Ukraine, Russia, the DPR and LPR signed a ceasefire agreement, the Minsk Protocol, in September 2014.[40] Ceasefire breaches became rife, 29 in all,[41] and heavy fighting resumed in January 2015, during which the separatists captured Donetsk Airport. A new ceasefire, Minsk II, was agreed on 12 February 2015. Immediately after, separatists renewed their offensive on Debaltseve and forced Ukraine’s military to withdraw.[42] Skirmishes continued but the front line did not change. Both sides fortified their position by building networks of trenches, bunkers and tunnels, resulting in static trench warfare.[43][44] Stalemate led to the war being called a “frozen conflict”,[45] but Donbas remained a war zone, with dozens killed monthly.[46] In 2017, on average a Ukrainian soldier died every three days,[47] with an estimated 40,000 separatist and 6,000 Russian troops in the region.[48][49] By the end of 2017, OSCE observers had counted around 30,000 people in military gear crossing from Russia at the two border checkpoints it was allowed to monitor,[50] and documented military convoys crossing from Russia covertly.[51] All sides agreed to a roadmap for ending the war in October 2019,[52] but it remained unresolved.[53][54] During 2021, Ukrainian fatalities rose sharply and Russian forces massed around Ukraine’s borders.[55] Russia recognised the DPR and LPR as independent states on 21 February 2022 and deployed troops to those territories. On 24 February, Russia began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, subsuming the war in Donbas into it.
Make no Mistake: Russia is trying to destroy Ukraine since 2014. Russia is the agressor and needs to put in its place.
You can absolutely want peace and even agree to concessions to Russia to reach a sustainable peace, but this point is absolutely valid: there must be security guarantees, otherwise Putin will just use the armistice to rebuild its strength and attack again.
If Russia withdrew their troops, there would be peace immediately.
If Ukraine withdrew their troops, Ukraine would be no more - and there’s no indication Russia would stop there.
There wasn’t peace before Russia invaded. The far-right US puppet regime was slaughtering ethnic Russians in the east, and allowing NATO to move in troop and missile deployments to the Russian border.
Why would Ukraine behave differently after a Russian withdrawal, when they were escalating for 8 years prior to the invasion?
Arent your eyes watering? How can you even type? With putins cock jammed so far your throat? No gag reflex?
If Russia withdrew their troops, there would be peace immediately
That’s technically true. However, Russia uses military force in its sphere of influence for a reason, not solely because Putin bad (which he is, I’m a commie and Putin is fascist-adjacent at best).
Russia, like all big capitalist countries, wants to secure a sphere of influence in which it can do easy trade, influence the politics, and generally have support from these countries. The US does this for example with western Europe through NATO, and with less diplomatic methods by supporting coups and invading other countries. China does this through economic trade and through massive investment projects. Russia is in a weak position internationally, barely recovered economically from the dismantling of the USSR, and it’s surrounded by former soviet republics very much in a similar plane (barely economically recovered from the 90s crisis as a consequence of the dismantling of the USSR).
These post-soviet republics, such as Ukraine or Georgia, adopted capitalism (as Russia did) in a very quick and disorderly fashion, and the resulting oligarchs and capitalist owners ended up fumbled in a mix of pro-russian and pro-european/US positions.
The EU and the USA both exert pressure on these countries to try and bring them to their side. Being economically and politically stronger, they can use trade, diplomacy, intelligence and economic means to alienate these countries front the Russian sphere of influence. Russia, in a more precarious and weaker economic and political position, simply doesn’t have the means to maintain the diplomatic, economic and intelligence means to maintain these countries aligned to itself.
The war in Ukraine, much as the interference in Georgian and Romanian elections by the EU, mustn’t be understood as a struggle between freedom and oppression. It’s sadly just a struggle between two capitalist empires, namely Russia and US/EU, fighting for the control of smaller countries that they want aligned to themselves.
Once Russia doesn’t have the means to economically, diplomatically and through intelligence, to influence its former sphere of influence into staying by its side, the only option left is the military route. The US and the EU know this, and they keep trying to mess with Russia’s sphere of influence for gains to their empires. The reality is that there is no good side and no bad side: it’s just struggle between opposing empires.
So yes, technically if Russia withdrew its troops, there would be peace. But this peace would mean that firstly the surrounding regions around Russia, and Russia itself, would become colonies and vassal states of the western world. It wouldn’t mean “freedom” for Ukraine, as we can see by the exploitative contract for the minerals of Ukraine that the US offers. If you think the EU will offer something substantially less exploitative towards Ukrainians, you’re wrong.
Ukraine, sad as it is, as long as it remains a state between empires, will suffer the effects of both. And only socialism in Europe and Russia can offer a meaningful response to this.
- Russia was by no means forced into the conflict. They did it because Putin wants more power for himself.
- Russia has great diplomatic power. They managed to get a Russia loving president in US.
- If Ukraine falls, then there’s going to be some other nation that will be the ”state between empires”. Next will be Moldova. Maybe Russia is brave enough to take on the Baltic countries as well now when the future of NATO is uncertain. If that succeeds, then Poland will be next, and maybe also eastern Germany.
- Ukraine rejected the US offer because it didn’t offer any safety guarantees other than that Trump said that Putin said something. Why should Ukraine sign a deal that won’t end the war?
because Putin wants more power
They managed to get a Russia loving president in US
Holy moly “great men historiography” and “Russia is behind everything I hate” both in one single comment, that’s quite the feat. Great job firstly ignoring the material analysis and geopolitics of the situation and trying to explain history as “big man makes decision”, and then falling for the racist trope that the USA isn’t capable of electing a fascist without external interference, as if the US wasn’t founded in the fascist principles of the Lebensraum and slavery->segregation
If Ukraine falls
Ukraine will not fall. The objective of Russia in this war isn’t pure expansionism further to the west, it’s the imposition of its political principles and strategic desires in its sphere of influence. The Russian government knows it cannot control successfully for a long period of time the now (understandably) anti-Russian radicalised sections of central and western Ukraine, what it wants are concessions in geopolitical and strategic terms. Mark my words: the war in Ukraine will stop sooner than later, and after it, only some sections in eastern Ukraine will be annexed to Russia.
Furthermore your reasoning of “if this nation falls, there’s gonna be the next”, is exactly the way Russia feels about its geopolitical allies. In 1990, there was an agreement that NATO wouldn’t push beyond Germany, and that has been violated first with Poland and then with more countries. Why push a US-backed military alliance to the borders of the US-declared main geopolitical enemy? What consequences do you expect from that? Imagine a Russian-led military coalition pushing for the annexion of Mexico.
Ukraine rejected the US offer because it didn’t offer any safety guarantees
Regardless of safety guarantees, the resources of western Ukraine will be plundered by the NATO block, whether it be EU or the USA I cannot know, but mark my words when you see the economic situation of Ukraine in 2030
Really well explained in both your comments…
And only socialism in Europe and Russia can offer a meaningful response to this.
I mean maybe, but that’s utopian given that all socialism efforts so far where actually authoritan regimes using socialism as a label. We don’t know whether it’d help, we have exactly zero data points.
Regarding the Ukraine problem in particular and the situation of Ukraine during socialism in Europe, I have already made a comment demystifying some of the most pervasive anticommunist, russophobic propaganda. Please give it a read and show me your thoughts :)
If you think my solution is “utopian”, check out this data from OurWorldInData (hopefully a Bill Gates outlet won’t be suspect of tankieism or pro-russian tendencies for you) for GDP per capita in Ukraine since the dismantling of the Soviet Union. Ukraine never recovered its soviet levels of production and of quality of life for people. The USSR was no utopia, it was a very real thing, and it was materially and significantly better for Ukraine than whatever options exist now.
Mental gymnastics. Killing innocent people mercilessly is a problem, stop being an insane apologist for slaughter. Peace is peace.
OK, please tell me how the NATO block is any better in this regard, haven’t you literally just been witness to the most open genocide in history and NOBODY in the west did anything to stop it?
What is there to negotiate? If all the russians leave ukraine, ukranians will probably stop shooting them…
Russia has always firmly opposed expansion of NATO, including the missiles and NATO troops that were lined up at their border with Ukraine’s participation.
All those countries that joined NATO, Their sovereignty doesn’t end where hurt russian fee-fees begin
if Russia doesnt like it, then maybe they should reflect on how they acted like savage barbarians to those people throughout history. Maybe they should reflect that they aren’t entiteld to an “Empire” or a “Sphere of Influence” or whatever they want to call it. Reflect on the fact that Eastern and Central europe are not pawns and slaves to a larger power. but nations with agency, hopes, dreams and goals.
but they wont, Imperialism, Warmongering, and Genocide are married to the current excuse of “Russian Culture”
If it was about their sovereignty, it’s weird that you don’t mind NATO attacking their sovereignty to install pro-western politicians through corruption or straight up coups. “Sovereignty” only seems to matter when it’s anti-Russian.
It’s not about feelings. There were many agreements for NATO not to expand. They did it anyway. There are consequences for that.
Please educate me. Which countries had pro-western politicians “Installed”
And if you’re already typing Ukraine, boy do I have a bridge to sell you.
With maybe the exception of Serbia, Russia has been antagonistic and Imperialistic towards Europe for CENTURIES. Theres a reason Russia finds itself fighting against most/all of Europe every century. You need only ask the butchered populations of Eastern Europe who found themselves as Russian subjects at any point in history. The only reason they were ever friendly with Serbia, was because the Serbs are like a microchasm of the same thing the Russians did. Mini-mes, if you will.
you want to scream America bad, NATO bad, fine. but remove both of them from the equation, it wouldnt change the fact that the continent distrusts Russia for a reason.
Ukraine, Georgia, Bulgaria, Romania, etc.
Oh boy
So if they installed pro-western politicians in Ukraine, Why was the president of Ukraine at the time of Euromaidan checks notes Viktor Yanukovitch? the Pro-Russian fraudster who was once removed from the presidency after having cheated in the elections. and even afterward, managed to ratfuck his way into a term later on in 2010. Only to get Impeached and removed from power By his own government after he ordered the Berkut and Internal Troops to use lethal force against protestors.
this tired argument of western coups against these ex soviet countries always forgets to address the fact that a couple of suspicious phonecalls in embassies doesn’t hold the same power as millions of people taking to the streets over a government doing something that is widely unpopular.
if the CIA and all these other groups people accuse of toppling governments were as competent as fiction made them out to be, Joe Biden would still be President, Putin would be dead, Russia would be a balkanized state, and the Ukraine war would probably never have happened, and if it did, it would have been over by now with a Ukrainian victory.
There were many agreements for NATO not to expand.
Oh were there?
That’s interesting, considering how controversial it still is whether oral agreements ever existed in the first place. What isn’t controversial is of course that being oral-only, they can hardly be binding or transactionary. That is to say, the failure was to never transfer these agreements - if they even existed - into writing, bilaterally as that’s how you’d have to do it.
“We didn’t agree in writing” didn’t seem to prevent a war from breaking the agreement.
