Even Russia would be better off today if we'd given Ukraine the tools to beat them back a couple of years ago.
Tough decisions have to be made and, despite public criticism and posture, every EU leader is secretly hoping USA can broker a peace deal and this all just kind of goes away.
As for this "going away" like it or not that doesn't work and it isn't going to happen no matter how much people would like to wish it away. Russia taking a break to re-arm and recover isn't the same as "it's over" and frankly that's why Ukraine is stuck fighting the way they are.
You're also missing the value that Western nations get from Ukraine fighting Russia, both in terms of disrupting Russia, and advancing the state of the art of drone warfare, EW, etc without the rest of us having to fight and die for it. The amount of money involved when considered against those factors and the economic reality of an EU-integrated Ukraine makes this entirely sustainable economically.
Why would Europe decide anything? Ukraine is a sovereign country, nobody should be making decisions on its behalf!
Especially not about war and its teritory!
Edit: EU countries should give Ukraine part of their territories, to compensate for land stolen by Russia! This way Ukraine becomes part of NATO and EU, everybody wins!
And nothing Ukraine can decide to do on its own.
This is such a defeatist attitude. By that logic North Vietnam would never have recovered South Vietnam.
A lot of things can happen if you just refuse to be defeated. Hannibal killed almost the entire Roman army at Cannae, but the war ended 15 years later with full victory by the Romans.
In 1940, Britain was the only country in Europe fighting Germany. Many had fallen, were neutral or were fighting with the Nazis (Russia, Italy, etc). But in the end Britain won.
For clarity I'm talking proper empire where you send in troops and install a viceroy, not just trading with places which is mostly what China does. The Taiwan thing is a special case of the communist party trying to take the remaining bit of China which has held out for a century.
So, if Ukraine cedes the territory, they have just legitimized the Russian claim to that territory while getting nothing in return. This is why talks have always fallen through up to this point. Russia wants Ukraine, Ukraine does not want to be Russian. There is no middle ground.
However it builds up its military with the aid of partner countries sufficiently to stop Russia.
That's my bet - it gets frozen with some territory lost but with Ukraine able to defend itself a bit like USSR v Finland. I daresay it could still go like USSR v Afganistan too.
And the $100 billion/year military aid can go on indefinitely, because it's only a fraction of the increased military spending due to the war. If the war ends too soon with the terms favoring Russia, Europe would have to spend even more to increase the pace of its remilitarization.
I'm hoping for a peace deal.
Alternatively, people could be reading hollerith's post as "I want Ukraine to do whatever's necessary to make peace with Russia," which is obviously downvote-worthy.
I personally chose to read it as "I want a peace deal that involves Russia G'ing TFO and paying reparations," but he did leave room for other interpretations.
"pretext to gather forces to attack Russia in the future"
For goodness sake Russia is 100% the aggressor in this. If they hadn't started killing the neighbours no one would be hitting them.
The total NATO military budgets are $1.8 tn per year. They could easily chip in $100bn a year indefinitely to defeat their no 1 adversary. There won't always be a Putin fanboy in the White House cutting all funds.
its fucked up and while i cheer on The US/Germany/France/Poland etc backing Ukraine, they're all guilty of paricipating in the drawn out decimating of Ukraine.
As a taxpayer I'd consider it one of the world's great bargains, shutting down Russian imperialism before they cause even more grief.