Yes, Ukraine is suffering. And obviously, they want the killing to stop. But Russia’s negotiating position here is absurd. Their talking points are just being parroted by U.S. stooges. But - no serious minded person thinks Russia is likely to abide by any agreement anyways, especially one without HARD security guarantees for Ukraine’s sovreignty. U.S. and Russian pressure to sign a bad deal seems on it’s face desperate, given their obvious original war aims of complete national conquest and annhiliation of Ukrainian society.
Russia only neogtiates when they think they can’t simply seize more by force. They appear to be at that point, and post-war russia is going to be a chaotic mess. The reward of Donbas and Crimea, territory they’ve already essentially controlled for a decade, hardly seems worth all the losses they’ve taken militarily, economnically, politically and demographically
So what should Ukraine do? If they care about a lasting peace - stalling and continuing to bleed the Russian army might be the better option. These are not good peace terms. Yet.
I sincerely hope that Zelenskyy and Ukraine can stand their ground, and that Europe stands beside them. Ukraine has put up a hell of a fight and frankly if Europe lets them fall Russia will start taking bites off the EU after just a few years of recovery.
I kind of hope that too, and think it’s a) likely and b) the ONLY way towards a lasting peace. Russia is the dictionary definition of a bad faith actor, and their clumsy attempts at diplomacy in the face of their faltering position is just so obvious. It will be interesting to see what Ukraine and Europe do - but the Trump team and their russian handlers don’t have all the leverage that they would like us to believe they do.
Ukraine is not teetering, russia is not advancing rapidly. It seems likely that Ukraine will stall and politely insert more terms they know Russia won’t accept, especially given that there are NO hard security guarantees for Ukraine in the deal framework yet. Russia and Trump will stomp their feet and get red in the face about ‘ukrainian warmongering’, but they will continue to not be able to do much more than they already are. Namely, indiscrimiate terror bombing and sticking small infantry teams into holes of pounded rubble to await being droned while Russia’s hubris keeps it demanding terms it doesn’t really deserve. Russia’s abhorrent tactics are terrible, but they’re not even close to being strategically decisive.