This sounds a lot like propaganda. Also, "giving up" doesn't mean giving up unconditionally. An agreement can be made that provides guarantees for the safety of the people.
> An agreement can be made that provides guarantees for the safety of the people.
We already have several of those. In Helsinki in 1975, all European countries (including the USSR) agreed to refrain from violently changing borders in Europe.[1] In Budapest in 1994, Russia reiterated the commitment, promising to respect sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine giving up nuclear weapons.[2] How do you suggest these, or any future agreements, should be enforced when Russia chooses to violate them?
Not to mention that Russia has become one the most oppressive countries in the world. What guarantees do you expect from a country that severly abuses the human rights of its population? That they won't abuse Ukrainians more than they do ethnic Russians when Russian officials imprison people for anti-war poems, raid gay bars, beat and rape protesters and murder dissidents?
The opinion of one of the most prominent political scientists in the US, John Mearsheimer, is that this conflict has in the making for many years, because of the continuous expansion of NATO towards east and provocative actions of the US.
This premise is important because understanding the causes, or motives, of the war is central in thinking about possible resolutions. If the cause of the war is Putin's crazy wickedness and its goal is the extermination of Ukrainians, there is no peace possible. If the cause of the war is an actual problem of politics, resources, national cohesion, alliances, you name it- then something can be agreed upon that stops the conflict now, saves the lives of hundreds of thousands on both sides, and buys a few more years. It will not be a just solution but it can be an acceptable one. And works the other way around too: if you don't want the conflict to stop, for whatever reason, you will tell people that no agreement is possible because the end goal of the other side is total extermination.
The reason for the war is clearly stated by russian officials and propaganda: they want their empire to extend, and they (Medvedev as example) directly say that Ukrainians are "artificial" nation and should not exist.
Any deal with russians doesn't mean anything to them, they proved it many times.
As for Mearsheimer, let him comment how the appeasement worked out with Hitler.
I'm Ukrainian who left the village I was in one day before russians entered it. In a short time they were there, they killed 80+ civilians. Lots of similar cases are well documented everywhere. It's not a propaganda, it's fact.
Russians are brutal, no doubt about it. But- even knowing Ukraine is a vast country with big differences between the western and eastern regions- are there cultural, ethnic and linguistic differences so deep between Russia and Ukraine that Russia's purpose would be extermination, rather than annexation of the easternmost regions and cultural assimilation?
Honest question, obviously you know and understand this much better than I do, so feel free to bash my ignorance.
Their "assimilation" is basically a genocide: they displace people, "reeducate" children and move them from their parents to russian families, forcibly conscript Ukrainians on the occupied territories to die in wars etc.
And of course, they do not hesitate to torture and kill lots of people in the process just because they are as they are.
If you check what they tell, their next goal after conquering Ukraine (and expanding the army with Ukrainians) will be going for Baltics or Kazakhstan.
There are lots of officially confirmed reports regarding killed civilians. Is UN a good source for you?
I've checked your account and you basically comment only on political issues.
> Oh, and a 12 year old HN account originating in a tiny Ukrainian village that
> has been massacred and yet completely stayed out of all news?
Very primitive manipulation. I never told I "originated" in that village, never told it is tiny, never told it has been completely massacred.
A very basic search on my submissions will show my name and what I do. I am very sorry that HN allows russian(-sponsored) trolls to be here.
Your post was not a disagreement. You intentionally rephrased what I said and implied that I'm lying and all the atrocities (many of them, but not all, well documented) done by russians are propaganda.
By doing this, you help russians to continue their genocide.
If there is a genocide going on, it's not the side you are thinking of that is perpetuating it.
But you'll just say that Wikipedia is wrong, and the UN sources they are citing are Russian propaganda. Also, you still didn't respond to the substance of my argument.
It's quite ironic how you wrote exactly the opposite regarding Palestine in another thread:
>Gaza is just a region of Palestine. Palestine is an occupied territory. A fast and enduring solution to the conflict is that Israel ceases its military and civilian occupation of Palestine and withdraws to its internationally recognized borders: those of pre-1967. Period.
The situation of Palestine is entirely different from that of Ukraine. The Israeli-Palestinian "conflict" is centered on ethnicity. Israelis have made clear multiple times that they want the whole land for an ethnic state that excludes Palestinians (which yes, means either ethnic cleansing or genocide). And there is no interest on Israel's part in any agreement to end the conflict- because it's only thanks to the conflict that Israel can keep expanding its territory. Mind, the conflict can still end through negotiations and guarantees for both sides, exactly as in the case of Russia and Ukraine; it would just be- let' say- helpful, if the major states stopped siding with the invader and oppressor and started sanctioning it, exactly as they did with Russia.
> An agreement can be made that provides guarantees for the safety of the people.
Lol. LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL. Lmao.
Ukrainians have seen that play before. Many, many times. Every single time it's just a maneuver for Putin to get into a better position to fuck them over in the future. Budapest Memorandum, Minsk 1, Minsk 2, multiple local ceasefire agreements, the Black Sea Grain Initiative... what happened to Prigozhin being a nice recent example.
This sounds a lot like propaganda. Also, "giving up" doesn't mean giving up unconditionally. An agreement can be made that provides guarantees for the safety of the people.