President Volodymyr Zelensky believes that Ukraine’s partners “are afraid of Russia losing the war” and would like Kyiv “to win in such a way that Russia does not lose,” Zelensky said in a meeting with journalists attended by the Kyiv Independent.
Kyiv’s allies “fear” Russia’s loss in the war against Ukraine because it would involve “unpredictable geopolitics,” according to Zelensky. “I don’t think it works that way. For Ukraine to win, we need to be given everything with which one can win,” he said.
His statement came on May 16 amid Russia’s large-scale offensive in Kharkiv Oblast and ongoing heavy battles further east. In a week, Russian troops managed to advance as far as 10 kilometers in the northern part of Kharkiv Oblast, according to Zelensky.
I feel like for a number of the allies, their main goal has been to drain Russia of resources, even if it costs the lives of Ukrainians.
The goal is to provide enough aid to Ukraine to defeat the invading army without providing so much aid that Ukraine becomes an existential threat to Russia. There being an existential threat to a nuclear power can have some bad outcomes. So it’s a balancing act for the West. This is what Zelensky is alluding to with “to win in such a way that Russia does not lose.”
And of course there’s a lot of shenanigans involving Russian assets in the west doing everything they can to sabotage aid efforts. That’s a significant factor in all of this that shouldn’t be ignored. Providing military aid to Urkaine is a no-brainer for geopolitical interests, but no-brain Russian shills are doing their best to block it.
A long drawn out war of attrition isn’t actually in the best interests for the West. Russia gains experience, improves their weaponry and has ample opportunities to test that technology in the battlefield. They’ve been updating the battlefield doctrine to include ways to effectively use new technologies like drones. This isn’t something the West wants.
Best outcome for the West is Ukraine drives out the Russian Military, and there’s a peace agreement that resolves all disputed territory which would pave the way for Ukraine to join NATO. The longer the war drags on, the longer it will be before Ukraine is part of NATO.
I know that Russia has threatened the use of nukes, but I find it hard to believe they’d actually follow through. Seems like a red line that would activate more direct action from lots of other countries against Russia. Then again, red lines have been made pretty flexible in the past, including recently.
Yeah they don’t want direct action from lots of other countries because that would be an existential threat to them. But if Ukraine is an existential threat, why would a few more stop them from using everything they have in a desperate attempt to save themselves?
A cornered rat is going to fight with everything it’s got when it’s about to be stomped on. The fear of a couple more people coming over to also stomp on it doesn’t change anything for the rat when it knows it’s already going to be stomped dead.
This seems to be the sad realpolitik truth. It explains how some of the aid has been given.
Enough to keep grinding down the Kremlin’s war machine, not enough to actually take the Kremlin out of the fight.
In a more utilitarian analysis, this might be the best for the greatest number of people. From an empathetic human perspective… it’s pretty fucking dark to see young Ukrainian men dying for this. Still better than living under the Kremlin’s boot.
Fuck.
I understand the math but disgusted at the moral/ethics.
Destruction would potentially cause post WWI vibe, could create a massive migration issue, cause further suffering or the development of horrible black market bullshit or anything in between, that power vacuum would be awful.
Burn out would probably cause more revolutionary thinking and inspire a change in direction.
Fuck. I honestly just want people to not fuckin die.
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
As long as there are people willing to kill to oppose it, death is an unfortunate necessity for democracy’s preservation.
I wonder whether it’s possible to fight wars without – ideally – having casaulties at all.
For example, sedating instead of killing. Afterwards prison camps or something like that. Admittedly, given the scale, it is financially and logistically a tremendous effort. But how much must a human life “be worth” in order to be spared?
There are other obvious issues like civil unrest, if the other party keeps killing soldiers of one’s own military.
Still, it’s better than to end lifes from my perspective. One side must be the bigger one.
We spend so much effort and resources into specialising how to kill each other. But we don’t use that resources for finding alternative ways.
If there are people who really want to kill each other, throw them together and leave the rest alone.
That’s one interesting concept of future wars. I like it. Walking down the streets and bam sleeping gas!
Wake up in some waiting room with thousands of others, massive headache, getting water and pain meds handed by enemy military personnel. Watch the latest statistics on which nation got most people in possession. Get sent home, learn new language, get used to new religion. War is exhausting but also fun.
Reminds me when I was a foreign exchange student
I guess you can deseibe many experiences with ‘exhausting but fun’
don‘t follow people who say stuff like that, too
I’m assuming the West’s analysis is that there’s no better political reality inside Russia in sight, even with Putin gone, so they’re better off just declawing the bear. Which to a large degree has already happened…
Meanwhile the upside is that the collective West gets to try tactics and weapons for modern warfare (drones, ai, analysis) and get ready for the next fight. They also gained a fight-ready, trained ally in Ukraine and a sharper focus in Europe of what’s at stake and everything that that involves (eg energy and supply chain independence).
The downside is obviously the deaths of Ukrainians in the front line, but I don’t know how many of them could be prevented without NATO getting properly involved.
I think it’s more down to the fact that regime change initiated from the outside doesn’t go well. And if the west tries to take out Putin directly there’s a very high likelihood of it resulting in a nuclear war.
The sanctions the west has in place are designed to nudge some powerful people within Russia to take out Putin. Problem is Putin has been around long enough that he’s been able to make it extremely difficult for someone to make a coup happen.
Russia also gets this experience. And we can get this kind of information from more traditional sources (ie. Israel) without Russia getting it.
It would be better for the West if Putin was gone, but that needs to be done by Russian, and that’s easier said than done.
I wouldn’t look for too much nefarious intent for things that can be explained by regime change being hard to pull off (and very risky when it’s a nuclear power) and war is not a simple thing.