I view it as highly unlikely (<10%) that Putin would accept “Vietnam” without first going nuclear, because it would almost certainly result in him being overthrown and jailed or killed.
Why are you saying “almost certain” instead of giving a probability?
Many people who have power in Russia have power because they were over decades loyal to Putin. They are likely going to lose power if Putin would be overthrown.
I recently heard from a Ukrainian that part of the demands of the EU for what Ukraine would need to do in terms of minority protection of Russian speakers is pro-Russian propaganda. The Ukrainians pretend that Elon Musk that spends gifted them ~80 million worth of StarLink is anti-Ukrainian.
One interesting aspect of the reaction to Musk’s proposal in German media, is the absence of citing anyone from the German government. As winter progresses the pain from lack of Russian gas will rise in Europe, moving troops in Winter in the Ukraine is harder. That shifts the politics into making a peace deal more likely.
It’s quite clear why it’s worth suffering when Russland attacks parts of Ukraine that don’t want to be Russian. On the other hand, the case for why European should suffer to support Ukraine to retake Crimea when Crimeans don’t want to be part of Ukraine is much harder.
This months leak that they admonished an Ukrainian operation for assassinating a Russian citizen in Moscow. That suggests that even the US is not willing to let the Ukrainians just do whatever they want.
On the other hand, I also view it as highly unlikely (<10%) that the West would accept a “Kosovo” scenario where Russia is granted a peace deal where it keeps everything it’s annexed, because if the powers that be in the West were that appeasement-minded, they would presumable have opted for a “Cuba” scenario in 2021 by acquiescing to Russia’s demand that Ukraine never join NATO.
Russia asked for more than just NATO expansion. They also asked for decentralization of power to protect the Russian minority. It would be easy for the West to agree not to expand NATO but not to get Ukraine to provide decentralization.
Russia also wanted to withdraw of US troops from the baltic states which is also a nonstarter.
Russia also wanted to withdraw of US troops from the baltic states which is also a nonstarter.
Yeah, that was clearly a non-starter, and perhaps a deliberate one they could drop later to save face and claim they’d won a compromise. My point was simply that since the West didn’t even offer a promise not to let Ukraine into NATO, I don’t think they’d ever agree to a “Kosovo”.
Huge concessions are usually not publically announced, so it’s hard to know what was actually on offer.
The West would easily agree with giving Russian speakers in those Ukrainian regions with a majority that identifies as primarily Russian speakers the kind of minority rights that the French population of Quebec has. On the other hand, Ukraine does not want to give its Russian speakers those kinds of rights.
I don’t believe that Ukraine would have the votes in parliament to change the Ukrainian constitution in the necessary way as it seems even unwilling to give Russian speakers the rights for which the EU asks as a precondition to joining the EU.
The population of Russia believed that the minority rights of the populations of Russians in Ukraine got violated and that the Russian government needed to act on that front. Getting a concession on NATO but not on minority rights just wouldn’t have been enough domestically.
Why are you saying “almost certain” instead of giving a probability?
Many people who have power in Russia have power because they were over decades loyal to Putin. They are likely going to lose power if Putin would be overthrown.
I recently heard from a Ukrainian that part of the demands of the EU for what Ukraine would need to do in terms of minority protection of Russian speakers is pro-Russian propaganda. The Ukrainians pretend that Elon Musk that spends gifted them ~80 million worth of StarLink is anti-Ukrainian.
One interesting aspect of the reaction to Musk’s proposal in German media, is the absence of citing anyone from the German government. As winter progresses the pain from lack of Russian gas will rise in Europe, moving troops in Winter in the Ukraine is harder. That shifts the politics into making a peace deal more likely.
It’s quite clear why it’s worth suffering when Russland attacks parts of Ukraine that don’t want to be Russian. On the other hand, the case for why European should suffer to support Ukraine to retake Crimea when Crimeans don’t want to be part of Ukraine is much harder.
This months leak that they admonished an Ukrainian operation for assassinating a Russian citizen in Moscow. That suggests that even the US is not willing to let the Ukrainians just do whatever they want.
Russia asked for more than just NATO expansion. They also asked for decentralization of power to protect the Russian minority. It would be easy for the West to agree not to expand NATO but not to get Ukraine to provide decentralization.
Russia also wanted to withdraw of US troops from the baltic states which is also a nonstarter.
Yeah, that was clearly a non-starter, and perhaps a deliberate one they could drop later to save face and claim they’d won a compromise. My point was simply that since the West didn’t even offer a promise not to let Ukraine into NATO, I don’t think they’d ever agree to a “Kosovo”.
Huge concessions are usually not publically announced, so it’s hard to know what was actually on offer.
The West would easily agree with giving Russian speakers in those Ukrainian regions with a majority that identifies as primarily Russian speakers the kind of minority rights that the French population of Quebec has. On the other hand, Ukraine does not want to give its Russian speakers those kinds of rights.
I don’t believe that Ukraine would have the votes in parliament to change the Ukrainian constitution in the necessary way as it seems even unwilling to give Russian speakers the rights for which the EU asks as a precondition to joining the EU.
The population of Russia believed that the minority rights of the populations of Russians in Ukraine got violated and that the Russian government needed to act on that front. Getting a concession on NATO but not on minority rights just wouldn’t have been enough domestically.