Well said @Mirth

I would add that while Ukraine was caught in two minds, Russia’s interest in it, and need, is much greater than most of the other surrounding nations.

Russia views Ukraine with great interest more so due to geographic value than due to NATO. I think NATO expansion has been a great excuse for Russia, when really the main issue at hand is the warm weather port, Moldovan/Ukranian flats (bread basket and attack vector), and oil pipeline routes.

It’s easier for Russia to hide behind an offensive attack due to concerns around NATO than it is for them to justify a land grab, even if there’s similar demographics in the region.

There is not a single Russian demand about Ukraine from 2014 that will not be the same or more now in 2025. So what has the war deterred?

The war has led to Putin's domestic popularity soaring.

There's 80 years of NATO tradition of having zero appetite for a direct confrontation with Russia. It's just not happening and I hope we all agree it must not happen.

To back the way things have played out for western strategy in Ukraine we have to agree there was absolutely no way to dodge Putin's invasion.

Do people really believe that? This invasion was locked in and certain in 2013? 2015? I never have.

Mirth How do you square this with the fact that Eastern Europe are the most vociferous proponents of NATO and the likes of Poland/Baltic states have generally been pressuring Western Europe to step up since 2014?

If we're doing a "Putin is Hitler" analogy, then Soviet conduct during the Warsaw uprising against the Nazis would be the equally slippery analogy for what NATO has been doing to Ukraine here. "You guys fight them, we'll be right over the river backing you up".

You talk to Polish people today, that treachery is why they have a sustained hate for Russia. The Katyn massacre and not just the food shortages, repression and propaganda, and confiscated passports up to the late 1980s.

This is the kind of conduct Ukraine is experiencing from Trump's United States now. Ukraine is about to go back to negotiation on 2014 lines, but this time with a weaker position and a huge minerals mortgage from Trump.

      MistaT This is what I mean. Treacherous stuff from the United States.

      Sachs isn't really doing himself any credit here … he strays from some points that hit the target into tinfoil hat territory. Jacketing the CIA for JFK's assassination sixty years after the fact is "jet fuel can't melt steam beams" stuff. The CIA has been a terrible out of control shit show whether or not it had JFK killed.

      The ongoing role of neocon hawks such as Victoria Nuland in the Obama and Biden administrations should be remembered. Nuland is married to Robert Kagan, the conservative columnist co-founder of PNAC.

      Nuland, Kagan and their peers are some of the most shameless warmongers the world has ever known.

      They swore the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were absolutely necessary. They also say Putin's invasion was completely unavoidable. For this type of US official there is always a war, and it could never have been avoided.

          Burnwinter an invasion may not have been inevitable but Putin has just seen regular messages that the west don't have any will to resist. A negotiation in 2014 would equally not have led in my view too this being over. The best approach that the west could take but whether it has the stomach which I doubt is too freeze Russia out of any economic dealings with the west, keep sanctions on them even if a peace is concluded with the message that this is what a war such as this costs. There should be no normalisation with them from an economic sense so they have no ability to be restrengthening after. It's the only language Putin understands.

              awooga83 A negotiation in 2014 would equally not have led in my view too this being over.

              I agree. And equally it won't be over after any negotiation that happens now either.

              It may naively look like Russia, but the strategic winner from the last decade in Ukraine is the United States. Russia's had to fight a bloody war, lose all international standing and lose its European markets. The EU has had to lose its ties to Russia and get humiliated. And Ukraine's been fucked by all sides.

              Meanwhile the United States has a functional onshore gas industry, and has cut the EU halfway off from a great power rival ... and now it's come back round with a different hat on to extract a few hundred billion for doing the favour, while calling itself a peacemaker.

                JazzG hope that's some fake text-to-video nonsense...

                    Coombs thought the same but apparently it's real.

                    These people need their heads examined.

                      Pepe LeFrits no surprises that there are so many lies thrown out. Yet it doesn't seem to filter to anyone who idolises this idiot. Meanwhile Musk showing what a coward he is after talking so much rubbish online now he isn't actually firing anybody and it's all recommendation. This whole thing is a total shit show. Does anyone still believe this is being done properly.

                      https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/06/elon-musk-republicans-federal-workers-firings

                        Should be flagged for removal because it dropped an atomic bomb, but that's not the debate I guess.

                        Fash all riled up about DEE: diversity, equity and explosion.

                        JazzG can't decide what's worse between this and Gavin newsom yucking it up with Charlie Kirk on a podcast. but at the end of the day, people vote governments out rather than vote governments in. if the GOP screw up enough, and there's still functional elections, the milquetoast dems will find their way back.

                          Gurgen that its the Atlantic is the first red flag. Go ahead, Gurgs. Defeat the Russians.

                          If they aren't going to be defeated, whether they can be is academic.

                            I'd challenge anyone, anyone at all to read Elliot Cohen's curriculum vitae and then rely on his optimistic judgements about the prospects of war.

                            I wouldn't risk my wallet, let alone my life, in a war based on Cohen's recommendations.

                              Burnwinter was about to say I don't know the other guy but Eliot Cohen cosigning your position should give you pause. Would go a step further and say I'd bet my wallet and life on the opposite of anything this guy's ever said.

                              But maybe @Gurgen thinks the Iraq War was "just and moral" or that the US should invade Iran next as this guy proposed.