I am heartened to see Trump pressuring the Russians into ceasefire... that instinct of his is correct.

But he's famously unreliable with numbers... I wouldn't grasp at that particular straw as a continue the war.

Both sides need to reach 0:0 ASAP.

Russia officially wants 20%. Stick to the current facts.

Ukraine could have got away with a much smaller percentage at Istanbul. But they took your advice. A half million casualties later, they have wisened up.

20%.

If thugs took 17% of my home, battered my family to a pulp, but my friends just kept mailing Amazon packages to me instead of showing up, i would appease the thugs with 20% of my home. So my family could live and have a roof over our heads.

So the answer is 20%.

But sssh... don't tell the thugs..

> Why aren't you calling for Russia to give up more land?

I would, if it would help the cause of peace. But it won't. So I won't. Instead, the most we can do is ask Russia to accept the land it has taken so far, plus some minor concessions (like Pokrovsk) and freeze the conflcit.

> How quickly you changed you mind.

My position has been consistent. I have lived in a land of a frozen conflict.

When this war started, you were enraged (justifiably) at your sense of justice being trampled upon. But I get the sense you are also speaking from ego now - your predictions and exhortations have been proven wrong by reality, and you don't like it.

> Don't Russian lives matter?

Don't all lives matter?

In a war with a million casualties, the easiest thing for foreigners to do is exhort one side or the other to keep spilling their guts. Both sides have millions of families with a serious loss -- there is enough anger to continue.

The harder, but more correct option, is to push for a peace that stops loss of live,and protects both parties from further losses. The most likely option for this is (a) asking Russia to accept the land it has taken so far, (b) some minor concessions from Ukraine (like Pokrovsk) and (c) freeze the conflcit.

Guts and glory stories are easy to recount when the spilt guts are not yours.

Remember, you or I could be born a desperate Russian or Ukrainian draftee. If you want to help, push for peace.

So the US banned chips - didn't work
So the US banned litho equipment - didn't work.
The last thing the US can ban is export of the tools that make litho equipment.

What tool would that be?

Money!!! Start making your own stuff folks. Don't be lazy. Do the hard thing.

There is no distinction between goods and services. It's all services. Services to cut your hair and file your tax. Services to make you coffee. Services to make you devices.

Sigh, it's WW2 all over again, and everyone's a Churchill. The British could fight WW2 because they had an empire backing them. The US could fight because, well, they had the most resources of any nation - they could do whatever they wanted.The Soviets resisted fiercely because they had strategic depth, they had resources, they had allies, and because the Nazis wanted to exterminate "subhumans" Slavs to create "living space" in the East. But the Ukraine war is not yet war of racial extermination - not even with evil savagery like with POWs and Bucha.

What does Putin want - really want? We can only suspect. We have is some vague brotherly platitudes about brotherly unity. His only formal and clearly stated territorial objectives are about 4 oblasts plus Crimea. That lines up with his actual ability - what he can get is about the same as what he wants. This is proven by his occupying most of the 4 oblasts, and Crimea. He does not have the power to occupy all of Ukraine. Not yet.

But the longer this war goes, the more militarily powerful Russia gets. The more militarised their society gets and the more skillful their army becomes. The more arms flows to North Korea and Iran.

    I don't want Medvedev or Kadyrov perched on the Russian nuclear button, ready to press it for religious or moral offenses. I don't want Iran with Su-57s, Houthis with Shaheds, and North Korea with Oreshniks. This is what we will get if the war continues for years. That is another reason why the war must stop sooner - not later.

But the main reason to ceasefire now is people are being killed. Most of these people do not want to fight a war (and prove it by evading draft - on both sides)

From your previous post:
> Ukraine is only getting stronger and Russia weaker. Russia's best and only chance was long long ago. It failed. Time to throw in the towel

Haven't you tired of saying this statement by now? Don't you realise that it is evidently false? For faith to work, it must be undergirded by truth

I lived in a country where part of the country was under occupation. It is a frozen conflict . People grow up and move on. No one, except for troublemakers, wants to restart the war to resolve the issue.

> Were you also calling for Russia to surrender to the Nazis?

No, I was not alive then. I also have no views on the Cathargian-Roman war.

> So why do you expect Ukraine to surrender this time? Russia has already shown it can't win

Compassion - surrender a sliver of territory to get to ceasefire, stop the slaughter and avoid losing even more.

Tell me, if your friend was getting thrashed in a bar fight against a bear of a man, AND you were too scared to pitch in, how would you behave? Would you encourage him to continue fighting, risking his life? Or try to pull the parties apart and stop the fight?

Read twice, post once..

No. not how you present it. I want Ukraine to surrender a LITTLE territory now to get some sort of imperfect ceasefire started. Maybe at the end of this process, the Russian end up with less than their intended 4 oblasts, and Ukrainians and Russians find a way to make peace and rebuild.

Better this than continual losses of men, material and territory, 'buffer zones' protruding into more oblasts, and a shattered Ukrainian rump state.

> America gave the soviets weapons and money and food and Germany was pushed out and ultimately defeated.

America didn't defeat Germany by only feeding and arming Russia. The United States itself ENTERED into the war and fought Germany and Japan directly. 16 million Americans served. America built 100 aircraft carrier groups, 8000+ ships, 230 subs, 89000 tanks, 300,000 aircraft and entered them into battle. Is even a smidgen of that happening here? Instead, America has setup a tab for Ukraine to buy expensive American arms using mineral resources that should otherwise be funding Ukraine's future instead.

A couple of decades? War is not linear. If Russia keeps pushing, there could be localised Ukrainian collapse, or even a wider collapse, much sooner than that. Even the Ukrainian military apparent shared this view. This gives me no satisfaction, not in the slightest. But it is reality.

Both Russia and Ukraine have already lost. They are losing more the longer they fight. But it's much much worse for Ukraine because it has a money and manpower shortage. Russia is also suffering, but its main backers -- dictatorial North Korea and China -- are more 'dedicated' -- one committing men, and the other trade support.

The US has changed its position a lot. The US is now primarily on its own side. The US has setup a tab for the Ukrainian, while Europe searches the world for 155mm shells.

If the US, or any other country, was solidly with the Ukrainians like in WW2, they would have joined the war. Do you see that happening? Do you want that happening?

Read John Mearsheimer - he correctly predicted the start of the war, the failure of the Ukranian counteroffensive, the failure of Ukraine's Kursk gambit, and the current trajectory of the war.

  If Ukraine continues on its current way, more people will die and Ukraine could end up with the peace of a routed nation, a rump state, with its institutions shells of what they were.
Is not peace better?

So I think Trump may be on the right path with 'ceasefire or sanctions'. I just wish Ukraine would help itself by trying creative solutions to get out of the rut it's in.

A couple of decades? War is not linear.

Both Russia and Ukraine have already lost. They are losing more the longer they fight. But it's worse for Ukraine because it has a money and manpower shortage.

No, the US is primarily on its own side - just as every other country is. If the US (or any other country), was solidly with the Ukrainians like it was with the USSR in WW2, it would have joined the war. Do you see that? The US also built 9000 naval vessels in WW2, most of them Liberty ships to support their allies. Do you see such an effort happening now?

Read John Mearsheimer - he correctly predicted the start of the war, the failure of the Ukranian counteroffensive, the failure of its Kursk gambit, and the current trajectory of the war.

A couple of decades? War is not linear.

Both Russia and Ukraine have already lost. But it's worse for Ukraine because it has a money and manpower shortage.

No, the US is primarily on its own side - just as every other country is. If the US (or any other country), was solidly with the Ukrainians like it was with the USSR in WW2, it would have joined the war. Do you see that? The US also built 9000 naval vessels in WW2, most of them Liberty ships to support their allies. Do you see such an effort happening now?

Read John Mearsheimer - he correctly predicted the start of the war, the failure of the Ukranian counteroffensive, the failure of its Kursk gambit, and the current trajectory of the war.

Correction: "Kursk gambit"

A couple of decades? War is not linear.

Both Russia and Ukraine already lost. But it's worse for Ukraine because it has a money and manpower shortage.

No, the US is primarily on its own side - just as every other country. If it was solidly with the Ukrainians like it was with the USSR in WW2, it would have joined the war. The US also built 9000 naval vessels in WW2. Do you see that happening now?

Read John Mearsheimer - he predicted the start of the war, the failure of the counteroffensive, the failure of the Kursh gambit, and its current trajectory.

Ukraine is slowly losing land. Russia is slowly winning land. Both are quickly losing people. But Russia clearly has a weak upper hand.

So why not cut human losses? Ukraine can calculate the land they will likely lose in a set time (say, with US intelligence help). So in return for a ceasefire, they offer to handover some of the land they'd be losing anyway as a ceasefire sweetener. This land would have changed hands anyway at human cost. Now both sides save lives.

This gives both sides a chance for the blood-veil over their eyes to clear up. As the fury of war cools a bit, hopefully better sense takes hold and both sides work ernestly to extend the ceasefire and achieve a peace.

We need #SmartCourage. Not #DumbCourage