Peace only works, if all parties involved are interested in that.
If less than all are interested in that, these are the ones at the short end of the stick who get crushed down by the bullies over and over and over…
Russia need to be made interested in a lasting peace and that is not done by rolling over.
So attacking Ukraine, taking Crimea and other parts of Ukraine, waging a war against civilians, bombing cities and the people there, abducting children, torturing prisoners of war, etc. would basically be rewarded by granting them a part of the conquered territory and leaving them off the hook for all the atrocities they’d committed?
Russia didn’t honor the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum.
They need to pay - for all of it and big time.
I can understand why Ukraine doesn’t roll over. The likely price for immediate peace would just be higher than the price of continuing the war and defending themselves.
Why should Russia be believed to honor any agreement, if they didn’t honor the Budapes Memorandum? How long until another attack by Russia would happen?
How would Ukraine stop the war in a way they haven’t tried already?
I’m curious to read your solution.
Now that’s a comment I can agree with, except for the part about Ukraine being a hostile country.
The economic situation in Russia might be even more dire than your post makes it seem. Not only were wages skyrocketing due to the war and the war industry causing a labor shortage. A lot of workers apparently aren’t getting paid and lots of goods have become more expensive, which should lead to a dwindling domestic demand.
The transformation from a war industry to a regular one will be painful and I dearly hope there will be a lot of pain added by making Russia pay for the damage they’ve done. Better make them learn the lesson now than at their next attempt.
Without the support of especially China, India and North Korea, but also parts of eastern European countries, the Russian economy would already be in shambles.
But even with money being made from exporting oil and gas, Russia’s financial reserve went down a lot over the last years.