Under this scenario Russia would have military and economic control of occupied Ukraine under its own governing body, imitating Israel’s de facto rule of Palestinian territory seized from Jordan in 1967.
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Witkoff, who is also tasked by Trump with bringing peace to the Middle East, is understood to support the idea, which the Americans believe circumvents barriers in the Ukrainian constitution to ceding territory without holding an “all-Ukraine” referendum.
Ukrainians are exceptionally innovative on the battlefield. The longer this drags on, the more likely Russia will lose. Putin needs a win for internal optics just as much as Ukraine needs arms and fighters.
Unfortunately, they’re outnumbered by more than an order of magnitude. They’re getting ground down as time goes on, and for all its stupidity the Russian military is not small or fragile. Basically, the Russians only have to win once to win, Ukraine has to survive every month that goes by, time after time.
The good guys don’t always win. Just ask the Palestinians.
Russian allies also don’t give a fuck about red lines.
Whereas Ukraine’s allies were so unwilling to commit, that the war that could’ve been finished in the first year is increasingly likely to transition into EU invasion.
Yeah. It’s a fucking disgrace.
Read “Sky Over Kharkiv” for some generally excellent picture of the war from the Ukraine perspective, with some occasional bitterness about the cowardice and apathy of all the Western allies about helping Ukraine to any pivotal extent.
Dan Ellsberg also had some great writing about how this all functions from the POV inside the Western military machine. He called it “the stalemate machine”: We’re motivated enough to help you not lose, but not motivated enough to let you win. And so, you just keep dying, month after month and year after year.
War is not about innovation, it is about money.