themselves from reaching more parity on the situation.  For that matter, anyone telling me any country is doing well is ignoring the objective reality or doesn't care for economic and social conditions relative to how they were even a few years ago, let alone decades.

Now to the European comments, people here have just decided to keep going further right into fascism also so on mass they really couldn't care less what happens in either country, they'll keep funding the war indefinitely on the Ukraine side if it suits their own interests and it does

@LordFall
'Europe can't field 64k troops? What? Their economy is vastly bigger than Russia, they have barely been touched by the war. If they wanted to they could field millions. Russia grinding itself down on Ukraine's guns barely bothers people in Europe at this stage, its only a bonus to keep the dictator in check and slowly cripple them from advancing further.

People have told me about Ukraine's manpower issue forever, yet here we are, and they still have people fighting. I said from the start it'll be many years of disturbances, and it will. There is zero benefit from the Ukrainian perspective, or mine for that matter, in giving Russia anything at all. Not without the strength to resist another invasion. Because Ukraine doesn't trust one thing Russia says and I don't either, I also don't trust Trump at all to intervene or Europe either without a direct military alliance (and maybe not even then)
 

[The Crocodile]

I'm loving these assassinations the Ukrainians are doing against Russian officers.

[BlueOak]

19 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:

imo the best thing for Ukraine would be to get nukes.

Yes.

I suppose flipping it to the Russia perspective. I would say giving Belarus nukes would be the best thing for Russia. Especially as people can leap to the old, 'well they are not controlled by Belarus', as if Belarus isn't a direct puppet of Russia.

Its not the best thing for the world, but the best thing for Ukraine, yes.

[Basman]

Without security guarantees there are no concessions to be made. Russia doesn't respect agreements. Only when they hit a brick wall will they be halted.

It is really Europe that is being unrealistic about this situation, not Ukraine. If Europe wants to stabilize the region they need to be willing to commit to the war with flesh and blood. Europe is currently enjoying a situation where they have to do relatively little to not be effected too much. One of the possible consequences if Ukraine can't get their security guarantees is nukes, and the proliferation of nukes isn't exactly ideal.

[Breakingthewall]

This war has been the stupidest crime since World War II. Fueling a violent, aggressive nationalism against the Russian population of Ukraine, arming Ukraine and creating a fanatical climate to provoke a war that would inevitably devastate a country, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of traumas and hatred. All for the sake of stealing. And the idiots keep going to die to have the son of a bitch thief number 1 as president instead of the son of a bitch thief number 2, because they've been brainwashed.

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

13 hours ago, LordFall said:

@NewKidOnTheBlock Yes I've heard put that the only way they can recover is turn to a full wartime economy and invade the rest of Europe otherwise if the war stops today their economy is in bad shape.

While Europe has been stuck in leftist fantasies and can't field 64 000 troops so they're in a weak state that incentives invasion. 

Wild times ahead. 

That's absurd. If even so much as one more country, such as Poland for example, would join the conventional war against Russia, that would already be too much for them I reckon. Imagine the whole Scandinavia, all 3  Baltic states, Germany, France and Britain joining in as well, that means bye bye for Russia in pure conventional war, not in the operation Barbarossa 2.0 sense ofc, but that'd surely be more than enough for Russia to not be able to advance even a milimiter more and to have their army decimated in the process

[Sea]

21 hours ago, Karmadhi said:

In return, they should get a good security guarantee from the West, ensuring that Russia will not invade them again to get more land (very crucial!)

The problem is that they haven't been offered any good security guarantees since Trump took office. Every peace offer so far has been wishy-washy in this regard.

[Lyubov]

Security guarantees from who? Anything from the USA means nothing now after Trump. 

[ted73104]

Unfortunately Ukraine will not give in, Ukraine's generals are all dead set on fighting the Russians to the end. Even if Zelensky agreed to cede the current occupied territory to Russia for a peace deal, Ukraine's generals would probably just kick Zelensky out via a coup, take over the country, and just keep fighting.

So this is basically a huge tragedy going forward, with Europe continuing to fund Ukraine's war and eventually I believe sending their own troops in to the front lines. There is basically no end in sight, and the entire Europe/Russia economy will be dragged down.

Trump will not honor his promise and leave Ukraine entirely. I think Trump is trying hard to get a better US-Russia relationship in order to pull Russia away from China.