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Comment by mopsi | Hacker News Reader

> For example, try arguing that the USA should try to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Ukraine. You'll be immediately accused of being a "Putin puppet" when all you care about is that the war is ended with as few casualties as possible (as some say, winning the peace is more important than winning the war).

You will fall under criticism for saying this because it is indeed ignorant and naive and will only kill more people. Peace at any cost will only give Russia a chance to focus on repressing internal dissent in occupied territories and murder people until they have no meaningful opposition left there. After that, they can renew their attack on Ukraine and widen it to the rest of Europe, forcibly conscripting people from occupied territories to fight for them. This already happened after the 2014 invasion. How many times do you want to repeat the mistake before learning from it? In this round, about half a million are dead and many Ukrainian cities look no different from Hiroshima and Nagasaki after nuclear bombing. How many people more will have to die? 10 million?

Insisting on peace at any cost is purely emotional feel-good response that ignores the realities on the ground. Much of the discussion about Palestine and other hot topics is the same; uneducated virtue signaling fueled by social media narcissism.

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You call me ignorant, but you seem to have very little understanding at all. You say it will only kill more people. That's patently false. There's never been a peace settlement that ended up killing more people than war, because war kills people every single day. Ukraine losing some territory is NOT the end of the world, and I am not sure why some people are so convinced that it is.

> After that, they can renew their attack on Ukraine and widen it to the rest of Europe

There's literally no evidence that's the case, this is fear-mongering on a scale I've never seen before. To the contrary, the reaction of the world to this conflict has already made enough of an impression on any would-be invader that it's a really bad idea to enter a conflict where the West is on the opposing side, and I am very convinced that Putin won't try his hand again. Of course, I cannot prove that to you, but you can't prove anything either, you're using the same "emotional" argument you've accused me of using. Your argument goes down to "we must continue killing people in a war to prove a point". I find that argument abhorrent.

> How many people more will have to die? 10 million?

If you stop the war right now, zero. You're claiming a hypothetical future made up in your head where Russia will still continue attacking others. At least try to consider that that may not happen? Consider that Russia knows very well it will suffer for decades from mistrust by the West, by sanctions and by losing a huge market. It knows all that, why would it want to make things even worse? This argument by some of the Western media just doesn't make sense, try to think about it rationally!

> Insisting on peace at any cost is purely emotional feel-good response

This is always the same argument used most war-mongering people in history, it's the cause of the death of millions because every war in history started because of someone holding that view. We need to go back to a civilized dialog between nations. You can claim that Putin is the one who broke the peace, and I agree with that, but just trying to continue a big war to make him pay for that mistake seems pitty. In my opinion, fighting any war for any reason is not what a civilized mind would do. There are cases it's unavoidable, but this is NOT one of those. It's avoidable, Putin is open to dialog, don't believe the narrative you've been told. There is room for dialog, the war was almost ended with the peace talks in Belarus... have you forgotten that? Do you know why that didn't stop the war?? Read about it, it was NOT because of Russia.

Russia knows [war is costly], why would it want to make things even worse?

Because its leadership is deranged, and is willing to put a large chunk of its population through a wood chopper (and endure decades of blunted growth and economic estrangement) in order to indulge its geopolitical fantasies. Which is why it started the current war in 2014 in the first place.

Ukraine losing some territory is NOT the end of the world

The literal "end of the world", no. But it would lead to a very bad long-term situation in Europe and throughout the world if Russia's aggression were to be validated in this case.

Especially if it were to be awarded -- as you appear to be advocating -- permanent sovereignty over the territories it is currently claiming.

> Because its leadership is deranged

How can you be so sure? Because you saw it on the news? Like "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq?

> in order to indulge its geopolitical fantasies.

Is it a fantasy to prevent Ukraine joining NATO? Is it a fantasy to narrow down the Western border to a more "defendable" region? Maybe.

But I would say it's a fantasy to think you can push out half a million Russian soldiers from an area 20% the size of pre-2014 Ukraine back into Russia without causing an absolutely massive escalation in which nuclear weapons are not just a possibility, but almost a certainty. A 60 billion dollars package won't make a dent. Are you willing to send 10x that (I suppose that level of money would indeed make a dent, but who knows, maybe not even that)? Send enough troops to get the job done (i.e. the real possibility of your family members being sent to die in the front)? We all know the answer: that won't happen.

If Ukraine was accepted into NATO in 2008 neither this war nor the war in 2014 would have happened. Russia won't invade Finland nor Sweden despite them joining NATO. In fact Russia moved all units from Finnish border to Ukraine as Finland joined NATO :)

If you force Ukraine to give up some territories to Russia and stop the war now - you're only making sure Russia invades in a few years again after establishing new bases, refilling stocks and drafting people from new territories to army. This is what happened with Crimea and the part of Donbas they occupied in 2014.

You're not saving any lives, you're just making the next war easier for Putin.

As for nuclear weapons - ask yourself why hasn't USA nuked Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan.

> This is what happened with Crimea and the part of Donbas they occupied in 2014.

That's a distorted view of reality. In 2008, Ukraine was very far from being in a position to join NATO, or even to want to. When the 2014 revolution happened, remember that there was a pro-Russia elected president in Ukraine. The Donbas war and the Crimea annexation happened exactly in response to the ousting of that president by the Maidan Revolution. Most of the Donbas was/is strongly pro-Russian (they had been voting for Pro-Russian governments since the independence of Ukraine from the USSR, just check some maps of pre-2014 elections results by Ukrainian region). So, no, that's not what happened in 2014 at all, and I don't understand why some people are repeating this narrative uncritically.

> As for nuclear weapons - ask yourself why hasn't USA nuked Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan.

The USA had no business in those countries. That has nothing to do with the situation in Russia, where they see Ukraine alignment as absolutely essential for their defense strategy. Vietnam is exactly in the opposite side of the world from the USA. Ukraine is basically the gate to the Russian heartlands. If you hold Ukraine, Russia cannot effectively defend against you. It's such a completely different situation that I must ask if you're trolling?

> In 2008, Ukraine was very far from being in a position to join NATO, or even to want to.

Jake Sullivan (American diplomat) said in an interview with Mikhail Zygar recently that he was in the room when it was talked about. Ukraine was in favour. Eastern Europe was in favour. USA was in favour. Germany and France blocked it, indirectly making the war in 2014 and this one possible.

> The Donbas war and the Crimea annexation happened exactly in response to the ousting of that president by the Maidan Revolution

This is Russian POV. It's not the truth. Russia poisoned Ukrainian presidential candidate in 2003. It blackmailed Yanukovych in 2013. It doesn't care about formalities, it cares about owning Ukraine.

> If you hold Ukraine, Russia cannot effectively defend against you.

Nobody wants to invade Russia and you know it perfectly well. Russia knows it too (that's why they moved the army from Finnish border and from Kaliningrad Oblast). You can shell Sankt Petersburg from Finland using regular artillery. If anything - Finland entering NATO is a much worse military problem for Russia than Ukraine. Yet somehow Russia was fine with it, but Ukraine is just impossible :)

It's just an excuse, the real reason Russia invaded Ukraine twice is just imperialism. And they can be cured from it. They just need to lose their imperial war, like all the other empires.

> The USA had no business in those countries.

And neither does Russia in Ukraine.

Decide for yourself - is Russia bloodthirsty enough to start nuclear war over Ukraine, or is it "just another country like us". You can't have it both ways.

Germany and France blocked it, indirectly making the war in 2014 and this one possible.

Well, that's speculative. If the move had been green-lighted it could have triggered a spontaneous kinetic/punitive action of some sort (as Putin would have to look like he's "doing something"). Which would have led to who knows what.

100 percent on the money, everything else you said.

Worst case would just look like what happened anyway. Best case is no wars in 2014 and 2022 and hundreds of thousands of lives saved.

Disagree as to worst case.

We just don't know how the Yushchenko government (let alone whoever his successor may have been after 2010) would have handled the situation. And without sufficient time to integrate properly -- the accession would have been essentially a bluff, and interpreted by Putin (though his sockpuppet Medvedev, if the latter was still in place) accordingly.

Had he full-on invaded shortly thereafter -- Ukraine definitely would not have fared as well as it did in 2022 (due to the partial state of integration, and the fact that didn't have the 8 years of invaluable training in the field that it had by 2022). Even if it was a clusterfuck operation like the initial SMO. Recall how quickly the Crimea defense fell apart in 2014 (for the simple reason it was entirely unprepared). Tactical nuke risk would have been significantly higher if NATO units were involved, especially if they were blitzkrieging.

One can see many scenarios unfolding - many of them quite bad.

It was 2008. Back then Russia had problems conquering Georgia (and backed off when 3 EU politicians flew to Tbilisi during the war).

Even in 2014 with all the corruption in Ukrainian army and all the preparations (remember that Yanukovych was blackmailed by Putin in 2013 to stop the EU agreement according to a parliament member from his party) - so Putin had prepared for at least 1 year - once Ukraine started the ATO (anti-terrorist operation) - they quickly regained several territories till Russia sent another wave of "volunteers" in "nothern wind" operation.

It's very unlikely Russia would be able to do anything quickly in 2008 that would be anywhere close to what it did with year of advance planning in 2014. And it's very, very unlikely that it would have ended up worse for Ukraine somehow.

IMHO Russia would just do nothing, cause the risk/effect calculation would be much worse for them had Ukraine already be in NATO.

It's time to accept that the west fucked up in 2008.

I thank what matters now is what the West does now, and in the upcoming years.

Other than that we seem to be broadly on the same page. I appreciate your robust counterpoints to the misinformation that gets continually posted here.

> This is Russian POV. It's not the truth. Russia poisoned Ukrainian presidential candidate in 2003. It blackmailed Yanukovych in 2013. It doesn't care about formalities, it cares about owning Ukraine.

How can you be so sure? It's true that Russia was trying to influence Ukrainian politics for a long time - and Ukrainian politics have always been hugely determined by what they can do without pissing off Russia too much - as they always feared an invasion could happen if they did. They lost that fear, slowly, over the 20 years or so after independence... It was literally a bet by the pro-EU politicians to try to join NATO before Russia felt like it was necessary to intervene... We know that because you can easily read about the debates pre-2014 in Ukrainian politics. It was obvious to most observers that the Maidan Revolution was extremely dangerous for Ukraine, as it was clearly going to piss off Russia (an elected leader replaced by revolution, with the open support of the West - and no, this is not Russian propaganda, just read about the USA's pronouncements at the time, here for example: https://jacobin.com/2022/02/maidan-protests-neo-nazis-russia...).

You may say Russia has zero right to be pissed off, to be trying to influence a neighbouring, independent country, and I would agree in principle. But the fact that most people in the West (not all, a lot of geopolitics analysts keep repeating this) are unable to even comprehend why the Russians think it's absolutely fundamental for them that Ukraine does not align completely with NATO and the EU is very arrogant. Just think how the US might react if Mexico decided to align with Russia, and join some sort of Russian military alliance. OR maybe more realistically, with China. Have you heard of the Monroe Doctrine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine

That's basically the USA saying that they absolutely have the right to interfere on the whole Western Hemisphere, which they have done to great effect the whole 20th and 21st centuries, many times favouring the dictators, not the democratic leaders (if you don't know about this, I don't blame you, it's not well known by American people, though this is accepted fact by most scholars, check this article for an extensive list of American interventionism on Chile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_intervention_in_...). I don't bring this up to make a "what about" argument against the West, but to show that it's at least hypocritical of the Western countries to claim that Russia must not interfere in any way on its closest neighbour.

> it cares about owning Ukraine

Hm, let's not go down to such kind of simplistic argument. Let me respond the way you did to me: that's not the truth.

> is Russia bloodthirsty enough to start nuclear war over Ukraine, or is it "just another country like us".

It's absolutely just a country like us, the fact that you need to ask a question like this shows that you're not even arguing in good faith. Just like they would defend whatever they consider their borders (and they do consider, now, the Donbas to be part of Russia itself, as you should know) with any means necessary, so would any of our countries in the West, wouldn't we?

It's absolutely just a country like us, the fact that you need to ask a question like this ...

Actually it's a very different place. And this seems to be one of the missing pieces of your analysis here.

Have you been there? I have, and I think anyone who has wouldn't say they're very different than us (unless you haven't been to many other countries to have a "reference" for what "different" means). I have been to Belarus as well, multiple times. I can absolutely guarantee to you that the people are the same as in the USA or EU. They're different in only the most superficial things. They also love their families, they also love to buy things, to have fun on the beach, to cook a nice meal. Where they differ is on their religion and culture, though they're about as close to America in that regard as most other EU nations (because like them, they're also mostly Christians and having a "general" European culture and values, they're very much close to the USA, whose culture is so influenced by that European culture due to its population being majority European descendants).

You may argue "but politics are so different" but that's not an argument for "they're not a country like us". Politics can change easily because you don't need everyone to change, like with culture... is Spain not the same country since it became a democracy in as recently as 1976?? So I would say it's a huge mistake to try to classify a country by its politics. The Russians may eventually come around to a more democratic system, but like with the Chinese, they may prefer not to. Admitting that there are other possible systems that may be beneficial to the people is important for us in the West, after all, according to our own values, diversity is a good thing, isn't it? It's difficult and the West has a history of not accepting that other cultures may not want to be like themselves (in that respect, it's hard to differentiate us today from the jesuits in the past, we're basically doing the same thing, just instead of Catholicism we're now exporting "democratic values" or whatever), and even though we've learned that trying to force-civilize others is not the greatest idea, we still don't seem to accept we may not be the pinnacle of civilization.

I happened to live in the USSR for quite a few decades against my will, and I've seen many westerners with such naive impressions. You don't even understand how detached from reality you are. It's exactly the opposite of what you believe: people look the same only in the most superficial things that you experience during short trips as a tourist. You will learn that after you try to live a life there for a few years and start to stumble upon situations that would be solved one way in the western world and are solved completely the other way in that world.

A major difference from the western world is that Russia never developed a civil society independent from the government. In Europe, America and many other places, people have self-organized into everything from church groups to baseball leagues and gun clubs, run these organizations on their own dime, democratially choose people to lead the organizations and represent their interests, and keep them accountable. It fosters a culture of self-sufficiency and participation that enables democracy on the societal level. It creates the expectation that everyone deserves have their say and be heard, and that leaders are accountable to members and stakeholders and should pursue things that people tell them to pursue. And from these small local groups, large nationwide movements arise that can and do openly steer and challenge the government and its policies.

Russia has never had that. Its people have never had a say in how the country should be run, not directly through elections, nor indirectly through social activism. The only tolerated power vertical is the government. Environmental groups, human rights activists, ethnic minority groups, etc all get shut down when they start to have any meaningful impact. You can't even publish your thoughts and distribute them as a newsletter, and most people are completely indifferent to that because they are accustomed to a society that is run from top-down by unelected leaders. The eternal sunshine in the Kremlin tells how the things are, and their role is to take pride in suffering.

You can see that attitude spectacularly on display on that Youtube channel that has thousands of hours of interviews with Russian POWs in Ukrainian captivity. One of the most amazing things that keeps repeating from one interview to another is how it never occurred to them that they could just refuse to go when conscripted, refuse to sign papers declaring them volunteers, run away and go into hiding, or oppose in some other way. It never occured to them that they could question what authorities tell them to do. These are people who have been breed over centuries into total, unquestionable submission.

Roughly half a million are dead in completely senseless war, and there hasn't been not even a single large anti-war protest. Russia experiences one Vietnam war's worth of American losses every 6 weeks without any pushback from the society. This is totally unimaginable in the western world. Just look at the Gaza protests all over the western world. Nothing comparable exists in the Russian world over their involvement in Ukraine, despite their role as instigator, larger scale and much more horrific results.

Have you been there?

I've done my time. You seem to think the average Russian's sense of identification with the Donbas is exactly the same as, say, that of a typical French person with Le Havre. It's not and is quite different in fact.

Because you saw it on the news?

It's self-evident from their statements and their actions. Combined with even a basic understanding of regional history.

It's a fantasy to think you can push out half a million Russian soldiers [without nukes]

The Vietnamese managed do exactly that its colonial occupier (the United States) some 50 years ago. France got kicked out of Algeria. The U.S. got its ass handed back to it again, Afghanistan just a few years ago. In order to reverse an occupation, one doesn't need total, crushing victory (though that would of course be more than welcome on the ground in Ukraine). You just have to convince the occupier that project will be ultimately unsustainable.

And that the time has come to pick up their toys and go home.

"to do exactly that to its", "in Afghanistan", "that the project"

Ukraine loses some land. People there are tortured, brainwashed, scared into submission and drafted to Russian army. Russia rebuilds its stocks. In 3-5 years Russia invades again and the situation repeats.

This already happened in 2014. If we let Russia sell this war as a victory to its population - they will repeat it again.

The problem isn't what happens immediately after "diplomatic solution". The problem is that the end result is war anyway, just easier for Russia. That's why Ukrainians don't want it.

Appeasing dictators never works out.

After the 2014 annexation of Krimea, Ukraine could have chosen to "appease" Russia, but it didn't. So I think your argument is backwards: if you wanted to prevent the invasion of 2022, you should've solved the 2014 crisis diplomatically, the invasion was a result of a failure in doing so. I'm afraid that failing to solve the current situation diplomatically will actually end up with a much larger portion of pre-2014 Ukraine territory never being returned to Ukraine (though IMHO there's very little chance Ukraine will disappear completely, or even lose Kyiv, as Russians have not shown much interest in extending the occupied regions so much in the last few months beyond Donbas and Luhansk - which they seem on a path to completely take over soon).

Here's an example that's applicable to the current situation, I believe, where a Peace Deal was achieved and brought permanent peace:

- Finland, 13th of March 1940 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War)

Very similar situation to today. The peace deal involved ceding quite a lot of land to the USSR, more than USSR initially bargained for (though Finland is still seen as having exited that conflict very positively today).

The peace after that has basically lasted to this day and Finland is not at a hugely disadvantaged position because of the losses it suffered by signing that peace deal.

There are many example of such deals in history, most wars actually ended up with similar deals. Only very few wars ended up with "complete victory" by one side, like WWII (though people seem to want every war now to end like that, forgetting just how extremely heavy the price was in that occasion, for both sides - or actually all the various sides involved).

If you wanted to prevent the invasion of 2022, you should've solved the 2014 crisis diplomatically, the invasion was a result of a failure in doing so.

The invasion started in 2014, not 2022.

There was no "diplomatic crisis" at the time. It was an outright, unprovoked invasion from the very start. The same invasion that has continued to the present day.

Your reading of the Winter War is just as backwards. But if you can't get 2014 even remotely correct there's no reason to dissect the footnotes of 1940.

> There was no "diplomatic crisis" at the time

You ignorance on the matter could be cured by reading about what caused the 2014 Revolution, if you're actually interested in learning instead of throwing insults.

The whole affair was a diplomatic crisis. Ukraine had a EU deal on one side, a Russian deal on the other. The president at the time went with the Russian deal. The population revolted. Another deal was made with the mediation of the EU, so that there would be elections at the end of the year. That made people even more pissed off, there was some violence and finally the elected president was removed.

Russia saw Ukraine tearing up the deal which had the support of the EU as a dangerous provocation. The USA openly supported tearing up the EU-supported deal! It was a mess.

If you don't understand that this is a diplomatic crisis, you really don't have enough knowledge to intelligently discuss anything after that.

I know all about 2014, from people who were there.

There was no "crisis" that provided any rational reason for Russia to intervene with force (either at the time, or after Ukraine's failure to "solve" it in subsequent years) is what I obviously meant.

> After the 2014 annexation of Krimea, Ukraine could have chosen to "appease" Russia, but it didn't.

It literally did. Zelenski was considered the appeasement president and he tried to appease russia at the start of his term by starting the talks on some long-term settlement about which territory belongs to whom.

Putin responded by another invasion as soon as pandemic ended.

Russia does not want Ukraine to lose some territory and enter EU and NATO. It wants Ukraine to be kept in eternal war that thaws and is frozen as needed, so Ukraine cannot enter EU nor NATO forever.

The problem from Russian POV is that Ukraine is considered "Russia but more provincial", and if Ukraine has wealthy, democratic state - Russians will ask "why can't we?". Hence for Putin and the rest of russian elites - Ukraine can't enter EU.

The solution isn't to let Russia dictate what other countries can and cannot do. The solution is to stop Russia once and for all. Each next war will be more expansive in lives and money.

If you let Russia conquer Ukraine - you will have Russia with 30 million more people, all the soldiers that Ukraine trained, all the weapons that survive - going to Baltic states next. Congratulations. Very "pragmatic" and "realpolitik".

I would love to discuss this topic with you, but unfortunately you seem to misunderstand every single point you've brought up in your response :( . Perhaps I can help clarify a few things so that an actual discussion can be started:

> Zelenski was considered the appeasement president...

Zelenski was voted president several years after 2014, in 2019. If anyone "appeased" Russia, it was the guy appointed interim prime minister (with USA support) after the revolution, Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Even though Zelensky was never very vocal in opposition to Russia during his early mandate, he did sign, in March 2021, a "strategy for de-occupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.". You can read more about that from Ukrainin media: https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-polytics/3214479-zelensky-e...

Zelenskyy's also was in Brussels in June 2019 to talk with NATO officials. That was not conductive to peaceful negotiations with Russia.

He did try to find a peaceful resolution for the conflict in Donbas, and almost reached a deal with Putin after they met face to face (all they had to do was accept local elections results and the Russians were going to withdraw) but was stopped by his own government supporters who even accused him of "playing in the hands of Putin" (a familiar accusation these days). They wanted a hardline on Russia, and we all know what that has led to.

Now, I absolutely agree that right before the invasion, Zelensky made an effort to ease the tensions as the invasion was imminent. But by then, it was too little, too late.

> It wants Ukraine to be kept in eternal war that thaws and is frozen as needed, so Ukraine cannot enter EU nor NATO forever.

There's no basis on reality with that sort of rhetoric. Putin has been open to peace deal negotiations on multiple occasions, a deal was almost reached in Belarus just a couple of months into the conflict (it was the West who backed off those discussions). Putin has declared very recently he's open to dialogue, but as you may know, Zelensky has declared that no discussion will be had while Putin is in office. How can you defend such an argument given those facts?!? It really boggles my mind people say things like this with a straight face.

> The solution is to stop Russia once and for all.

There's only one way to do that: nuclear war. Because if you try to invade Russia to "stop them once and for all", you know all too well that's what you'll get. I hope you're not seriously advocating for that... if you are, I sincerely hope that you'll remember that you were on the wrong side of history when your family and friends, perhaps you yourself, suffer the consequences of such callous actions... but I do believe most people are not that murder-inclined, so this will not come to ever become a reality.

> Putin has declared very recently he's open to dialogue

Then he can pick up a phone, call Shoigu, and have a dialogue with him about issuing an order down the chain of command to withdraw troops from Ukraine if he is so keen on peace. But he doesn't do that because the goal is not peace, but concessions from Ukraine.

Putin has declared very recently he's open to dialogue, but as you may know ...

His minimum requirement is permanent recognized sovereignty for the areas he's currently sitting on (and likely then some), as you may know.

Do you think Ukraine should agree to these terms? A simple yes or no, please.

> If you stop the war right now, zero.

Looking at the Ukrainian territories currently occupied by Russia, it doesn't seem like zero is the correct answer. When the territory is captured, that's when "zachistka" starts...

> You're claiming a hypothetical future made up in your head where Russia will still continue attacking others.

Because that's what always happened in the past after Russia conquered some territory?

> There's never been a peace settlement that ended up killing more people than war

Versailles.

Arguably a good point, but remember that the reason for that was that the settlement went too far in punishing the Germans. If it was a less "aggressive" settlement, arguably there would've been no WWII (but we can't know that, of course).

> There's literally no evidence that's the case, this is fear-mongering on a scale I've never seen before. To the contrary, the reaction of the world to this conflict has already made enough of an impression on any would-be invader that it's a really bad idea to enter a conflict where the West is on the opposing side, and I am very convinced that Putin won't try his hand again.

Russia is currently forming two new armies that have a larger size than the ground forces of most European countries combined, and preparing an extensive sabotage campaign across Europe, and chiefs of European military and intelligence agencies are issuing public warnings that this is a preparation for war against the rest of Europe.

Your mistake is projecting western sensibilities upon Russians and expecting them to act within the confines of western culture. They don't care about "losing a huge market", because they are driven by ideology. The timid western response to the war has proven two very important things for them: (1) western sanctions are not enough to suffocate the ability to wage war, (2) western sanctions will not lead to unrest and instability in Russia, (3) war is a tenable (albeit slow) method of achieving their goals.

Russian conclusions from the war so far are thus completely opposite of yours. The negative consequences have been much smaller than anyone expected: the economy has not collapsed, they have not run out of weapons and manpower, they have not seen mass protests, and they continue to make progress. They have learned that they can fire missiles into Europe and kill people every day and get away with it. They even have cheerleaders in the west who demand giving Russians whatever they want to make it stop.

> If you stop the war right now, zero.

You can rest assured that it will be nowhere near zero. Should fighting on the frontlines end, Russia will redeploy resources into weeding out any opposition to Russian occupation, which in practice means an extensive campaign of terror against civilian population, going as far as forced population transfers, mass executions and other crimes against humanity, as they have done everywhere else. This is their normal modus operandi.

Russia already operates concentration camps and death squads in occupied territories, and peace on the frontline will allow them to allocate more manpower to internal security and make the campaign more intense. This is a key point that naive peace activists get wrong: peace on the frontline will not mean peace for civilians in occupied territories, instead, things will get worse. Many will perish in "filtration" camps and "cleaning" operations where squads go from house to house and kill all inhabitants.

People arguing for peace without liberation of occupied territories don't understand what they are doing; it is a position held out sheer ignorance.

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