Subject: Re: Let’s See If This Pans Out for Putin
Your strategy - if one can call it that - has been in effect since 2022. It isn’t working.

It is working. The Ukrainian defense is holding. Russia has failed to conquer the country or disable the formal Ukranian military. They are suffering a slow, grinding war of attrition on the front lines.

The European strategy of ‘just hold on’ was perhaps appropriate in 2022 after the momentum of the initial attack was stopped. But we’re 3 years in now and something else needs to be tried.

Why? There's no quick way to win this kind of war and defeat the terrible invading power. The only way to end it quickly is for Ukraine to give up and lose. Ukraine winning and keeping Russia from keeping the lands they stole by conquest will take a long time and will come with a terrible cost - but it's much, much better for both Ukraine and the rest of the free world to have that outcome than a quick resolution that lets Russia both successfully conquer a huge chunk of Ukraine and know that they'll be able to get the rest of it whenever they want to.

There’s no ‘just give up’. Those of us who favor negotiations understand that the status quo is grinding Ukraine into a fine powder.

It's not. Ukraine is no more a "fine powder" than Russia is. They're a country at war and that imposes a lot of losses, but losses that they are continuing to bear in the name of defending their country. The status quo is horrible, but the alternative really is "just give up" - unless Russia comes to the table willing to withdraw. If Russia comes to the table with "let us keep all or most of what we stole," then Ukraine cannot and should not ever accept that.