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I don't get why Zelensky doesn't just go easy on the refineries for a few weeks to get some Trump brownie points. It can also get some moral high ground of like "we held the ceasefire but Russia kept attacking" for a renewed massive strike in November or December. I just don't see holding back on energy for a couple weeks making much of a difference for the war effort, the economic shocks will have a delayed effect on putin and the front line, and he has plenty of non-energy targets to hit like datacenters and warehouses.
On another note, I do like how Ukraine is gloves off - many of their attacks on bridges and powerplants and other economic targets would be screeched of as WAR CRIMES if Trump did it. (by the same people who simp for Zelensky of course) I'm sure if Trump really went scorched earth and maximally targeted these types of targets, Iran would actually be brought to its knees, but instead all we get is a bunch of cope strikes on insignificant targets.
Ukraine is fighting an existential, defensive war. The country is being actively invaded and occupied. He gets more leeway than someone fighting an unpopular war halfway around the globe, and he refrained from attacking Russia directly for a long time.
I don't claim to be especially informed here but on the face of it, and from the beginning, it still seems to me like fighting the war is likely to result in vastly worse outcomes than simply accepting Russian rulership.
You go and find two people in a brawl who have already battered and bloodied each other, and tell the smaller one to just lie down and let the bigger one do as he sees fit it because it's rational.
Even literal dogs are rational enough to show their belly instead of fighting to the bitter end.
Dogs don't know what life as a Russian vassal state conquered after a gruelling war is like.
The Finns sued for peace two times between 1940 and 1944 in their conflict with the USSR. Did they make the wrong choice then?
I don't think the Finns back then and the Ukrainians right now are being offered similar deals.
I do. I suggest you and @Shrike can have a conversation about this.
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