[Rugoz]

This demand for Ukraine to hold elections is motivated only by the hope that whoever comes to power will bend over to Putin.

Guess what, that won't happen. Zelensky's approval rating may have dropped to 62% in one poll, but in the same poll the approval of the military remains sky high at 96%. 74% are opposed to any territorial concessions in exchange for peace (down from 84% in May).

https://kyivindependent.com/poll-ukrain ... i-is-high/
https://kyivindependent.com/poll-74-of- ... ncessions/

[noemon]

It is prohibited to hold elections under martial law.

Martial law is not supposed to be a permanent measure, the max duration of it is 90 days.

On 20 March, President Zelenskyy signed a decree that merged all national television channels into one platform due to martial law.[30][31] That same day, he signed a decree suspending the activities of eleven opposition political parties, citing claimed ties to the Russian government, throughout the duration of martial law; the parties included the pro-Russian Opposition Platform — For Life, the second-largest party in the Verkhovna Rada, and in effect, all left-wing political parties.[32][33][34] On 22 May the Ukrainian parliament extended martial law for another 90 days and automatically renews from that point on.

By your logic, the US would never hold elections.

@Rugoz if Zelensky is so popular, then he has nothing to worry about.


-------------------

Only a Europe truly able to defend itself can break its dependence on a US whose policies damage its security

Fri 23 Feb 2024 13.00 GMT

Two years into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, warnings of war between Russia and the west have reached fever pitch in Europe and Britain. The explicit intention of these warnings is to create public support for massive spending on rearmament, on the old principle of “scare the hell out of them”.

The goal of European rearmament is laudable; the arguments being used to bring it about are not. As long as the war in Ukraine continues, there is a real risk that Nato and Russia will stumble into war as the result of some unintended clash. But the chances that this will come about as the result of a premeditated Russian invasion of a Nato country are minimal.

Russia simply doesn’t pose a serious threat of conventional attack on the EU and Nato. Vladimir Putin has often said – most recently in his interview with Tucker Carlson – that Russia has no intention of, and no interest in, an attack on Nato unless Nato attacks Russia. For a whole set of objective reasons, on this at least we can believe him.


For one, Russia has revealed itself to be a much weaker military power than was thought – and than Putin assumed – before the invasion. Since its defeats in 2022, the Russian army in Ukraine has recovered, and the balance of forces is swinging in its favour; all the same, the only Russian successes over the past year have been the capture of two small towns in the Donbas, and these advances have taken months and cost the Russians tens of thousands of casualties. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians have inflicted severe damage on the Russian Black Sea fleet.

Given this dismal record, why would any Russian planner expect victory in an offensive against Nato? Even without the US, European countries combined heavily outweigh Russia in terms of numbers, weaponry and military spending (the greatest problem is the failure to pool these resources); and the Ukraine war has shown the great advantages currently enjoyed by the side that stands on the defensive. Moreover, in the event of an attack on a Nato country, western countries would certainly impose a complete and crippling naval blockade on Russian maritime energy exports.

Putin’s nuclear threats have been meant to deter the US and Nato from intervening directly in Ukraine. In terms of its own actions against Nato, however, the Russian government to date has been very cautious, despite the massive assistance Nato has given to Ukraine.


Remove the threat of a Russian invasion, and the real argument for European rearmament is almost the diametrical opposite: that it is necessary to make peace with Russia. For only a Europe confident of its ability to defend itself can break the circle – not only vicious but increasingly absurd – by which it is desperately afraid that the US will cease to guarantee its security, and therefore supports US policies that gravely damage its security. It is also, of course, obvious from recent comments by Donald Trump and his supporters that US military commitment to Europe cannot, in fact, be guaranteed in the long term.

If European countries were confident in their ability to defend themselves without the US, they – or at least the French and Germans – could have summoned up the will to block the US push for Nato expansion, and made a real effort to reach compromise with Russia over Ukraine. This self-confidence would also allow Europe to extricate itself from embroilment in the growing confrontation between the US and China.

Even more importantly, it would allow Europe to oppose disastrous US and Israeli policies in the Middle East, which threaten a return of terrorism and ethno-religious strife with Europe’s large and growing Muslim minorities.

Consider the case of Germany, which exemplifies the inability of leading European countries to think seriously about economic and military security over the past generation. The end of cheap Russian energy supplies and the possible disruption of Chinese markets for German technology are a serious threat to its industry and social and political stability; and German liberal democracy is a linchpin of the EU. This is a threat to European democracy that vastly outweighs what happens in eastern Ukraine.

There was nothing wrong in principle with maintaining German industry on the basis of cheap Russian energy, and limiting the German armed forces to those necessary to deter an attack on the country itself. But this only made sense if it was also willing to act decisively to stop Nato and EU expansion where this impinged on what Russia viewed as its vital interests. To combine both approaches – relying on Russia while at the same time taking a US-led hawkish stance against it – was an invitation to disaster.

In 2007, this would have involved Germany and France vetoing – not just deferring – Ukraine’s Nato membership. In 2013, it would have involved seeking an economic agreement with Russia that would have left Ukraine open to both EU and Russian trade and investment – as was urged at the time by the Italian prime minister and European Commission president Romano Prodi, among others.

Today, with the prospect of complete Ukrainian victory disappearing, a wise European course independent of Washington would involve defying the Biden administration – and pre-empting a possible Trump administration – and taking Putin up on his offer of peace talks. For without such talks, it will be impossible to explore what Russian terms for peace are, and therefore whether a compromise peace is possible.


It is true, as the proponents of rearmament say, that the world is a more dangerous place than Europeans over the past generation have imagined; and in a dangerous world countries and alliances need to be able to defend their interests. But these military advocates talk only about military defence; they miss or deliberately ignore the other essential need of nations living in a dangerous world: cool-headed, prudent, self-interested and realistic diplomacy. The two are absolutely interdependent. Without confidence in its ability to defend itself, a country or region will always be subservient to the wishes and interests of a military protector.

Ever since the issue of Nato expansion first appeared in the mid-1990s, Russian officials, journalists and foreign policy intellectuals have told me that while they did not really care about eastern Europe or even the Baltic states, their fear was that Nato would not know how to stop; and that if it threatened to take in Ukraine, Russia would have to fight. In all those three decades, no establishment Russian has ever said to me that Russia might attack Poland; and the only time this has been raised with reference to the Baltic states has been if Lithuania blockaded the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

Given the absence of an imminent Russian threat, Europe has time to conduct a measured programme of rearmament. This should involve limited increases in military spending, but much more importantly the pooling and coordination of military production, the unification of military forces and their deployment to eastern Europe to reassure EU members there. This rearmament will, however, be utterly pointless unless it forms the basis for strategic autonomy and the defence of the real interests and the real security of Europe.

Anatol Lieven is the director of the Eurasia programme at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft

[Negotiator]

So tomorrow the "SMO" will have lasted two years. Also the Maidan coup happened ten years ago around this time, too.

And very likely the EU will tomorrow agree to steal the 300 million euros from Russia. Which will do absolutely nothing about the war, since Ukraine cant buy the weapons that simply dont exist, but will hurt the EUs international name a lot.

On the plus side this will probably hasten the establishment of alternative banking systems, which after all has already started. So countries like Cuba or Venezuela, currently blocked as "terrorist" states, might finally be able to do normal international trade, out of reach of the US empire.

Meanwhile the west wants to send more "wonderweapons". Both the longrange ATACMS (so far Ukraine only got shortrange versions) and the F16 (which Ukraine cannot start because they dont have the required runways; the russians keep bombing those) are in discussion.

[JohnRawls]

Martial law is not supposed to be a permanent measure, the max duration of it is 90 days.



By your logic, the US would never hold elections.

@Rugoz if Zelensky is so popular, then he has nothing to worry about.


-------------------

US doesn't have a war being fought on its territory while having around 20% occupied and daily missile and suicide drone strikes against Civilians.

[JohnRawls]

Also:



Another A-50 downed. That makes it 2 downed and 1 damaged probably beyond repair. Total before the war was 9 but only 6-7 could fly and were operational and not canibalized. So Russia has 3-4 AWACSes remaining. 3-4 more to go and after that they are out and can't manufacture them anymore.

Edit: Damnit Fighterbomber wasn't on board, he pilots one of them. He reported that it was indeed shot down, for now the scum lives.

[MadMonk]

Also:



Another A-50 downed. That makes it 2 downed and 1 damaged probably beyond repair. Total before the war was 9 but only 6-7 could fly and were operational and not canibalized. So Russia has 3-4 AWACSes remaining. 3-4 more to go and after that they are out and can't manufacture them anymore.

Edit: Damnit Fighterbomber wasn't on board, he pilots one of them. He reported that it was indeed shot down, for now the scum lives.

They are claiming that it was shot down accidentally by friendly fire from their own air defenses. This is not the first time they've claimed this. At what point does that really not make it any better?

"Oups! We shot down our own half a billion dollar aircraft for the third time. Better it was us than the Ukrainians at least!"

[litwin]

Also:



Another A-50 downed. That makes it 2 downed and 1 damaged probably beyond repair. Total before the war was 9 but only 6-7 could fly and were operational and not canibalized. So Russia has 3-4 AWACSes remaining. 3-4 more to go and after that they are out and can't manufacture them anymore.

Edit: Damnit Fighterbomber wasn't on board, he pilots one of them. He reported that it was indeed shot down, for now the scum lives.

Past 7 days rehash:
• 5 SU-34
• 2 SU-35
• 1 A-50

[litwin]

[JohnRawls]

I LIKE THIS ONE :

Its hard to say what is used, but its probably not Patriot. The Video shows IR guidance because the flares were able to distract one missiles. Also the range indicates that this is a Radar + IR guidance rocket because no way in hell it could fly 200+ KM without Radar guidance or some kind of datalink and plane moving lower is a basic countermeasure to that.

The long story short here, this is some kind of modification of a missile since I really don't know any missile that can fly 200+ KM that has both semi-active radar guidance or data link + IR guidance. Something like David's Sling but only Israel has them. And theoretically PAC4 but they do not exist yet.

So may be it is a modified S200 rocket but then they needed to integrate an IR guidance in to along with being able to do semi-active tracking somehow, probably through another AWACS or ground radar but the plane went lower and lower so the radar would have lost track unless they spotted it really late which is unlikely.

While this might sound like mumbo jumbo technical words that people shouldn't know but all those concepts are really easy to understand if you just open wiki for example how semi-active tracking works or active tracking.

My theory indeed would be a modified S200 missiles to be compatible with either Patriot radar or/and Awacs radar that can guide it to the target and IR seeker than finishes the target off for additional accuracy. The missiles would need to be modified then since S200 is obviously a USSR built missile with only semi-active guidance.

[litwin]

Its hard to say what is used, but its probably not Patriot. The Video shows IR guidance because the flares were able to distract one missiles. Also the range indicates that this is a Radar + IR guidance rocket because no way in hell it could fly 200+ KM without Radar guidance or some kind of datalink and plane moving lower is a basic countermeasure to that.

The long story short here, this is some kind of modification of a missile since I really don't know any missile that can fly 200+ KM that has both semi-active radar guidance or data link + IR guidance. Something like David's Sling but only Israel has them. And theoretically PAC4 but they do not exist yet.

So may be it is a modified S200 rocket but then they needed to integrate an IR guidance in to along with being able to do semi-active tracking somehow, probably through another AWACS or ground radar but the plane went lower and lower so the radar would have lost track unless they spotted it really late which is unlikely.

While this might sound like mumbo jumbo technical words that people shouldn't know but all those concepts are really easy to understand if you just open wiki for example how semi-active tracking works or active tracking.

My theory indeed would be a modified S200 missiles to be compatible with either Patriot radar or/and Awacs radar that can guide it to the target and IR seeker than finishes the target off for additional accuracy. The missiles would need to be modified then since S200 is obviously a USSR built missile with only semi-active guidance.

great post man, is it part of NATO STRATEGY ? 1) outstretch Moscow air - defense/oil-gas industry 2) turn Muscovite air- force into a bunch of old made in ussr planes /ground force ?

[Rich]

So it seems the Russians have finally captured and secured Stepove, north east of Avdiika. Although we still can't be a !00% sure of that till the battle for Berdychi is fully underway. I think the capture of this tiny settlement, that probably the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians, let alone anyone else had never heard of prior to 2014 is nicely illustrative of 2 things.

1 The advance of the Russians in the Donbas since the start of the SMO 2 years ago has been inexorable.

2 But my God its been slow. The Russians first started to contest for this tiny settlement months ago. At this rate we really don't need to worry about the fall of Paris anytime soon. In-fact even if what the Liberals are now saying is true, Even if NATO membership is absolutely worthless, even if Putin can advance through NATO countries at the same rate that he can advance through Ukraine. Even if three quarters of a century of building NATO has been a total and utter waste of time as the Liberals claim, we won't see the fall of Berlin or Warsaw in our children's life times or our even our Grand Children's unless they invent some pretty cool life extending technology.

What I want to see from the Russians is the capture of at least one of, but preferably all three of Orkhiv, Velyka Novosilka and Vuledar. That might cause the Ukrainians and their demented liberal cheer leaders to give up on recapturing Crimea.

[JohnRawls]

great post man, is it part of NATO STRATEGY ? 1) outstretch Moscow air - defense/oil-gas industry 2) turn Muscovite air- force into a bunch of old made in ussr planes /ground force ?

May be, the goal is probably to increase aerial denial away from the frontline for now at least. If attack planes can't reach close to the frontline then even flying bombs are not gonna work since they also have a small reach of 20-30-40KM depending on modification.

This might also explain why not all A-50s are destroyed yet, I doubt it is easy to modify a S-200 rocket in that way. Considering they do a double-triple salvo by the looks of it for each. Russians also pulled back the zone but still got shot.

The problem with A-50 is that it has 650 kilometer range for detection of air targets and 300KM for ground targets. And considering that they fly them somewhere between 200-300km they want to use them to track ground targets. S200V/S200M/S200D rockets have a limit of 300 KM though so theoretically they can pull them further back. Although that 650KM range is under perfect conditions for larger planes since curviture of Earth still applies and its not like planes are gonna stop flying low. The long story here is that A-50 visibility of ground and air targets should be greatly reduced and if Russians are planning to track ground targets on frontline with it then they are gonna loose more of them.

[litwin]

May be, the goal is probably to increase aerial denial away from the frontline for now at least. If attack planes can't reach close to the frontline then even flying bombs are not gonna work since they also have a small reach of 20-30-40KM depending on modification.

This might also explain why not all A-50s are destroyed yet, I doubt it is easy to modify a S-200 rocket in that way. Considering they do a double-triple salvo by the looks of it for each. Russians also pulled back the zone but still got shot.

The problem with A-50 is that it has 650 kilometer range for detection of air targets and 300KM for ground targets. And considering that they fly them somewhere between 200-300km they want to use them to track ground targets. S200V/S200M/S200D rockets have a limit of 300 KM though so theoretically they can pull them further back. Although that 650KM range is under perfect conditions for larger planes since curviture of Earth still applies and its not like planes are gonna stop flying low. The long story here is that A-50 visibility of ground and air targets should be greatly reduced and if Russians are planning to track ground targets on frontline with it then they are gonna loose more of them.

very interesting , Military expert Suchomimus suggests that Moscow imperialists have only 1 operational A-50 left and and dont produce then anymore. i can bet 100 USD we will see many more putin´s hell birds falling from the sky the next 2 weeks , looks like our guys found a weak spot on the weak body of Moscow empire

[JohnRawls]

https://twitter.com/i/status/1761097335012983011

Just to make your life easier. Russians are throwing a story that they tried to intercept the S-200 missile and they did but their own S-400 shot down the A-50. That is a load of crap. Missile that shot down the A-50 had Heat Seeking IR guidance at least on terminal phase since the flare distracted one. All S-400 missiles are semi-active or active radar homing, it couldn't be an S-400.

Russians use Infra Red only on Air to Air missiles or things like Strela-2 etc. Upgraded tor has IR sensors then radio link but this wasn't an upgraded TOR. Their story is a buttload of crap. There is a clear video of the first missile hitting the flair, active/semi-active/Data link or Radio link is not going to do that for no reason.

[noemon]

US doesn't have a war being fought on its territory while having around 20% occupied and daily missile and suicide drone strikes against Civilians.

The US held national elections during its Civil War, and during WW2, Greece held national elections during the Greco-Turkish War.

Zelensky is just another wannabe dictator at the end of his rope.

Ukraine Can’t Win the War

This picture shows an apartment building destroyed after shelling the day before in Ukraine's second-biggest city of Kharkiv on March 8, 2022. SERGEY BOBOK—AFP via Getty Images
IDEAS

BY ANATOL LIEVENFEBRUARY 24, 2024 6:00 AM EST

Anatol Lieven directs the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and is co-author of The Diplomatic Path to a Secure Ukraine, to be published in late February 2024.
The long-awaited counteroffensive last year failed. Russia has recaptured Avdiivka, its biggest war gain in nine months. President Volodymyr Zelensky has been forced to quietly acknowledge the new military reality. The Biden Administration’s strategy is now to sustain Ukrainian defense until after the U.S. presidential elections, in the hope of wearing down Russian forces in a long war of attrition.

This strategy seems sensible enough, but contains one crucially important implication and one potentially disastrous flaw, which are not yet being seriously addressed in public debates in the West or Ukraine. The implication of Ukraine standing indefinitely on the defensive—even if it does so successfully—is that the territories currently occupied by Russia are lost. Russia will never agree at the negotiating table to surrender land that it has managed to hold on the battlefield.

This does not mean that Ukraine should be asked to formally surrender these lands, for that would be impossible for any Ukrainian government. But it does mean that—as Zelensky proposed early in the war with regard to Crimea and the eastern Donbas—the territorial issue will have to be shelved for future talks.

As we know from Cyprus, which has been divided between the internationally recognized Greek Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus since 1974, such negotiations can continue for decades without a solution or renewed conflict. A situation in which Ukraine retains its independence, its freedom to develop as a Western democracy, and 82% of its legal territory (including all its core historic lands) would have been regarded by previous generations of Ukrainians as a real victory, though not a complete one.

As I found in Ukraine last year, many Ukrainians in private were prepared to accept the loss of some territories as the price of peace if Ukraine failed to win them back on the battlefield and if the alternative was years of bloody war with little prospect of success. The Biden Administration needs to get America on board too.

Yet supporters of complete Ukrainian victory have engaged in hopes that range from the overly optimistic to the magical. At the magical end of the spectrum is the notion, set out by retired U.S. Army General Ben Hodges among others, that Russia can be defeated, and even driven from Crimea, by long-range missile bombardment.

This is folly. Ukrainians have scored some notable successes against the Russian Black Sea Fleet, but to take back Crimea they would need to be able to launch a massive amphibious landing, an exceptionally difficult operation far beyond their capabilities in terms of ships and men. Attacks on Russian infrastructure are pinpricks given Russia’s size and resources.

More realistic is the suggestion that by standing on the defensive this year, Ukrainians can inflict such losses on the Russians that—if supplied with more Western weaponry—they can counterattack successfully in 2025. However, this depends on the Russians playing the game the way Kyiv and Washington want to play it.

The Russian strategy at present appears to be different. They have drawn Ukrainians into prolonged battles for small amounts of territory like Avdiivka, where they have relied on Russian superiority in artillery and munitions to wear them down through constant bombardment. They are firing three shells to every one Ukrainian; and thanks in part to help from Iran, Russia has now been able to deploy very large numbers of drones.

For Ukrainians to stand a chance, military history suggests that they would need a 3-to-2 advantage in manpower and considerably more firepower. Ukraine enjoyed these advantages in the first year of the war, but they now lie with Russia, and it is very difficult to see how Ukraine can recover them.

The Biden Administration is entirely correct to warn that without further massive U.S. military aid, Ukrainian resistance is likely to collapse this year. But U.S. officials also need to recognize that even if this aid continues, there is no realistic chance of total Ukrainian victory next year, or the year after that. Even if the Ukrainians can build up their forces, Russia can deepen its defenses even more.


The Biden Administration has a strong incentive to test President Vladimir Putin on the sincerity or insincerity of his statements that Russia is ready for peace talks. A successful peace process would undoubtedly involve some painful concessions by Ukraine and the West. Yet the pain would be more emotional than practical, and a peace settlement would have to involve Putin giving up the plan with which he began the war, to turn the whole of Ukraine into a Russian vassal state, and recognizing the territorial integrity of Ukraine within its de facto present borders.

For the lost Ukrainian territories are lost, and NATO membership is pointless if the alliance is not prepared to send its own troops to fight for Ukraine against Russia. Above all, however painful a peace agreement would be today, it will be infinitely more so if the war continues and Ukraine is defeated.

[Rich]

As I've said the Liberal is a pathological liar. Notice how in the following video the map gives the lie that Mariupol was captured in March 2022. The Liberal is desperate to peddle his phony narrative that Russia reached a high point in March 2022 and its been inexorably going backward since then.

The Ukrainian strategy from 2015 was to hold Marinka and Avdiivka as strongholds to shell, kill wound and maim Donetsk civilians, damage the Donbas economy and use as a string board for later advances. Meanwhile the focus was on strangling Crimea by land blockading it and cutting off the water supply. The idea was to force Putin to either attempt to seize the land-bridge or just give Crimea back. The Ukrainians had 8 years to build defences on the Crimean peninsula. The Ukrainians had a tiny front to defend. The cowardice and incompetence shown by the Ukrainians in the opening days of the war was breath taking.

Remember even in 1940 before the development of cheap shoulder launched anti tank and anti air weapons, the Maginot line worked. The Germans couldn't break through. Luckily for them they were able to go round it. This was simply not an option for Russia in 2022, with its laughably inadequate 190000,troops most of whom didn't even know they were invading till hours before they advanced. And also remember if the Ukrainians had been even half way competent a lot that 190000, including some of their best troops should have been bottled up impotently in Crimea.

[JohnRawls]

The US held national elections during its Civil War, and during WW2, Greece held national elections during the Greco-Turkish War.

Zelensky is just another wannabe dictator at the end of his rope.

US was already split and the votes on the other territory didn't matter in a civil war nor were there drones and missiles flying around. Right now Ukraine has no way to conduct a free vote on occupied territories and not that Russian won't use the gatherings for more terror attacks. It is not like Rada, Public society or Ukraine didn't have a discussion on the topic. Ukranians in general agreed it is a bad time to hold an election and Ukranian people seem to be okay with it right now.

I understand you want to say that Ukraine is a dictatorship or something but that is a very very very long stretch. The idea not to hold the election and continue martial law was discussed within Ukraine ad nauseum already. There hasn't been any protests in general because almost the whole Ukranian society agrees with the decision.

And as said before, it is not unconstitutional. The clause is often present in many constitutions and it is the whole point of it to have a legal way to postpone an election if a real emergency or dangerous situation happens. I would classify the war as that, not sure than anything even comes close that is not from a sci-fi movie like an Alien invasion of some sort or Nuclear War.

[Rich]

Shocking news breaking!

The Russians seem to be deep into Robotnye. While it was not completely surprising it is still shocking. The Ukrainians have dismissed the loss of Marinka and Avdiivka as strategic non events. They can't say the same thing about Robotyne. I almost can't believe that I'm writing these words, that the Russians are fighting deep inside Robotyne. This was the jewel in the crown of the greatest counter offensive. The capture, sorry liberation of Robotyne, was what we funded Ukraine to the tune of tens of billions for. This is what we gave the wunderwaffen for. As long as Ukraine could keep up that rate of advance in future years, Ukraine would break through to the Sea of Azov by 2040, very possibly by 2035. There seemed little reason not to bank those future years advances.

But if Ukraine were to lose Robotyne, it would surly bring the inevitability of the march to the sea, the 2nd Sherman into question.

[Negotiator]

Finally found the original link for Mediazona:

https://en.zona.media/article/2022/05/20/casualties_eng

Its not exactly intuitive that the link contains a date that suggests wildly outdated data. But the data seems very current (Feb 15 atm).

[Rich]

The Biden plan is to try and hold the line until November 5th. The Danish and German governments have become little more than subsidiaries of the Democrat election machine. After November if Biden wins he will likely throw Ukraine under the bus. Biden wasn't a hawk, but he was dragged into the ludicrous maximalist victory policy by Boris Johnson and Zelensky, both unpopular leaders that saw the war as a way to hang on to power. If Biden wins in November that will be his last election. The sooner he can cut a deal with Putin and end the war the better it will be for his successor Harris.

On the other hand if Biden loses then ending the war becomes Trump and the Republicans problem. The Ukrainians should hope that Trump wins. The Ukrainians best course would be to push for an immediate ceasefire and get bipartisan support behind this, for the West to apply both carrot and the stick to get realistic peace. Come November Ukraine may well have lost more territory and be in a significantly weaker bargaining position. Zelensky and Biden, oth vain egotists will sacrifice countless lives in the cause of hanging on to power.