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.
when they decided to violate the Budapest Memorandum everything went out the door, including russia’s future. it’s going to be very, very hard to ever get back to the economic or industrial positions they occupied previously.
their people will suffer, and the only way it will end is if they hang putin from a light pole.
What economic positions did they occupy, exactly? All they had were raw resources - coal, oil, gas, and maybe wheat. They can’t produce anything else of value.
Unfortunately even that wouldn’t solve it. There is no successor. This is on purpose so there’s no motive to hang Putin from a light pole. If he goes, it’s nuclear-armed Yugoslavia, or at least musical chairs coups, because there’s so many people with an equally legitimate claim to the throne.
Short of time travel there’s no obvious way to keep things normal. The “lose nicely” thing is basically fueled by wishful thinking that maybe, if the West is nice and measured enough, we’ll get lucky. (Which you could argue is what got us here)
oh well, guess we should all roll over and just let putin fuck everyone right?
NAH. I’d rather go out fighting.
