Russia - threadbanned users in OP

That will be all well and good if Ukraine accepts, even if they do, sanctions should not be rolled back till Putin has been tried or dead.

I haven’t seen anywhere that sanctions would be rolled back if Russia abandoned Ukraine but hopefully that won’t be the case.

Yes, you are probably right, which would also explain why they don't take everything they capture,,,,most they just destroy.

That would work very well too!!!. In Afghanistan the present day, the landscape is littered with the rusting hulks of Russian tanks and A/V's, so they would make great long lasting road blocks. None of your cheap rusting Daihatsu rubbish; LOL.

and when the Ukrainians looked for west protection we should've have made it unequivocally clear from the very beginning that we cannot help them and encouraged them to find terms with the russians. Because truly we cannot help them and we're not helping them...

I sympathize with the Ukrainians and the just cause they're fighting for,

we can help where we can, but i'm not ready to shoot myself in the foot over it.

On the contrary, we contributed setting up this quagmire and dragged the russians into it, at the same time we also so stupidly dragged ourselves into it with massive media investment and sanctions that are backfiring on us. It's like the plan from the very beginning was to put the russians and the europeans at each other throats and stop russian gas pumping into europe.

I agree with Mearsheimer that the US played a major role in how the events unfolded in Ukraine,

Unfortunately our politicians in the EU seem to be dedicated to execute the US policy in the region not caring about our core EU strategic and economical interests.

Right now in EU, a politician could lose elections over his stance from Ukraine, that's how moronic this whole thing has become.

perhaps things aren't really as black and white as you think they are.

I'm sorry, i really do care about the EU, but i find it very hard to trust american foreign policy after how many events they were involved in unfolded around the world.

"the truth is that every Russian will feel guilty for decades because of the terrible and bloody decision that none of us could influence and predict."

One of his facebook posts. Again, expecting these people to come out and say "Putin is a scumbag killer" while they live and have family in Russia, is completely unfair.

Telling Russians they can't share their culture because a dictator decided to start a war, is crossing red lines in my opinion.

Pretty horrific, bizarre angle for someone to go with...

plus I have seen the CGI in doctor who they aren't that good at it.

I think we can see in Ukraine what Russian culture really is. And I'd prefer if they kept it within their own borders.

I agree with you but I fear a rolling back of the more extreme sanctions will be part of any compromise deal. If the West has to choose between principles and the economy in the long term, it will as always choose the economy. It's already doing so with oil.

But if that saves the prolongation of all the suffering then maybe it's the lesser of two evils

The Russian military is huge in comparison to Ukraine (in terms of armor, vehicles, aircraft, equipment)

Keep in mind the 5% is a bit of an old figure, current estimates are that it's about 8% to 10% of Russian equipment destroyed/inoperable of those forces designated for this war.

Looking at this in terms of e.g. tanks, the Russian military's total is believed to be approx 2,800. There is visual evidence that a minimum of 150 of these are destroyed/captured in Ukraine. That's more than 5% of Russia's entire total of tanks, in 2 weeks.

Also keep in mind that the Ukrainians are fighting in home territory, the Russians are fighting in another country, they are taking heavy attrition from this, tyres on vehicles are falling to pieces, there are a lot of breakdowns, 150,000+ Russian soldiers require 3 square meals a day in foreign territory, each mobile piece of armor requires fuel and repairs, and all these supply lines are vulnerable to Ukrainian infantry who, combined with reservists, grossly outnumber the Russians in terms of manpower. Add to that their much higher morale and resolve to fight and a vast amount of anti-armor and anti-air infantry weapons flooding into the country

Russia's air-force is massively larger than Ukraine's, but they don't have air superiority, in fact, much of Ukraine's air force is intact.

Of course, something dramatic could happen in the next 2 weeks, some shocking tactic, a strike on Zelensky, a dramatically successful move on Kyiv - but barring all that, from what I am reading, the Russians (at current pace) aren't expected to make much progress. Some are speculating that as time goes on, the Ukrainians could even start making progress.

Of course I could be completely wrong here, but that's how I am reading it at present.

It shouldn't be - offered does not imply coercion and we are winding down our programme.