Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Yeah every year the Russian military arrive at the Georgian border and move the fences further into Georgia while they have jets and helicopter gunships over head ,if they were to go in and take back territory now would be ideal being Putin is bogged down in Ukraine

What if Western support were to turn that into a massive army, close to a match with Russia in material if not men? Possibly accompanied by a massive Korean-style DMZ along the Russia-Ukraine border. Could the Ukranians be strengthened to a point where no rational Russian government would consider invading again?

Leftfield I know but it seems something out of the box will be required if a mechanism to reliably guarantee Ukranian security that is acceptable to Russia is to be devised.

Oh I know they didn't have anything like the complete Donbas region, but Donetsk had fighting long before this invasion.

Of course Mariupol is different, but Putin might be a mind to claim we want what we hold in this ceasefire.

Why can't people understand that most of the ones traipsing through Eastern Europe or the ones crossing the Med in dinghies were not Syrian or Iraqi at all, but made up of all sorts.

And they were by huge majority young males.

I fail to understand how anyone can't comprehend the difference between the flood of people over the last couple of weeks that have crossed over from Ukraine into Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Moldova and the lads wandering into Greece and then up through the Balkans or those crossing from North Africa to Europe.

It doesn't take a rocket science to straight off notice the bloody differences.

Then add in the fact that Poland is now taking in their neighbours, people they have a lot more in common with, people they may even be related to, people fleeing from what Poles would see as a common enemy.

I'm just talking about negotiations, nothing else. It is very much a basis for talks. I take the point on the bad neighbour but they've shown themselves to be a far less fearful military force than people imagined. Any questions on sanctions are not until this current phase has been addressed. My own feeling is that sanctions are what is making them take the talks all a bit more seriously. It's not even a month of sanctions and the country is on its knees.

India, China couldn't care less about dead Ukrainians and their destroyed cities. These leaders care only about power.

Maybe a peace deal isn't the best thing - just keep going till every Russian in the invading army is dead and take back Crimea, then go into Moldova and sort out every last one of the Russian seperatists there too. Likely cooler heads than mine will prevail.

The trouble with the peace deal process is that it would include no prospect of charging or pusuing anyone for all the war crimes committed, and it wouldn't include a cent of financial compensation from Russia and their frozen resources and reserves; you can bet on that.

This is what Ukraine wants as things stand , lack of Nato membership doesn't mean they can't sign defense pacts with their neighbors ?

Oh, I think his time is limited, both politically and physically. His military has really been shown up here and he won't get another bite.

So what?

The point is that any referendum held there will be returned by an overwhelmingly Russian majority.

Not sure what you are on about here (EU "Russia" and "Energy" policy - these are mostly remit of the states' own governments or have been in past...suppose that could start to change now, or pace of changes pick up e.g. most of these govt. sanctions on Russia are being agreed upon between the member states at the EU level in a coordinated way rather than the individual countries doing it themselves).

Also are you sure that graph means what you think it does? If you compare, the EU is generally coming out better than the national "political systems" on the graph. (edit: also seems an absolute nonsense kind of polling question too, it is so subjective + would need to see the whole thing to understand it better...is there a "don't know" etc?)

Most of the national political systems in Europe (very wealthy and free part of the planet with people from all over battering down the gates to get in) are "broken" according to respondants. I think that may be catastrophising.

Come on Ukraine. Ease up a bit. Give the Ruskies a fighting chance...