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Comment by dan-robertson | Hacker News Reader

I think a counter argument is that these measures allow the situation to be described in Russia as a ‘west vs Russia’ situation which lines up well with media narratives people have been hearing for years rather than a ‘Russian army sent to kill Ukrainians’ which is less popular (eg many Russians will have close ties to some people in Ukraine). It feels to me that the best thing western governments could do is to signal reasonable conditions under which sanctions would be instantly lifted and give Russia a way to back down, though it isn’t clear to me what that way would be.

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It's abundantly clear what the conditions are: Stop the attack against their neighbour and the sanctions are lifted.

Anything less let's Putin get away once again. And right now every country in Europe, and their citizens, are sick of Putin getting away every single time.

I do have a personal stake in this. We're the only western neighbour of Russia that is not in NATO and has not been attacked by them after the fall of Soviet Union. We're basically next, and it wouldn't be the first time Russia would "defend" itself by driving tanks here. I heard enough stories from my grandparents who had to flee due to them. I thought that it's a thing of the past, but it very clearly is not.

> : Stop the attack against their neighbour and the sanctions are lifted.

That would be too easy - there needs to be war reparations paid to Ukraine too - although nothing will bring back the lost lives.

So what about - yes, sanctions lifted, and the 300 billion Russian state stashed away is given to Ukraine.

>We're the only western neighbour of Russia that is not in NATO and has not been attacked by them after the fall of Soviet Union. We're basically next

Moldova?

Moldova has a separatist area maintained by Russian troops. Transnistria. So in a way Russia has already attacked them, though not yet tried to conquer, yet. Also Moldova shares no land border with Russia, yet (and very much hopefully not).

Finland is the only land border sharing non nato country left.

What makes you think Russia would invade Finland? I seriously doubt that would happen.

I recommend reading some material about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

It's very influential book in Russia that has influenced their policy goals. It was written in 1997. A lot of it feels rather prescient considering the current world situation, which is likely not a surprise.

What they considered for US was that they should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics"

UK was to be cut off from European politics and Germany should be the new lead of central Europe. Well, UK did distance itself. And up to few weeks ago Germany was the one most against united front against Russia.

There is plenty of other stuff there. Annexation of Ukraine is just one of them (alongside annexation of Belarus which they have de facto achieved). Annexation of Finland is one of the goals too. Hence I have no doubts that it would happen at some point.

*invade finland again

i think it’s unlikely, too, but if the past few weeks have taught us anything, it’s that russia likes to repeat its past conquests

It’s clear those conditions are necessary but not that they are sufficient. There must be a path where it is obvious to the Russian people and leadership that if certain things are done then the sanctions will be immediately lifted. Currently it seems plausible that sanctions could remain after meeting those conditions as a kind of punishment, or just because they can be sticky (that is, easier to impose than to retract). If one is to believe that the reason for the war is entirely Putin, and if the people and others in power understood that removing Putin/ending the war would lead to a lifting of the sanctions and potentially significant improvements to the status quo before the war, there would be much stronger incentives to do that. Without knowing that sanctions would be lifted, someone who replaced Putin would be left in the unenviable position of t dealing with the economic consequences of the earlier sanctions/foreign business exits. For similar reasons there should be a way for Russia to pull out while saving face so that the cost of doing it is less. It seems unlikely to me that Putin will be replaced because of the war so, if one is to believe that he particularly cares about his image and perception, having a face-saving route out is particularly important. But I don’t know what that would look like.

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