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Comment by chvid | Hacker News Reader

Europe should be leading the diplomatic efforts towards Russia, not the US.

This sort of rhetorics leads nowhere useful.

This is a joke, right? Diplomacy is something Russians completely disregard, lie about, and only agree to do when they are the only one benefiting, and even then only until they decide to break whatever agreements were made, because they've done so every single time so far. How do you have any diplomacy with someone like that? You can't.

Right now the US under Trump is leading the diplomatic efforts toward Russia. I think Europe and the Ukraine would have been better served with European leaders doing this.

Trump is just rambling. His 24 hours to end the war was an election slogan.

Putin only understands the language of power. European countries don't want Ukraine to lose but can't commit themselves to the billions it would cost to win.

Russia has reaffirmed Ukrainian territorial sovereignty in 1990s, after splitting along said boundaries, in return for concessions partly in their favour (Ukrainian nuclear disarmament), then invaded Ukraine. Twice. And that's ignoring tons of smaller violations - some of which are still pretty big.

What deal can you make with someone who just doesn't stick to the deals they agree to?

Then again in 2003. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Russian%E2%80%93...

These weren't "concessions", they were very eager: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/01/ukraine-nuclear-...

Russia doesn't want to be involved in diplomatic efforts with Europe, it doesn't suit their purposes. With the US however it can drive a wedge, so "diplomacy" it is.

By leading you mean writing tweets with scary threats and then following usual strategy TACO.

Rolling red carpets for putin is actually undermining EU efforts to isolate Russia. Russian should be welcome only within their allies: Eritrea and North Korea.

This is basically every superpower.

I don't think Russia is a superpower or that all superpowers act like that. Russia is just a mafia state.

Signs of superpower:

1. Usage of arms introduced 70+ years ago.

2. Assault troops equiped with civil cars and motorcycles.

3. Logistics powered by donkeys.

4. Begging North Korea to help with troops and ammo.

There have been literally (not figuratively literally, literally literally) zero diplomatic resolutions of military conflicts or tensions with Russia during the Putin era. None. The closest one you can see, if you squint extremely hard, is the detente of 8 years that that followed the invasion of Crimea. And then we know what happened.

Conflicts in Putin's Russia end militarily, always (usually in victory or stalemate, though he for sure "lost" in Syria), or at best a lie in preparation for the next war. Negotiated peace is not a thing.

Negotiated peace can be a thing if there is enough of a threat behind it. I imagine Putin would like to be able to nuke Ukraine but the US have threatened bad things if he does. I think if the west had made more of a threat before the 2022 invasion Putin may well have backed off but Biden was like if you only invade a little bit we won't do much which is kind of how it went.

> Negotiated peace can be a thing if

"This hasn't worked for 30 years, but this time it will for sure!" makes for pretty awful geopolitical strategy, historically. But you do you.

(Your broader point that Putin's actions are constrained by nuclear deterrents is obviously correct. But it's very clearly not a point about diplomacy!)

I'm not convinced it hasn't worked. There were rumors the US diplomats said to Putin that if he used nukes in Ukraine then probably the US would a) take out his military in Ukraine and b) target him to be killed personally. The diplomatic bit is saying that privately rather than actually getting the nuking and killing going.

How nuking Ukraine will help to occupy and control Ukraine? Imagine tomorrow Kyiv is nuked. Troops are still there and now have even more will to fight russians.

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