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President Volodymyr Zelensky believes that Ukraine’s partners “are afraid of Russia losing the war” and would like Kyiv “to win in such a way that Russia does not lose,” Zelensky said in a meeting with journalists attended by the Kyiv Independent.
Kyiv’s allies “fear” Russia’s loss in the war against Ukraine because it would involve “unpredictable geopolitics,” according to Zelensky. “I don’t think it works that way. For Ukraine to win, we need to be given everything with which one can win,” he said.
His statement came on May 16 amid Russia’s large-scale offensive in Kharkiv Oblast and ongoing heavy battles further east. In a week, Russian troops managed to advance as far as 10 kilometers in the northern part of Kharkiv Oblast, according to Zelensky.
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Yeah although if Russia wins it’d involve “unstable geopolitics” too.
This could be a long war.
I said it many times before - no one wants this war to end except for Ukrainians. It’s just a very profitable venture for the rest of the world.
Putin will want it over. It’s an embarrassment to him that Ukrainians don’t want him and have resisted him so effectively.
And lose all the money? Haha, no.
For the US maybe, but I don’t think it is profitabel for Europe.
Refugees aren’t cheap (even though ukrainian people might integrate easier than others and later add value), a good part of money for weapon purchases flows towards America since they have more immediate capacities, and long term we do want to integrate Ukraine, which means Europe will ultimately bear a significant chunk of rebuilding costs.
Ukrainian refugees are great. They’re highly educated, have high standards of work ethics and are just great people overall. I’m definitely biased as a person from xUSSR country who is also 1/4 Ukrainian myself, but I’m really glad to see more Ukrainians in Europe.
How is it profitable?
When billions of dollars worth of equipment is shipped to Ukraine, that’s billions of dollars going to the American military industrial complex. Some of them might prefer if Russia weren’t dramatically weakened, so as to still have something to point to when lobbying for additional military spending.
Arms manufacturers have no reason to produces weapons if the ones they made before aren’t being used. Pretty much every US politician is invested in these companies. War = profit.
It’s a gross cycle.
Different countries profit in different ways.
US got rid of old weapons stock and pumped shit loads of money into making new weapons.
Norway started selling fuck ton of oil and gas to Europe to the point that they now own almost 2% of the world through their sovereign fund.
Heck, even North Korea has finally entered the global market through trade deals with Russia.
The list goes on. Sadly only Ukraine is suffering.
I feel like for a number of the allies, their main goal has been to drain Russia of resources, even if it costs the lives of Ukrainians.
This seems to be the sad realpolitik truth. It explains how some of the aid has been given.
Enough to keep grinding down the Kremlin’s war machine, not enough to actually take the Kremlin out of the fight.
In a more utilitarian analysis, this might be the best for the greatest number of people. From an empathetic human perspective… it’s pretty fucking dark to see young Ukrainian men dying for this. Still better than living under the Kremlin’s boot.
Fuck.
I understand the math but disgusted at the moral/ethics.
Destruction would potentially cause post WWI vibe, could create a massive migration issue, cause further suffering or the development of horrible black market bullshit or anything in between, that power vacuum would be awful.
Burn out would probably cause more revolutionary thinking and inspire a change in direction.
Fuck. I honestly just want people to not fuckin die.
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
As long as there are people willing to kill to oppose it, death is an unfortunate necessity for democracy’s preservation.
don‘t follow people who say stuff like that, too
I wonder whether it’s possible to fight wars without – ideally – having casaulties at all.
For example, sedating instead of killing. Afterwards prison camps or something like that. Admittedly, given the scale, it is financially and logistically a tremendous effort. But how much must a human life “be worth” in order to be spared?
There are other obvious issues like civil unrest, if the other party keeps killing soldiers of one’s own military.
Still, it’s better than to end lifes from my perspective. One side must be the bigger one.
We spend so much effort and resources into specialising how to kill each other. But we don’t use that resources for finding alternative ways.
If there are people who really want to kill each other, throw them together and leave the rest alone.
That’s one interesting concept of future wars. I like it. Walking down the streets and bam sleeping gas!
Wake up in some waiting room with thousands of others, massive headache, getting water and pain meds handed by enemy military personnel. Watch the latest statistics on which nation got most people in possession. Get sent home, learn new language, get used to new religion. War is exhausting but also fun.Reminds me when I was a foreign exchange student
I guess you can deseibe many experiences with ‘exhausting but fun’
I’m assuming the West’s analysis is that there’s no better political reality inside Russia in sight, even with Putin gone, so they’re better off just declawing the bear. Which to a large degree has already happened…
Meanwhile the upside is that the collective West gets to try tactics and weapons for modern warfare (drones, ai, analysis) and get ready for the next fight. They also gained a fight-ready, trained ally in Ukraine and a sharper focus in Europe of what’s at stake and everything that that involves (eg energy and supply chain independence).
The downside is obviously the deaths of Ukrainians in the front line, but I don’t know how many of them could be prevented without NATO getting properly involved.
I think it’s more down to the fact that regime change initiated from the outside doesn’t go well. And if the west tries to take out Putin directly there’s a very high likelihood of it resulting in a nuclear war.
The sanctions the west has in place are designed to nudge some powerful people within Russia to take out Putin. Problem is Putin has been around long enough that he’s been able to make it extremely difficult for someone to make a coup happen.
Meanwhile the upside is that the collective West gets to try tactics and weapons for modern warfare (drones, ai, analysis) and get ready for the next fight.
Russia also gets this experience. And we can get this kind of information from more traditional sources (ie. Israel) without Russia getting it.
It would be better for the West if Putin was gone, but that needs to be done by Russian, and that’s easier said than done.
I wouldn’t look for too much nefarious intent for things that can be explained by regime change being hard to pull off (and very risky when it’s a nuclear power) and war is not a simple thing.
The goal is to provide enough aid to Ukraine to defeat the invading army without providing so much aid that Ukraine becomes an existential threat to Russia. There being an existential threat to a nuclear power can have some bad outcomes. So it’s a balancing act for the West. This is what Zelensky is alluding to with “to win in such a way that Russia does not lose.”
And of course there’s a lot of shenanigans involving Russian assets in the west doing everything they can to sabotage aid efforts. That’s a significant factor in all of this that shouldn’t be ignored. Providing military aid to Urkaine is a no-brainer for geopolitical interests, but no-brain Russian shills are doing their best to block it.
A long drawn out war of attrition isn’t actually in the best interests for the West. Russia gains experience, improves their weaponry and has ample opportunities to test that technology in the battlefield. They’ve been updating the battlefield doctrine to include ways to effectively use new technologies like drones. This isn’t something the West wants.
Best outcome for the West is Ukraine drives out the Russian Military, and there’s a peace agreement that resolves all disputed territory which would pave the way for Ukraine to join NATO. The longer the war drags on, the longer it will be before Ukraine is part of NATO.
I know that Russia has threatened the use of nukes, but I find it hard to believe they’d actually follow through. Seems like a red line that would activate more direct action from lots of other countries against Russia. Then again, red lines have been made pretty flexible in the past, including recently.
Seems like a red line that would activate more direct action from lots of other countries against Russia.
Yeah they don’t want direct action from lots of other countries because that would be an existential threat to them. But if Ukraine is an existential threat, why would a few more stop them from using everything they have in a desperate attempt to save themselves?
A cornered rat is going to fight with everything it’s got when it’s about to be stomped on. The fear of a couple more people coming over to also stomp on it doesn’t change anything for the rat when it knows it’s already going to be stomped dead.
That’s a nice way of calling people helping you cowards for doing it half hearted cuz they’re also afraid of your opponent. I think the message was sent.
He MUST know how much influence Russia has in the halls of power and media of his allies as well.
Ukraine fights a war on MANY fronts. Not all of them with bullets.
A large part of this war is centered on propaganda and information warfare- something Russia excels at
Unfortunately they’re probably the best at it. It must suck to live in a country that honesty will likely get you killed.
Some of us are more afraid that they will win and get ideas that they can test article 5 in the Baltics/Poland and survive.
Yeah. I wonder if they still would be afraid of letting Russia lose, if the war was against Poland, Sweden or freaking Germany!
It’s true, and they’re not wrong, nuclear Yugoslavia would be scary. Unfortunately I don’t think there’s an alternative, Putin rang a bell that can’t be un-rung.
when they decided to violate the Budapest Memorandum everything went out the door, including russia’s future. it’s going to be very, very hard to ever get back to the economic or industrial positions they occupied previously.
their people will suffer, and the only way it will end is if they hang putin from a light pole.
What economic positions did they occupy, exactly? All they had were raw resources - coal, oil, gas, and maybe wheat. They can’t produce anything else of value.
resource extraction for sure. some tourism? but resource extraction was the vast bulk.
Unfortunately even that wouldn’t solve it. There is no successor. This is on purpose so there’s no motive to hang Putin from a light pole. If he goes, it’s nuclear-armed Yugoslavia, or at least musical chairs coups, because there’s so many people with an equally legitimate claim to the throne.
Short of time travel there’s no obvious way to keep things normal. The “lose nicely” thing is basically fueled by wishful thinking that maybe, if the West is nice and measured enough, we’ll get lucky. (Which you could argue is what got us here)
oh well, guess we should all roll over and just let putin fuck everyone right?
NAH. I’d rather go out fighting.
That’s not what I said.
Yugoslavia is coming back? Hot damn the Balkans are gonna get together to kick all our asses led by zombie Tito. We deserve it.
Maybe it is all a plot by Bosnia to have (meaningful amount) of direct sea access.
Does that mean that Czechoslovakia will also reform? Cause I really don’t think that would be a good idea…
Slovakia and Prague will be joined back together when the EU gets more federal due to the resource wars. No need to rush it.
It’s not what we expected, but everyone will agree geopolitics is much improved. This time, he not only smokes in the white house, but has an arm fall off somewhere unfortunate. /s
The west is legit afraid of Russia’s collapse because once again someone will have to bail Russia out and it’ll either be another 1988 mess or a new toy for China.
What will happen to Russia once it’s fully in “war economy” and loses the war?
The west is legit afraid of Russia’s collapse because once again someone will have to bail Russia out
Yeah… that’s not what happened at all. What happened was the Western capitalist neocolonial plundering of the post-Soviet states through neoliberal shock therapy. And that’s why the US especially hates Putin: he kicked the plunderers out of Russia, interrupting their plundering.
Uh huh. Sure. He sure swapped those “plunderers” for his buddies so they could all buy billion dollar yachts.
That’s not how Russian oligarchs originally became oligarchs. They did it the same way it’s always done in neolocolonized countries: by being compradors to predatory foreign states and capitalists.
Yeah. You’re unable to discuss this topic without passing it through the “west is bad” filter. As someone who grew up in the eastern European block, you have no idea what you’re talking about. When people parrot the “shock doctrine”, they are not interested in analyzing history. They are interested in sounding rhetorically virtuous because right now “punching the west” is so hot even though it doesn’t really contribute anything to the conversation.
It’s really a matter of Ukraine hanging on for as long as it takes for the price of oil and gas to collapse again. That’s the only thing that can get Russia to stop.
Oil and gas collapsed because of reduced demand from the pandemic and Putin refusing to cut production so he could tank US oil. Oil isnt likely to collapse again anytime soon.
3 month total lockdown to save Ukraine and defeat Russia
Kyiv’s allies “fear” Russia’s loss in the war against Ukraine because it would involve “unpredictable geopolitics,” according to Zelensky.
Is “unpredictable geopolitics” a euphemism for ‘nuclear war’?
More like money people don’t want their money fucked with anymore than it has been by this war
In so far as they want a predictable outcome, because unpredictable outcomes arent profitable
Not when you play all sides.
Bingo
Be more expensive later if Putin wins, because he won’t stop at Ukraine.
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The free countries.
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I think they meant other countries, which have liberty and democracy engraved to their core.
Also, please keep it civil. There was no need to be so condescending. If you’re unhappy with the answer, there are better ways to express this. :)
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Come on, you know. EU, UK, US, etc. The old allies.
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The devil you know…
So much of the current internal domestic Russian zeitgeist is the idea of national strength compared to other nations. Pride comes with their strongman. If they are finally faced with the truth that neither Russia or its strongman are strong, it could lead to Russia/Russians trying to assert it in other ways to try to rationalize it. Or Russia could simply collapse from within orphaning hundreds of nuclear warheads leading to opportunists selling warheads to the highest bidders. The only thing worse than Russia having nuclear weapons is every two-bit terrorist or backwater dictator getting their hands on them.
Keep in mind none of this in my mind means we stop supporting Ukraine economically and militarily. Russia made its bed. We can’t choose our actions based upon trying to save Russia from itself.
I once mentioned how Billionaires will eventually get Nuclear Weapons and was ridiculed. Turns out it’ll happen sooner than I thought. Truly a carrot and stick situation.
I think that’s one of the meanings. If a Russian loss led to the sudden collapse of the Russian state or a radical retraction of the Russian economy, who knows what the consequences would be?
I don’t think that’s a justification for not letting Russia lose, but it is a big bag of who-the-fuck-knows.
Imo it’s the find out part of Russians fucking around. Don’t give a fuck what repercussions or hardships they face next, THEY started this shit
The concern isn’t about the consequences faced by Russia, but the impact on the rest of the world. Like, if Russia were to collapse, I think most would agree that Egyptians don’t deserve to find out what suddenly not having $1.7 billion in wheat would mean, right? I don’t think anyone has any idea what that would mean for, say, Tajikistan and other post-Soviet states with economies closely tied to Russia. Collapse would be chaos and it wouldn’t stay confined within Russia’s borders.
And, again, I don’t think that justifies preventing Russia from losing. There are worse concerns for Russia winning. And the idea that Russia neither winning nor losing could be a sustainable final state is probably a fantasy.
I was thinking the collapse of the state, and China picking up some of what’s left.
I don’t think so, not necessarily. It means that the existence of russia stops some countries from doing some things, if you remove russia, those countries will not be counterbalanced anymore
Probably a broader umbrella of bad stuff. If Putin goes, there’s no real successors, so it’s kind of anyone’s game to be the next dictator, and chaos potential is very high. This is actually by design, as a form of coup-proofing.
It might not be MAD, and in fact probably won’t be directly, but massive proliferation? Sure, lots of people would trade a lot of guns for a nuke. One of the splinter states invading NATO directly? Could also happen. Russian oil and gas going off the market really fast, and putting Europe in a tough spot? Almost certain, at least to some degree. And then at the end of it, who knows what the map of Eurasia looks like.
When they say unpredictable, they mean unpredictable, and they have great reason to be wary of unpredictability.
This is and always has been a proxy war and a siege meant to exhaust Russian resources slowly and without rapidly escalating to more destructive methods.
Unfortunately this is a big part of why the first big summer counter-offensive by Ukraine stalled; NATO delayed aid by just enough that it guarunteed the war would drag out.
Personally I think it’s about money for the industrial military complex. If the war had ended quickly while Ukraine had men, momentum and the initiative it would mean less money for industrialists.
Even US generals like Patreaus were predicting the delay by the Biden admin on F-16s etc. would lead to a massively protracted conflict.
It makes one ashamed that when our country finally does have a righteous cause for our massive military complex our leaders are still playing grab ass trying to make a buck while Ukrainians are fighting to exist. It’s one of Biden’s (and NATOs) biggest failures.
The insane amount of power that US military industrial complex has over our country and therefore the world is completely fucked.
Eisenhower was right.
Siege of whom? Normally, a siege ends when the sieger goes home. If russia wants to stop bleeding, go home.
Ukraine is currently under siege. That’s who is being sieged. The proxy war is because no one in the West wants a direct conflict between two nuclear powers. Russia is being bled by a thousand cuts here. They’ve lost over 70% of their stockpiles, probably more like 80-90% at this point, so far and every day that Putler continues his war, it adds more years of Russia ceasing to be a global power at any level.
How is it a proxy war if it was russia which started it?
I don’t think it started as a proxy war. Russia just decided to be stupid, but at this point it may very well be a proxy war in fact.
It’s to pretty much everyone’s benefit (except Ukraine’s) for this to drag out for a nice long time. The more manpower and material Russia and their allies burns up in this stupidity, the longer the rest of Europe can breath freely. It gives them time to rebuild the armies that they have allowed to atrophy. There’s probably more to it and it’s callus as fuck, but that’s the math I see.
It is very much to Ukraine’s benefit to drag out this war if the alternative is Russian subjucation.
If on the other hand the alternative you are seeking is flooding Ukraine with Western-provided weapons to the point that they annihilate the invaders and win quickly… yeah, that would be better for Ukraine than a drawn-out war.
It’s a kind of mix of a proxy war. Russia is involved itself but Ukraine is used as a proxy by the west I guess?
People forgot quickly how hesitant the European countries were, and still are, to send equipment to Ukraine. Germany didn’t send anything but helmets for a long while. They also cancelled North Stream, leading to increased inflation and lessened economic competitive viability. If anything, the proxy war is exhausting both Russian and European economies, with the US and China ready to scoop up the scraps in preparation for their intensifying trade war.
Why would they? Much of Eastern Europe expects the US to step in for defense, and use that fact to justify lowering expenditure on their own military.
Sweden has that shit figured out though
Don’t fuck with the Swedish
The European countries bordering Russia, i.e. the Baltics, Nordics and Eastern Europe, contribute a far bigger percentage of their GDP to aid Ukraine than the others (if you ignore the new policies of Slovakia and Hungary). The US and UK gives/sells the most weapons, but Ukraine is pretty much bankrolled by the EU/EEA.
The point is that the EU has sustained big economic losses from cutting ties with Russia, leading to movement of industry and production away from Europe and over to the other biggest economies.
Yeah, it’s a difficult situation. I haven’t looked at the recent numbers regarding European countries contributions and their own militarization, I’m sure they’ve drastically increased since the war started
Yes. Germany and many other European countries had little to none political support for investing in their militaries. Now they do, and it is going to be a problem later on. Capitalists want return on their investments, after all.
The EU is very much on the top of the global neocolonial food chain, but they were mostly (looking at you France) not doing like super a lot (looking at you UK and US) of “interventions” to secure their interests all over the world.*
* Most Western powers are part of NATO, which is its own can of worms. Still, Russia invading Ukraine has made support for NATO much more popular (see Sweden and Finland as case studies), and now the bloc is more consolidated than ever. The timing could not be worse with respect to the overtly fascist leaders gaining traction in the very same countries.
great point re: contribute a far bigger percentage of their GDP to aid Ukraine than the others
Slovakia and Hungary
Will be fascinating to see what happens next with Slovakia. And Georgia’s protests don’t seem to be dimming either. Hungary… eh…
Everyone in Europe knows really well that there is a reactionary wind blowing through the lands. Historically, this has been conducive to conflict and war. The conditions are different right now than then, but I fear not enough.
I would love a different world order based on international cooperation in lieu of exploitation, but I do not see this as a probable outcome of tensions rising and reactionaries taking power.
It is definitely worth keeping an eye on the protofascist and overtly fascist movements gaining traction, since they pretty much tell us exactly how they are going to fuck things up.
yep. The only hope I see for international cooperation is for tens of thousands to die from weather related catastrophes, and even then, it’s only a ‘maybe we can get our shit together…?’
Different… Participants… View… Conflicts… Differently?
a proxy war and a siege meant to exhaust Russian resources slowly and without rapidly escalating to more destructive methods.
funny how Putin started a siege on russia by invading a country they were treaty-bound to protect… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum
Yes and in return Ukraine eliminated all nuclear weapons. This will be an example used for the future for why countries will NEVER agree to denuclearize regardless of the language in a “treaty”.
This is true. Russia saber rattling about using nuclear weapons, doesn’t mean much. Putin knows this would not lead to victory and likely would end up with him losing power and likely life.
The scary time is what he will do when he will see his power slipping. Thankfully in 1992 Gorbachev managed to handle it peacefully. Hopefully when it happens it will end up similarly.
Europe should step up and commit troops and real weapons. America will have your back, but Europe should be the next to jump in.
The minute a NATO member put boots on the ground, it’s a bigger can of worms that is opened.
A NATO country can do whatever it wants with its troops, even engaging in a war overseas, without any kind of implications for the wider alliance.
The only way it would further escalate is if Putin thinks he can then attack/invade those countries in response, which may trigger the mutual defense article of NATO.
Or swing the nuclear dick, make everyone nervous and make them swing their nuclear dicks as well.
The point still stand, if a NATO member engages fights in Ukraine, the outcome is not predictable and it escalates the conflict.
It’s never a war in a vacuum with only two sides.
Sure. But he’s done an awful lot swinging his nuclear dick already.
But that is true. It would obviously be perceived by Russia as a massive escalation for any other country to send troops into Ukraine. I’m just making the point that just because a NATO member is involved doesn’t necessarily mean all NATO members would be involved, even if they suffered casualties.
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The outcome of the war in Ukraine has always been a game of chicken, being which side is willing to escalate to nuclear weapons, and whether the other side may or may not back down. The logic of escalation has always been that no possible gain exceeds the losses caused by a nuclear exchange. The Madman theory ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory ) is about convincing one’s opponent that is one is not rational, and is willing to use nuclear weapons despite the losses. The threat then, is that Putin, seeing himself politically vulnerable because of his losses, but still powerful enough to command the military to use nuclear weapons, would demonstrate his willingness to use nuclear weapons, even if not directly against a military target, in a demonstration (perhaps in the Black Sea) or an exoatmospheric test.
No it hasnt.
If you think Russian would nuke “their land” or at best a “bordered neighbour”. You’ve lost the plot. Also the title of their ag industry “lost plots”…
You are entirely wrong. Russian doctrine with nuclear weapons has cases in which nuclear weapons would be detonated as area deniability. You nuke an ingress route, it will keep infantry and tanks from being able to attack in that direction.
They also had doctrine about losing land and essentially turning it into a Carthage situation and making it completely unlivable.
That’s all well and good, if this were 1910. We have airplanes now that can drop entire tank battalions out the back. Blocking an ingress route just means we go around with our mobile Taco Bell and McDonald’s.
Even Stalin knew better than to fuck with the US in the air or at sea, and they’ve spent the last 80 years becoming the Global Boogeyman, only to turn out to be a schoolyard bully, meanwhile when the US military announces that it can do “_______,” they never release the real capabilities of their syatems so we don’t care if they nuke themselves. They wanna step up to bat, we’re gonna speedrun the 3 day war in 72 hours.
The Russians have nuclear submarines. No amount of bellicose bravado will blunt the sting of those.
Yeah, and they are so noisy we have known where they all are, as well as their “attack subs,” since the late '60s. Russia makes a move and we sink all of theirs immediately, since we have triple the amount they do
Nuclear war is a very real possibility. If Putin becomes desperate enough, he will try to go to the very edge of brinksmanship. In this situation, with launch on warning, any perceived provocation could rapidly escalate. As the fear of a preemptive strike increases, so does the probability of a preemptive strike. Rationality gives way to fear. This is the logic and danger of brinksmanship: that the more you rely on it, the more likely it is to escalate out of control before one side backs down.
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