Russia lays out demands for talks with US on Ukraine, sources say

>not recognize any occupied territories as Russia's

And Rightly so. This article was just a sneak preview of Putins speech yesterday. He didn't say anything concrete, so we'll see how that develops.Afaik, RF doesn't want a sustainable peece ( except "MIR" ofc), because they want to annex the Yalta lines. But a prolonged fake freeze fire peace could provide a strategic advantage for Russia to regroup.

Look things up before replying?

Before Russia withdrew troops towards Ukraine the border to Finland was well-staffed. Actually capturing Murmansk is countered by Russia's nuclear doctrine (first strike on attack of Russia's nuclear capability), though I'm not sure taking out *only* Murmansk would be enough to trigger that, and of course strategic ambiguity is desirable there from Russia's POV.

But it's a wide-open flank even if Finland were to immediately turn south, not towards Murmansk. *All* of Russia's flanks are wide open, right now, towards NATO, towards the Stans, towards China. If Russia truly feared an attack from NATO it would keep the NATO borders manned, not put those forces into Ukraine, and if it was worried about China well there's no helping it if China wants to take a bite out of Manchuria there really isn't anything Russia can do because going nuclear isn't worth it. Maybe nuke Vladivostok out of spite or something but they're not going to risk the imperial core.

Leave it to the Kremlin to be dealt an excellent deck and squander every opportunity of greatness on pointless cruelty for "surely that will make them respect us now" sake. Pathetic.

That must have been accounted for since the situation was the same during the time of the SU. Finland was neutral, but the SU would have learned from Belgium and France.

Adding to that: How long is Russia's border with Finland, is Finland a NATO member, and are there even border guards stationed there right now. Bonus: How long would it take for Finland to advance to the one road that connects the Murmansk military complex, including plenty of strategic nuclear facilities, and cut it off from the rest of Russia.

I am always this gullible.

Good argument. Is it strategically the same to defend? My impression is that the border to the Baltics is much smaller and without looking it up, could it be that historically, armies didn't take that route for some reasons?

In any case, the additional length of the border could be the problem.

1) Where do the Baltic countries lie?

2) Are they members of Nato?

Are you always this gullible or only when it comes to what Putin says?

That is so wrong, dude. Come on!

>Russia doesn’t want Ukraine to be the staging ground for an invasion.

The same Russian propaganda rubbish over and again. No one wants (and wanted) to invade Russia, this is completely out of touch. Russia isn't afraid of an invasion but of a country like Ukraine (or Georgia, Moldova, the Baltics, and many others) near its borders that strive in a free society. If Russians see there is an alternative state model that gives people a say and hold politicians accountable, it would threaten Russian current dictatorial government. Democracy is Putin's only enemy.

This was what you wrote:

Russia is fighting this war to prevent troops in Ukraine. There is nothing unclear.

The only way to believe the above is if your only source of information comes straight from the Russian troll factories and you never actively seek out opposing view points.

I just told you Ukraine is the bread basket of Europe. Did you check that up? How much grain has Russia stolen so far from Ukraine?

I told you about Putin's ambition to recreate a Russian empire. That's his legacy. The invasion of Georgia in 2008 is as much part of that as the start of the Ukraine war in 2014.

I've pointed out that Nato has had troops stationed as close to Moscow as Ukraine is for decades. Did you know?

So, no. Russia hasn't invaded Ukraine over no "western expansion", or "Ukrainian nazi regime". It's a straight up land grab, including erasing of the Ukrainian national identity (feel free to look up what has been done in the occupied areas on that).

So, are you discussing here in good fate or not?

Yes, I know that it's not socially advantagious to have these arguments. The good thing about lemmy is that it is nevertheless possible to have them.

I only know of one reason for imperial conquest: that there is gas at the Krim and Ukraine would threaten the Russian monopoly on energy supply for Europe.

To me, that is not motivation enough for the war.

Ukraine is the "bread basket" of Europe. There are multiple resource reasons for why Russia would like to make sure to include Ukraine.

You come off as a Putin apologist.

Which strategic advantage lies in conquering Ukraine? Russia doesn't need land. The future center of civilisation lies in Eastasia. Why waste resources in the west?

Conquering Kyiv for nostalgic reasons is stupid. I don't think that Putin thinks like that.

That's very interesting. I didn't know this text, just a smilar one.

This doesn't convince me that Putin is a history fanatic. For sure, there is some myth building, and Russia is not good at it. But it seems to be a tool to support the war, and not the other way round.

Why has Putin waited so long? Russia is not using new weapons. They could have conquered Ukraine more easily twenty years ago.

Imperialism doesn't imply stupidity.

A state's sovereignty is contingent on others recognising and respecting it. If Putin claims Ukraine isn't a sovereign state, that's not a mistake so much as his opinion – a dangerous opinion, make no mistake, because he uses it to justify his actions to his own people and is putting a lot of effort into trying to convince everyone else to accept his opinion. If we do, Ukraine effectively loses its sovereignty, because that is itself a product of other states' opinions.

He's rational. He's also operating within an ideological fever dream, KGB reality distortion. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

You need to change your news sources.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lseih/2020/07/01/there-is-no-ukraine-fact-checking-the-kremlins-version-of-ukrainian-history/

This would require to accept that Putin is stupid. I don't see that.

Why repeat Putin's talking points? They're invading because Putin wants to recreate the imperial Russia and doesn't consider Ukraine to be an actual country with a separate identity and culture.

There were no western troops in Ukraine when Putin attacked and also no plans to put some there.

Fuck putler and fuck his dumb fucking war.

Then we should send more troops, we should give taurus and storm shadow, make sure there are absolutely no Russian troops in Ukraine ever again.

These are the terms to start the negotiations.

This is basically saying 'give in to all my demands and we can start talking', which, to be fair, is Russia's playbook.

That's a weird take from Angela. Why would you make concessions before the negotiations even started?

(..)

Russia has made similar demands of the U.S. over the last two decades – demands that would limit the West’s ability to build a stronger military presence in Europe and potentially allow Putin to expand his influence in the continent.

“There’s no sign that the Russians are willing to make any concessions,” said Angela Stent, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who was the top U.S. intelligence analyst for Russia and Eurasia. “The demands haven’t changed at all. I think they are not really interested in peace or a meaningful ceasefire.”

This is just reverse appeasement. 10 years later: Putin is invading west Ukraine.

Meaning: jack shit

Nothing about EU membership.

Another reason to keep operating towards slowly but surely defining a joint defense and border enforcement strategy.

Then let Ukraine in, if it leaves up to democratic standards and Rule of Law.

I think NATO membership is not something most European states are seeing as something to support for Ukraine.

Ukraine won't recognize occupied territories as Russian as part of any peace deal, Zelensky says

>Ukraine will not recognize any occupied territories as part of Russia under a potential future peace agreement with Moscow, President Volodymyr Zelensky told journalists on March 12.

>"We are fighting for our independence. Therefore, we will not recognize any occupied territories as Russia's. This is a fact," Zelensky said.