Russia Invades Ukraine 2022

[Southerner]

I think the central questions to be negotiated are:

1. Is there a cease fire that will still allow Ukraine to be viable?
2. How will that cease fire be monitored and enforced?
3. Are there any consequences for breaking the cease fire? If so, what are they?
4. In the long run, does the cease fire result in more deaths or fewer deaths?

If Trump can negotiate a real peace here, I will definitely give him credit for that.

Russia is much stronger than Ukraine

Do you remember the US fighting the Taliban for 18 years? The strongest military in the world couldn't demolish the Taliban.

[JohnH]

I think the central questions to be negotiated are:

1. Is there a cease fire that will still allow Ukraine to be viable?
2. How will that cease fire be monitored and enforced?
3. Are there any consequences for breaking the cease fire? If so, what are they?
4. In the long run, does the cease fire result in more deaths or fewer deaths?

If Trump can negotiate a real peace here, I will definitely give him credit for that.

Russia is much stronger than Ukraine

Do you remember the US fighting the Taliban for 18 years? The strongest military in the world couldn't demolish the Taliban.

They could have. They had rules of engagement that prohibited mass slaughtering the existing population and replacing them with other people, which is what Russia is doing.

[Bootstrap]

The Trump Administration gets some points for this one:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/19/worl ... =url-share

The Trump administration suggests taking control of Ukraine’s electrical and nuclear power sites.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine agreed in a Wednesday phone call with President Trump to accept Russia’s offer for a mutual pause in attacks on energy targets as a step toward a broader cease-fire.

In a social media post, Mr. Trump said he had “a very good” hourlong conversation with Mr. Zelensky, and a later joint statement from his national security adviser and the secretary of state said the talk “significantly helped in moving toward ending the war.”

Mr. Zelensky sounded a similar note in his own social media post, calling the conversation “positive, very substantive, and frank,” and making clear that he had thanked Mr. Trump for America’s support.

It was the first time Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky have spoken since their disastrous Oval Office meeting last month, during which Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance fumed that Mr. Zelensky had shown insufficient gratitude for America’s backing.

The statement from Michael Waltz, the national security adviser, and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, suggested for the first time that Mr. Trump is interested in taking control of Ukraine’s electrical and nuclear power sites.

Mr. Trump told Mr. Zelensky that the United States “could be very helpful in running those plants with its electricity and utility expertise,” the statement said, adding that “American ownership of those plants would be the best protection for that infrastructure and support for Ukrainian energy infrastructure.”

[Bootstrap]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/19/worl ... =url-share

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine agreed in a Wednesday phone call with President Trump to accept Russia’s offer for a mutual pause in attacks on energy targets as a step toward a broader cease-fire.

[JohnH]

That's good progress. Instead of an explicit security guarantee (which the Russians will never accept), it's an implicit one. Not bombing power plants would be a great place to start moving towards peace (or as this likely to become, a frozen conflict zone - frozen conflicts are better than hot ones).

If Russia decides to resume its belligerence, it will have to answer to America for destroying America's private assets. That's a very different conversation than the ones we've had over the past 4 years.

[temporal1]

^^NYT:
.. The statement from Michael Waltz, the national security adviser, and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, suggested for the first time that Mr. Trump is interested in taking control of Ukraine’s electrical and nuclear power sites.

Mr. Trump told Mr. Zelensky that the United States “could be very helpful in running those plants with its electricity and utility expertise,” the statement said, adding that “American ownership of those plants would be the best protection for that infrastructure and support for Ukrainian energy infrastructure.” ..

i like how Trump is consistent wrt to commerce being a better goal than bloodshed. Sad it’s such a hard sell.

i’d appreciate it if the NYT described with more honesty how Z met with Dems just before the signing meeting with Trump,
Z then entered the meeting to ambush Trump+Vance, which ruined the meeting. Dems+supporters can be so low.

Soon after, Z walked back his behavior, asked for future meetings to be in private, i presume with translators present.
i 100% agree. There have been meetings, understandably, Trump not present.

We’ll never know what would have happened if Z showed up for the meeting to sign, OR, if he’d contacted them BEFORE the meeting to say he wanted more negotiation. Z appeared in bad faith, i believe Dems had a hand in it. Without being forthright about it.
That amounts to covert sabotage, taking advantage of Z’s ignorance and language barrier.

i hope Trump doesn’t allow such a possibility to happen again. He was overly trusting.
He’s not with warmongers.

[Ernie]

If a country doesn't want to contribute weapons to be used against other human beings, I admire them for this. But from a kingdoms of this world perspective, it seems like if there was a goal of depleting Russia's arsenal's and decreasing Russia's willingness to conquer and annex territory, allies of Ukraine could have focused on air defenses the last three years. (saving lives rather than taking lives)

I think the primary issue is there’s been a status quo agreement. If NATO declares a no fly zone or if the US declares a no fly zone, are you going to cripple Ukraine’s ability to wage war on Russia? Are you prepared to have NATO planes fire on Russian planes?
Likewise, in Syria, what if Russia declared a no fly zone are they prepared to fire on NATO planes or American planes? Maybe this is overly simplistic, but you don’t do something unless you’re prepared for the enemies counter.
This is why America and others have sort of tiptoed around direct intervention, as well as it not actually fitting their overall agenda.
Right now, if the air was declared off limits, it would effectively result in US and NATO war planes having to try to shoot down multiple missiles, likely unsuccessfully, and Ukraine get upset that they couldn’t launch their drones into Russia or have it an obvious war action against Russia, which would risk a larger scale conflict.

It is possible to supply Ukraine with air defenses without declaring a no fly zone. The West has been supplying some, but not enough to keep Ukranian civilians safe. The West seemed more focused on providing ammunition for Ukraine to fight Russia. As was noted earlier, they provided almost enough to keep Ukraine from losing further territory, but not enough to gain significant territory back. I'm not saying it would be a good thing to give them more ammunition for political or two-kingdom perspective. Just stating what happened.

The first chart on this page shows how many thousands of Ukranian civilians have been killed by remote attacks, including both missiles and drones.
From a this world perspective, it seems that the West could have cared more about civilians.

https://acleddata.com/2025/02/21/bombin ... n-ukraine/

I don’t think you understand is how difficult that is… when Israel was attacked, not that long back, there were multiple nations that were involved in defending their land and some missiles still got through.
Using air defense against drones is lagging way behind technology right now what are you going to do? fire a very expensive patriot missile at a $200 drone?
Honestly, the most effective weapon will be the old style, Flack batteries, and those have other problems with them, particularly where the flack falls. Defending civilian areas against mass aerial assault is very difficult.

It is possible and would have been possible to supply Ukraine with more air defenses, without declaring a no-fly zone, and without installing an iron dome. Had the West done this, it would have continued to use up more Russian resources, protected some civilians in Ukraine (not all), and not invested money in bullets to kill the enemy. God didn't put me in charge of some matters, but I am just sayin...

[Bootstrap]

Do you remember the US fighting the Taliban for 18 years? The strongest military in the world couldn't demolish the Taliban.

And neither could Russia before the US tried. Back then, the slogan was "Afghanistan: the graveyard of Russian imperialism". Now it's been updated to "Afghanistan: the graveyard of empires".

[Soloist]

It is possible and would have been possible to supply Ukraine with more air defenses, without declaring a no-fly zone, and without installing an iron dome. Had the West done this, it would have continued to use up more Russian resources, protected some civilians in Ukraine (not all), and not invested money in bullets to kill the enemy. God didn't put me in charge of some matters, but I am just sayin...

Have you spoken to military members or veterans? Have you asked them about these sort of things? I don’t think you really understand how air warfare works or anti aircraft weapons.

[Bootstrap]

It is possible and would have been possible to supply Ukraine with more air defenses, without declaring a no-fly zone, and without installing an iron dome. Had the West done this, it would have continued to use up more Russian resources, protected some civilians in Ukraine (not all), and not invested money in bullets to kill the enemy. God didn't put me in charge of some matters, but I am just sayin...

Have you spoken to military members or veterans? Have you asked them about these sort of things? I don’t think you really understand how air warfare works or anti aircraft weapons.

I'm pretty sure I don't either.

But my current understanding is that this might be feasible for small areas like power plants and cities, not for Ukraine as a whole. And that strategic intelligence to identify launches when they happen is crucial to make this work. Is that roughly correct?