No. of Recommendations: 17
Great. At last a simple acknowledgement of reality.
No one's ever said otherwise. Which it's a little weird that you keep saying over and over again that the Ukrainians can't physically dislodge the Russian military. No one's said otherwise, many people have said that it's true, and everyone keeps pointing out to you that it has nothing to do with the Ukrainian war plans.
Your board compatriots have repeatedly shat on the idea of the Ukrainians bartering for a cease-fire and trading any territory for it…their stance is in the all or nothing category.
For a very good reason. If the Ukrainians (and the West) let Russia know that they can successfully take part of Ukraine, Russia will certainly come back for the rest. Why wouldn't they? They want all of it, they claim all of it, they think Ukraine should never have been acknowledged as a separate country anyway - and if they are shown that the West won't stomach a fight that lasts more than a couple of years, then they'll know that the rest of Ukraine is theirs for the taking once they regroup.
Putin can't be trusted to honor a ceasefire agreement. The U.S. can't be trusted to honor a security guarantee. The only logical course for Ukraine is to keep fighting until the Russians realize that they're just not going to ever see the Ukrainians give up, and choose to leave.
This is, of course, the single assumption driving the entirety of the left wing responses in this thread.
It's a very solid war plan, though. There are numerous examples of circumstances where one country invaded but had to withdraw, and where they weren't forced out physically by the opponent's army but instead left by their own choice. Heck, happened to the Russians themselves in Afghanistan. The mujahedin didn't have the dudes, guns, or money to drive out the Russian military on their own. And yet the Russians left.
