You did, albeit not in the direction you’re thinking!
Just a day ahead of the peace conference, to which Russia was not invited, Putin articulated Russia’s demands for peace: Ukraine must give up the entire four regions that Russia occupies part of, demilitarize, and drop its aspirations to join the NATO defense alliance.
They also demanded that Ukraine “demilitarize” and permanently stay out of NATO, I assume because Russia would like to hold the threat of hard power over Ukraine and (a) isn’t willing to fight NATO and (b) has discovered that fighting a militarized Ukraine isn’t all that much fun.
Yeah, fair play. I didn’t even see the demilitarize thing.
Honestly, it doesn’t really matter. They already know Ukraine’s going to tell them to go get fucked; they just want to be able to say that they’re the party that presented a peace proposal which Ukraine would have loved to sign but the West vetoed, knowing that no one of consequence will believe that. Why they are doing that is becoming less and less clear to me as time goes on.
I don’t know if the aim is honestly to look reasonable. Like, okay, take your earlier statement:
You assholes don’t even hold Kherson. And you want Ukraine to withdraw and give it to you, after having chased you out of the capital already, as part of the peace agreement?
It’s actually even more improbable than asking for it as part of the peace agreement. They’re demanding it as a precondition to start negotiations for a peace agreement. Like, the Dnipro River is a geographical barrier to Russia. Ukraine would have to withdraw from all of the territory, letting Russia’s forces across that barrier, and Russia says that then they would start talking about terms for peace.
Yeah. I think their interpersonal communication style involves dictating insane terms to people who can’t fight back so they have to accept them, or else try to resist and get punished. They’re literally just incapable of dealing with people they don’t have dominant power over, so they just keep pretending they do like a demanding teenager, thinking it makes them look “strong” or else just doing it from force of habit and because they don’t know what else to do.
You did, albeit not in the direction you’re thinking!
They also demanded that Ukraine “demilitarize” and permanently stay out of NATO, I assume because Russia would like to hold the threat of hard power over Ukraine and (a) isn’t willing to fight NATO and (b) has discovered that fighting a militarized Ukraine isn’t all that much fun.
“Give up your military. We promise we won’t invade again!”
Yeah, fair play. I didn’t even see the demilitarize thing.
Honestly, it doesn’t really matter. They already know Ukraine’s going to tell them to go get fucked; they just want to be able to say that they’re the party that presented a peace proposal which Ukraine would have loved to sign but the West vetoed, knowing that no one of consequence will believe that. Why they are doing that is becoming less and less clear to me as time goes on.
I don’t know if the aim is honestly to look reasonable. Like, okay, take your earlier statement:
It’s actually even more improbable than asking for it as part of the peace agreement. They’re demanding it as a precondition to start negotiations for a peace agreement. Like, the Dnipro River is a geographical barrier to Russia. Ukraine would have to withdraw from all of the territory, letting Russia’s forces across that barrier, and Russia says that then they would start talking about terms for peace.
Yeah. I think their interpersonal communication style involves dictating insane terms to people who can’t fight back so they have to accept them, or else try to resist and get punished. They’re literally just incapable of dealing with people they don’t have dominant power over, so they just keep pretending they do like a demanding teenager, thinking it makes them look “strong” or else just doing it from force of habit and because they don’t know what else to do.