Ukraine Has Lost & A Negotiated Peace Is The Only Sane & Humane Solution

Also, the Third World and OPEC might not be so firmly in Russia’s pocket:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/05/world/europe/ukraine-war-saudi-arabia-russia.html

Didn’t even read the peace. Negotiated peace means America admitting that it’s military alliance cannot beat Russia, and after all of the grandiose statements emanating from Washington, that will not be allowed to happen.

I strongly agree. And *now* would be the best time for Ukraine/US/NATO to start negotiating.

First, they can claim (to home audiences via pet media) that they have “won” by taking back some territory recently (though Russia would probably get pretty much all of that back in the negotiations.

Second, if Ukraine keeps blowing up bridges in Russian-occupied areas, Russia will respond in kind, with much greater force & effect. Russia has been pretty selective about blowing up infrastructure in Ukraine, but I’d bet that would change soon (unless negotiations get under way).

Third – and most importantly – Ukraine’s “turn” (as if this is a game of Risk or whatever) is almost over, so Russia will probably go on the offensive again soon, at a time when Ukraine’s forces are (somewhat) exhausted. This may be quite bloody for Russia (as well as Ukraine), but would probably result in significant breakthroughs, leaving Ukraine in an even weaker position at the inevitable peace talks.

Of course, US internal politics hangs over everything. The GOP is in the enviable position of being able to attack Biden no matter what he does: Trumpists gripe about wasting US tax $ overseas, while the traditional Big Money Neocons paint Biden as weak for not starting WWIII. Liberals will have a hard time swallowing anything less than complete “victory” for Ukraine, but will never vote for Trump or other modern Republicans. But still, if talks begin *now* and proceed quickly (haha, yeah), Ukraine will be mostly forgotten by November 2024.

The big question is whether non-Right-wing MSM will help Biden sell Peace Talks as the best available option (easing Liberal qualms). If Trump is the GOP candidate, MSM will help Biden, but if the GOP somehow nominates anybody else, they may not.

Ian, you seem to think Ukraine has agency. This has been a US proxy war to weaken Russia. The neocons totally miscalculated. But what do they have to lose by prolonging the war. Indeed the whole of the leadership of the west, and their sycophantic media, would be in danger of being exposed as incompetents and liars.

Remember Russia running out of missiles and artillery, this time last year? Or the counteroffensive would be some form of shock an awe which the terrify the disorganised Russians and cause them to run away? Or the peace settlement agreed in Turkey in march 2022, which was rejected by the US, and conveyed by Boris the messenger-boy?

Ukraine lost a long time ago. The west has just propped them up.

At some point, one hopes the Ukranians will wake up and realise that they have been sold out by their corrupt elite, and the collective west.

The issue now is not to admit defeat, and prolong as long as possible, without having to spend quite so much. Maybe encourage the Poles to go in. Keep Russia distracted. And then pivot to China.

The last days of empire.

People have been underestimating Ukraine for months, beginning with Putin’s disasterous underestimation of it on 24 February 2022.

Meanwhile, the Russians have shown themselves to be about as inept in every aspect of warfare as one could imagine. Which is why we are on day 529.

So I’m not even close to calling it a done deal.

That said, at this point I think the Russians may have reason to want to keep pushing until what’s obvious if you’re looking dispassionately becomes completely, brutally obvious and Ukraine can no longer hold together its whole defensive line, so as to get a better deal.

This is particularly the case since Russia does not trust NATO to keep any deal it makes, so they are going to want to insist on terms so stringent NATO cannot rig them. Certainly if I were them, I would be very wary of any deal that could be worked the way the previous Ukraine deals were, just to buy time until the next army can be built.

NATO will fight against Russia to the last Ukrainian, and then when the last Ukrainian is dead or fled, will simply tighten up its borders with Russia and start another war in some other disposable border state. Why do you think they are letting the Finns join the death cult?

And NATO is a death cult. It exists solely to kill Russia or die trying… Of course it is happy to let others do the dying for it, first. But then, when they run out of other chumps, that’s what they have the Baltic states for, not to mention again now the Finns, and there are those nice Central European Sucker States, aka cannon fodder, to feed the needs of the MIC.

Wait, what, we can’t produce real armaments anymore? I guess we just need to sell those suckers more old guns and flak jackets and send them to the front. More grinding, more profits, and eventually we’ll win…

We are getting an up close look at wartime propaganda. Both sides have lost contact with reality. If anything, Russia is closer to the truth but it made a huge strategic mistake in invading Ukraine rather than using the West’s inherent inequality and arrogance to bring about its inevitable collapse. So the war drags on proving once again the two or three time death rate for soldiers attacking fortified positions.

Ukrainians will fight to the last man. Russia will have to totally mobilize to get the forces and armament for maneuver warfare to take Odessa and make Ukraine a rump state. If either side, NATO or the Russian Federation falls apart like 1917, or if Poland or another NATO state or Crimea is invaded by the new Red Army or a Euro-White Army; the last of the remaining mercenary forces will ignite their nuclear weapons before trying to skedaddle away. It is just that the West desperately needs Russian energy resources or North America faces permanent shortages and high prices with its sick poor surviving population migrating north. It will be the 1970s, once again, except way worse with climate change’s extreme weather events and variant pandemics. COVID-19 infections are starting to climb once again despite proclamations that the pandemic is over.

The only way out of the stalemated war is an armistice and DMZ like 1953 for the exact same reason why General Dwight D. Eisenhower said he would go to Korea. Peace and the rule of law for all are the only way that humans can possibly continue to inhabit the earth.

I think you are wrong. On damn-near every point.

Nothing you said lines up with what I’m seeing and hearing.

*loss ratio, not “ration”

@Tallifer

The reality is that the NATO trained and equipped Ukrainian army (their third army so far in this war) just battered itself to pieces before even reaching the first of three main defense lines. It’s genuinely one of the most pathetic displays in all of military history. They’re ‘switching tactics’ as a desperate cope. They’ve lost too many men and too much hardware to maintain conventional operations. They have no air power or defense, and an order of magnitude inferiority in artillery. They can’t win. It’s over.

Common sense dictates that Russia is at least triple what Ukraine is. David would have to be awfully crafty to overcome that Goliath. Vietnam and Afghanistan had caves and jungles, were geographically attached to big friendlies, and had lots and lots of martyrs ready to go. Ukraine’s sovereign history is muddled and lacked holy jihadi’s ready to go against satanic/fatcat interlopers. Plus they were basicly surrounded on three sides.

But still, 500+ days of battle?

If I was Putin, I would’ve practiced my podium pounding. Given more speeches about Making Russia Great Again. Posted more billboards showing shirtless handsome me looking up worshipfully to our Russian god. Because thus far, Russian hearts and minds haven’t seemed very much into this.

But yeah, if Ukraine won would some batshit faction take control? Could anybody have predicted that Vietnam would go back to capitalism or Afghanistan Taliban?

a militarized and aggressive Poland.
I got a kick out of that one. The only thing more existentially threatening than Ukrainian Nazis? Those dark and sinister Polish empire builders. Would it be better to stick to the idea that NATO is a proxy for neoliberalist fatcats? Maybe satanists too, for those who go that way.

I don’t watch much in terms of analyses of how the war is going. I watch daily shows about what’s happening on the front today, from a guy who is probably marginally pro-Russian but seems genuinely uninterested in hyping either side; when either side does something effective, he says they’ve done something effective; when they do something and get defeated, he says they got defeated.

So, first, looking at the day to day conduct of the war, it seems like both sides do good things and both make mistakes, and both sides have good soldiers and not so good soldiers. I don’t really understand where this magical Russian incompetence is supposed to come from other than “the pro-Ukrainian side really needs it to be true”. Why would it exist? The Russian military is a professional force with strong traditions and tactical doctrines forged in many conflicts, and Russia as a country has a strong belief that it is in a dangerous position–so, while there is plenty of corruption in Russia (as there is in NATO and certainly in Ukraine) it seems likely there is a lot of agreement that military corruption must be kept within bounds. So why would the Russian military somehow be massively inferior in all ways? And again, from watching the day to day conduct of the war, it does not appear to me that this fairy-dust incompetence exists. Competence seems fairly evenly matched, except the Russians’ superior tactical position allows them to play certain things to reduce their casualties.

It’s certainly true that the Ukrainians have hit some Russian ammo depots and have done some effective counterbattery fire with their artillery. Well, duh, they have some artillery, they’re using it, that’s gonna happen. But it is equally true that the Russians do the same, and on a somewhat larger scale. It seems, just following along day to day, like the Russians are killing significantly more Ukrainian artillery than the other way around. But even if the attrition rate were equal, it would favour the Russians. Because if I have 2000 artillery pieces and you have 500, and then we each kill 250 artillery pieces, I’ve lost 1/8th of mine and you’ve lost half of yours.

Also, the Ukrainians have had noticeable success killing Russian armoured vehicles and to some extent artillery units with drones. There have been a couple of places where this has actually been so effective it has given them a local tactical edge and allowed them to advance a bit. But the Russians are also doing this, and their drone use seems to be accelerating as they ramp up drone production. And their explosive drones are heavier, more capable of taking out actual tanks.

It seems to me that the basic nature of modern military technology turns out to favour the defense . . . up to a point. The thing is that what with missiles and drones, terminal guided artillery and even simple old fashioned infantry antitank weapons, if your force is visible it can be killed. And in order to attack, you have to make your force visible. So if the enemy is holding an area, and you attack it, a bunch of your force will be killed. It is possible to take territory, but you have to basically crush the enemy holding it first, so they’re really only barely holding it at all. Hunt down their artillery, their ammo depots, make the roads reinforcement and supply would take unusable, hit their defensive positions with artillery and bombs. And that’s what we’re seeing, particularly from the Russians, but also the Ukrainians when they’re not feeling time pressure pull rabbits out of hats. Rather than big attacks, they do little probes, just enough to force some defenders to, like, defend, and in doing so reveal themselves so you can bomb them; repeat until the enemy is really low on defensible positions, then try an advance.

But the Russians are overall more effective at this long slow game because they have more bombs/artillery/drones/helicopters/other standoff weapons. And no, this advantage does not seem to be disappearing based on some mythical extreme congenital incompetence because Russians are untermenschen or something.

Incidentally, my estimate is that before the big counteroffensive, the Ukrainians were losing about 500 men/day (along with equivalent materiel). Since it began, that increased to maybe 700/day or a bit higher, but the amount of armoured vehicles and tanks lost vastly increased. 500/day is about 180,000 a year; 700/day is about 250,000 a year. This can go on until it can’t.

It looks like the whole counteroffensive thing is running out of steam. There’s maybe one or two last pushes gonna happen and then we’re returning to the longer run situation where the Russians keep probing and making a little push here, get a little distance but then the Ukrainians move in reserves to stiffen resistance and it peters out, but then there’s another place down the line that got left a little open by that and the Russians push there, and every time the Russians erode the Ukrainians a little more. This keeps on until someone makes peace or the Ukrainians find themselves without enough materiel to effectively defend the whole front. And the whole time, it seems as if the Russians are making new materiel significantly faster than they’re losing it.

@Carborundum

The Ukrainian strategy has been the exact opposite of any attempt to conserve forces.

Not a rhetorical question
Why is there so much hatred in the world?

We’re looking at the first modern incremental attrition war.

Grind grind grind. Boars in the forest.

The current Russian plan, such as it is, is to grind down the Ukrainians until there are no more Ukrainians that Ukraine can throw into the grinder.

Russia has superior numbers. They took just enough territory that Ukraine *must* fight to take it back.

It is kind of a Reverse Cannae Magnet. The Russians set up their defensive perimeters in such a fashion that they force the Ukrainians to attack in a specific pocket to push through. The Ukrainians go into the pocket and get grounded up. Wash, rinse, repeat.

The boars in the forest now come to the slaughterhouse and present their necks. Saves time and effort.

Eventually some faction in Ukraine will notice their people are all dying or fleeing and try force out the current batch of NATO apparatchiks. They will probably lose, as will the second and third. Finally, Ukrainian strength will wane until either the Ukrainian oligarchy is overthrown and/or flees and the new powers make a deal and/or the Russians actually break through and take the east to the Dniepr (and Odessa and the coast in the southwest)

The Soviet War in Afghanistan lasted 10 years. That was hardly considered an existential war. The Ukrainian War is considered such by Putin, and for any other strongman that would take his place after his death, whether natural or in a coup.

500 days is nothing. The slaughter has only just begun.

And if the Ukrainians continue to escalate by hitting targets in Russia — scoring propaganda points in the West but to no real effect — Russia will simply hit them harder.

Remember, this is not about just territory. Russia needs to make sure there are fewer Ukrainians. Period. And as long as Ukraine obliges them, they’ll keep doing what they do.

Escalation will take it to further levels of ethnic cleansing. Western propaganda aside, the Russians have been damn circumspect in hitting civilian areas. Far more so than the US has ever been, in any war.

But if they piss off the Russians enough they’ll just start purposefully mass bombing Eastern civilian positions.

When the civilian population has either died or fled West of Kiyv, what are they really defending anymore?

@GrimJIm @Soredemos @Purple Library Guy @Willy et alia:
I offer this well-documented and well-reasoned article as counter-proof and counter-argument against claims that the Ukrainians are losing more proportionately or even more numerically than the Russians. (Not written by Markos whom some here discredit.)

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/9/2186042/-Ukraine-Update-If-you-read-the-fine-print-CNN-s-doom-and-gloom-article-on-Ukraine-isn-t-bad-news

And in line with GrimJim’s analysis, the RussiaGov will not be interested in peace talks until it has “demilitarized” and “denazified” Ukraine. It will be interested in projecting the appearance of being interested in peace talks, but it will take the “talk and fight, fight and talk” approach. And if it looks like the Ukraine side is losing interest in holding up its end of the grinding fight, the RussiaGov will conduct a pinprick terror raid against just enough apartment buildings or other strictly civilian facilities to renew the wellsprings of Ukraine’s rage, so that Ukraine will keep fighting.

The military goal is to keep Ukraine fighting till Ukraine has precisely zero of anything left to physically fight with.

Poor Ukraine. I think that by the time this is finished, not only will Ukraine as a nation-state be severely diminished, but Ukraine as a people will be profoundly wounded in a way that will not heal quickly or easily. I’ve had Ukrainian friends in different places and different stages in my life. I wouldn’t wish any of this on them or any of theirs.
Not for virtue signaling, but just as a reminder of what sanity would have looked like, what should have happened when the Soviet Union collapsed would have been referenda on a very fine geographical scale asking people what nation they wanted to be part of. One of the many roots of the current Ukrainian tragedy is that Ukraine never had actual national boundaries. It only had administrative boundaries that were established for various purposes within the Soviet Union. That converting those boundaries as-is into the borders of a nation state would be highly problematical was quite visible as it was happening. This is not Monday morning quarterbacking. Crimea actually held a referendum in 1991 and voted to restore its status as an autonomous republic within Ukraine and attempted to hold a second referendum on independence from Ukraine. That referendum was abandoned under the threat from Kiev of having their water and energy supplies cut off.
In Zubok’s book about Gorbachev and the end of the Soviet Union, folks were very clear at that point in time that Crimea and Donbas being part of Ukraine was a big problem.
After World War I, referendums were used to set the boundaries between Austria and what is now Slovenia, between Austria and Hungary, and between Denmark and Germany. None of those borders has been an issue since. Doing it this way works. This didn’t happen because those in a position to matter at the time had things they considered more important than the well-being of the people of the former Soviet Union. That particularly includes the leadership in Moscow, Kiev, and Washington. The Ukraine that is left after this war is over, if one is left, will most likely be smaller than the Ukraine that could have emerged peacefully and with more unity in 1991.
I find it extremely difficult to believe that Ukraine will receive real security guarantees from the West or NATO membership unless it is able to actually win the war. I just can’t see the leaders in Moscow being willing to have even a shrunken Ukraine rearmed by a hostile West. The more that the West makes it clear that it remains committed to making Ukraine an anti-Russian weapon, the more Russia will be forced to simply eliminate Ukraine altogether as a nation-state or to install and maintain a puppet regime.

@Willy

Putin has said that, explicitly and repeatedly. He’s been saying it since at least 2008. None of this is new.

@Carborundum

I find this kind of analysis absolutely delusional.

The current situation is incredibly simple: the Ukrainian offensive started two months ago, and failed so utterly that it never even cleared the picket crumple-zones that are literally designed to fall after a few days. They took such losses in vehicles that now they’re forced into switching to infantry only focused tactics, which they’re trying to sell as some sort of clever voluntary shift in strategy. This new strategy has also utterly failed to produce any meaningful results.

There’s no secret depth here to mine some more nuanced meaning out of.

@Tallifer – Thx for the DailyKos link, but I’m not impressed. Frankly, it reads like a desperate attempt to prop up the desired *feeling* – that Ukraine is winning, or at least, not losing – by picking at details of a specific CNN piece which broke the rules by being pessimistic about that.

The DK piece has lotsa details, but it ignores the larger strategic situation: the Ukrainian [counter-]offensive can only be considered a “success” if they punch all the way through to the Azov coastline, cutting Russian land-based supply lines. So far, they haven’t come remotely close to doing this.

Sources from “both sides” seem to agree that the Ukrainian *-offensive is pretty much played out, so Russia will be able to keep supplying its forces West of Mariupol via direct land routes.

Sorry to say, I find it hard to view DailyKos as a reliable, objective source of info on the war in Ukraine. One blatant example of this is their coverage of the sabotage of the NordStream pipes. Sample quote: “The near-universal conclusion of everyone who has looked into this is simple: Russia did it”; it’s painfully obvious that “everyone” excludes people and sources who disagree with their foregone conclusion.

@Soredemos You speak with great certainty about things that are a very long way away and poorly illuminated. I’m not seeking nuance – what I’m highlighting is that we know pretty much jack shit and are largely filling significant enduring informational gaps with confident talk.