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I'm not a Ukrainian so I don't really have attachments to Crimea or Eastern Ukraine, so I'm perfectly fine to let Putin keep Crimea and 2014-era Donbas for the war to end, but it's not a realistic compromise for any of the parties here.
Putin just annexed Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts in addition to Donbas, so to Russia, they are officially Russian territory. The annexation of non-separatist oblasts is the Caesar crossing the Rubicon moment for Putin. He's staking the Russian future and legitimacy on this, and there's no going back.
Same thing for the Ukrainians. Before the annexation of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, maybe Ukraine can still believe Russian war aims were limited, and that they were only interested in securing the separatists regions, but no longer. It's very clear to the Ukrainians that Russia is going for the shameless land grab, and there's no stopping Russia from annexing Odessa, Kharkiv or Dnipropetrovsk next. If they settle for a ceasefire now, there's always the looming future invasion, suppressing any foreign reconstruction investments. After all, why help Ukraine rebuild when it can all be torn down in the next Russian invasion? Therefore, if Ukraine settles for a ceasefire now, its long term prospects are bleak and they'll only be inviting Russia to take another bite out of their territory later. So, the Ukrainians must get a decisive result for their national sovereignty and their future. Either they win, or they die as a nation.
With these two factors combined, I don't see an end to the war any time soon without some miracle, and it's very depressing.
Nitpick: many nations existed w/o a state (and we don't know Putin's goals) for century or two and didn't go extinct.
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If there was a world where letting Putin keep Crimea etc. would solve the problem, it could be something to discuss. But we're not living in such a world, and we know it for the fact since February 24, because Putin de-facto had all that already. Ukraine had neither capability nor will to retake any of the territories occupied by Russia in 2014, the West was not inclined to support it with anything substantially more than "blankets and helmets", and sanctions on Russia were feeble and inconsequential. Biden himself supported opening North Stream 2, for one!
To seriously consider that if we roll back to pre-Feb 24, and pretend nothing ever happened, that will be a stable situation acceptable to any side and a long term solution - it's just impossible for anybody seriously thinking about the situation.
Not quite. Also, the Dniepr-Crimea water canal was closed by Ukraine.
These are trifles. He didn't start the war to open the canal.
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