2mo ago

Ukraine proposes fresh peace talks with Russia next week

www.straitstimes.com Ukraine proposes fresh peace talks with Russia next week

President Zelensky reiterated his readiness to have a face-to-face sit-down with his Russian counterpart. Read more at straitstimes.com. Read more at straitstimes.com.

Kyiv has proposed to Moscow a new round of peace talks next week, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on July 19, hours after Russian strikes across Ukraine claimed more lives.

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how does this work?
What does Russia have to gain?
- Staving off financial ruin and a collapse of their population pyramid, but it will likely cost Putin some power, so they're not going to accept.
  
  Other way around. Stopping the war will crash their wartime economy and Putin will not merely lose some power, he may lose his life. He's not stopping except to rearm.
  
  I see, good expl.
  I think he just wants Ukraine end of story.
  
  Honestly, Ukraine is a nice bonus. Putin just wants to not lose, because losing the war will mean losing his job, and probably his head.
- From what it seems both sides are quite exhausted, although Ukraine is more strained militarily.
  Russia will probably come with strong demands though, if they come. I would expect significant territorial gains, maybe masked as "autonomous republics", a quick rollback of international sanctions and guarantees that Ukraine does not join EU our NATO.
  
  what would ukraine get out of that?
  getting to join EU?
  
  Not being killed and destroyed entirely.
  I think EU and NATO are red lines for Russia. Russias feels threatened by either getting closer to its borders. See the previous war in Georgia 2008 to curb any NATO ambitions.
  
  There can be no post-war Ukraine without Nato membership because that would just mean "regroup and attack" for Russia
  
  but if it's just a pause in fighting, Vlad will destroy them completely, I'm sure Ukraine must know this
  
  Ukraine isn't Russia. If Ukraine wants to join NATO or the EU that's their own business. Same goes for Georgia, none of them want to be associated with Russia because they're more than happy to invade and murder you for wanting change.
  
  Cuba isnt the United states. If Cuba wants to station Soviet nuclear missiles that is their business. Noone wants to be associated with the US because they are happy to invade and murder you for wanting change.
  North Korea isn't South Korea. If they want to develop nuclear weapons that is their business. Noone wants to be associated with the US because they are happy to invade and murder you for wanting change.
  Iran isn't Israel. If they want to develop nuclear weapons that is their business. Noone wants to be associated with the US because they are happy to invade and murder you for wanting change.
  Do you agree? If not why not? Do you feel threatened by any of these? By your own logic you feeling threatened does not give you any right to impede on anyones business.
  In the same wake if you live in the EU you should appreciate Hungary in its sovereignity seeking closer ties with China.
  Problem is that disregarding that the people outside the West perceive the West differently and refuse to play by different rules, leads to more escalations all over the world.
  All militaries around the world think in similiar terms. The US and many NATO countries invaded and occupied Iraq and Afghanistan because of some abstract threat they associated with these countries, being on the other side of the globe pretty much. Yemen is kept being bombed to support Israel, despite ships not destined for Israel being able to pass.
  The US runs bases all around China to be able to militarily contain China.
  Taiwan is given as strategic goal to defend, despite both Taiwand and China claiming "one China" and are just disputing about who is the legitimate government of that One China. So in essencense it is a nation internal struggle, that no other nation should have any business in by your logic.
  If NATO is projecting power, other countries will do so too.
  
  @Saleh
  You are conflating so many things that it’s hard to keep up.
  The cold war was a different situation, but yes, the US are an international bully and will invade you for their own gain.
  That doesn’t mean Russia has a right to invade any other country.
  That doesn’t mean that Hungary has a right to install authoritarian rule when it signed into a fundamentally democratic EU.
  Russia is breaking international law.
  The US have been breaking international law.
  Neither of those are ok.
  
  The question is, whether Russia is "right" to feel threatened, not whether the consequent actions were right.
  The comment i replied to outright denied Russia to be allowed to feel threatened and ridiculed it.
  And this why we keep getting into escalations. We deny other countries security interests, while declaring ours as righteous.
  
  @Saleh I’m trying to think of an instance when NATO was used as an excuse for an invasion from any side other than Russia’s invasion by Ukraine.
  The US have reliably made up their own excuses for their transgressions. I can’t currently remember them using NATO as an excuse.
  I honestly don’t see how NATO membership is a threat.
  Can it be construed as one? Surely - as much as one can find “weapons of mass destruction” when squinting hard enough. But that is then again not related to NATO.
  
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93NATO_relations#Founding_Act
  In 1999, Russia condemned the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia,[54][55] which was done without a prior authorization by the United Nations Security Council, required by the international law.[56] For many in Moscow, a combination of NATO’s incorporation of Eastern Europe and its military attack on sovereign Yugoslavia exposed American promises of Russia’s inclusion into a new European security architecture as a deceit. Yeltsin’s critics said: ‘Belgrade today, Moscow tomorrow!’ [23]
  ...
  A drastic reversal in the US and NATO policy toward Russia occurred in December 2001. Most importantly, the US unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia in 2001–2002, which was followed by the US signing bilateral agreements with Poland and Romania (with NATO support) to build ballistic missile defense (BMD) systems in their territories, against Russian wishes. Although none of these events depended on NATO enlargement - not even the agreement to build BMD sites in Romania and Poland, given that the United States also has bilateral BMD equipment arrangements with a wide variety of non-NATO members (including Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United Arab Emirates) - this withdrawal was interpreted by the Russian political elite, and by many Western political scientists, as US exploitation of political and military weakness in Russia at the time, and led to the loss of Russia's trust in America's political intentions.[23]
  The US also called article 5 after 9/11 and the Afghanistan invasion was a "NATO and friends" mission. Also the Iraq invasion was done by various NATO members, even if it wasnt formally a NATO mission. However even countries not involved in the fightinf were provising logistics such as Germany.
  
  @Saleh so your argument is:
  Russia wanted other sovereign countries to do its bidding, but they didn’t comply.
  Saying that’s NATO’s fault is the political equivalent for throwing your toys out the pram.
  Saleh, you are disqualifying yourself from the discussion.
  Other countries don’t have to comply with Russia’s wishes. And if they don’t, Russia still doesn’t get to invade them.
  
  Ukraine isn't Russia. If they want to develop nuclear weapons that is their business.
  
  As we've seen already. This is a very naive take.
  What a country should be able to do or not is only valid if they have military might to defend their position
  Ukraine obviously don't have that against Russia
  
  Even more reason to join NATO then.
  
  If they could sneak into NATO before getting fucked by Russia it would be good to them
  
  Are you justifying the Russian invasion because Ukraine doesn't have the means to defend themselves from them without support? Your take suggests any country should invade another if they can't defend themselves.
  
  No, I'm suggesting the world is not fair and relations between countries are anarchical. If you take an aggressive stance against other countries, specially your neighbors, you should be prepared to defend it.
  So Ukraine wanting to join NATO is only one part of the game and other countries might wanna play too
  
  Ah, so it would be okay for the West to nuke the fuck out of Russia and take in Ukraine and Georgia and anyone else wanting to join up. Might makes right.
  
  If Russia is insecure about her borders then it should be given a Teddy Bear, not Ukraine.
  
  Would you say the same about your own country, if your neighboring countries would join a military alliance with Russia?
  The western arrogance and ignorance to the fact that it is threatening for everyone outside NATO, is leading us to escalations time and time again.
  
  If the alliance was based on defense, I would be totally fine with it. In the case of an attack from one of the member states to an other state, the retaliation doesnt count as an attack to the member state, so the pact won't activate. Of course that depends on how the member states want to interpret the pact. The pact signals a certain closeness / likemindedness, but not forming a pact wouldn't stop these states from supporting one another. So for me, any country anywhere in the world can not be against any defense pact of any set of countries, assuming the spirit of defense of the pact is being honored. Or do you think its naive to think a pact based on defense won't be used for attacking?
  
  Or do you think its naive to think a pact based on defense won’t be used for attacking?
  This is the key point. Military people will never think that about any pact they arent part of.
  
  if your neighboring countries would join a military alliance with Russia?
  If that country signed a non-invasion treaty in exchange for nukes and then broke that treaty?
  Sorry bub, Russia brought all this on itself. Having thoughtfully reconsidered, I recommend taking back the teddy bear and sending more Ukrainian drone and missile attacks instead. Ukrainian children can have the Teddy Bear.
  
  Russian invaded after Ukraine NATO membership was touted as something NATO was positive about.
  
  @Saleh
  … and? Being neighbours with Someone like putin, why would anyone not want backing from other neighbours?
  There has been zero Aggression from Ukraine towards Russia.
  Russia just found a good enough excuse to continue its invasion into Ukraine.
  The Russian land grab of Crimea doesn’t strike you as an act of overt aggression?
  
  Again, i am not disputing Russian agression against Ukraine.
  I am talking about the Russia aggression being the result of Western violations of Russian security interests, which woukd have played out the same way if roles were reversed.
  In that sense Ukraine is also used by the West to fight with Russia for them, which is why most of the world perceives the war as a proxy war between Russia and NATO.
  This doesnt justify Russias actions in the legal or moral sense, but it is cynical to ignore that this war is also the result of our provocations and violations towards Russia.
  This brings us back to the starting point. Western arrogance and ignorance keeps bringing escalations all over the world.
  
  Russia invaded Ukraine AFTER signing a treaty promising to never do so in exchange for nuclear weapons.
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93NATO_relations#Founding_Act
  This is the broader context that needs to be considered. NATO violated the post cold war agreement, in particular by bombing Kosovo abd then stationing missiles in Poland. George Bush announcing full support for Ukraine and Georigia joining NATO was the red line for Russia.
  And lets be real. If the roles were reversed we would all say that after hostile actions in countries bordering the direct border countries, these direct border countries joining into the mix, would have been a red line for us too.
  If Russia had stationed missiles in Belarus and then Poland would have joined a Russia pact, things would have gone haywire. After all we love to complain about North Korean missiles, despite these being on the other side of the world.
  Just always ask yourself, how you would perceive a situation, if roles were reversed.
  
  The fact that Russia is so aggressive to it's neighbors is pushing them to join NATO. Even Finland and Sweden joined, two proud independent countries felt they had no choice. That's not western imperialism. Acting like NATO is powering this aggression is just projecting.
  
  Again, NATO first violated the agreement with Russia by bombing Kosovo and then stationing missiles in Poland. This was 25 years before Sweden and Finland joined NATO
- It doesn't have to work. Ukraine proposing peace talks looks good. Russia failing to accept talks looks bad.
  
  that's a good point

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