this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2023
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This war could have been over months ago or never even started if it weren't for NATO encroachment and sabotaging peace talks. I'm not defending Russia here I am pointing out reality.
All this is because the west would not let eastern Ukraine exercise any self determination after couping the government in 2014.
So here's the problem with peace talks. What would Russia agree to? They currently occupy a massive chunk of pre-2014 Ukraine, something like a quarter of the country. If Ukraine agrees to that, it sends a signal to the Russian government that invading Ukraine pays. Russia already made a go at installing a puppet government in the initial 2022 invasion. Why should Ukraine trust it not to take the time following a peace agreement to regroup and invade again? And besides that, Ukraine's never going to easily give up that much territory. Imagine that happening to your own country.
None of you NAFOs ever stop to consider the right of self-determination that belongs to the people who live in the eastern provinces.
It’s pretty clear that the people of Donbas, Crimea, etc, do not want to be ruled by this Ukrainian government.
A sustainable peace deal would be Ukraine agreeing to not cooperate or be supplied by NATO, agreeing to respect the rights of ethnic minorities, and giving up the provinces that do not want to be part of Ukraine.
Why is it worth sending tens or hundreds of thousands more to their deaths over that?
It’s an extremely reasonable peace and this is what they turned down at the start of the war when Boris Johnson derailed the initial peace effort. If the west wasn’t so war-thirsty then this war would have been over in a week, or wouldn’t have happened at all so cut out the pointless rhetoric about “we need to teach Putler a lesson” because you’re being blind to some basic facts about how this war could have and was attempted to be prevented when you recite that mantra.
"The right to self-determination" so long as that self determination is becoming Russian territory and nothing more.
Let's not lie to ourselves that this is anything less than Russian Imperialism. It's Russian vs Western Imperialism all the way down.
Edit: both Crimea and Donbas are currently under Russian control. In the case of Crimea it's been almost 10 years now under Russian occupation. If you believe they will leave Russian control I would love to see why you believe so.