I fully respect the right of many Ukrainians to define themselves as such, regardless of how recent an invention the country they associate with is.
That’s good but I don’t think Putin does. (When I say ‘Putin’ I mean the Russian leadership .)
I think that's understandable, given what I wrote right after the quoted sentence above:
"The main problem is that Ukrainians frequently had very different ideas as to what it meant to -be- a Ukrainian."
Take Crimea, for example. No one ever asked the
Crimean people back in 1954 if they wanted to be transferred from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SFSR,
It made no difference back then. It was all the Soviet Union.
I wouldn't go -that- far, but I can certainly agree that it made -little- difference back then. Would you agree that it suddenly made a big difference when Ukraine became an independent country in 1991?
Take Crimea, for example. No one ever asked the
Crimean people back in 1954 if they wanted to be transferred from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SFSR, but there was certainly a referendum that took place after Euromaidan asking Crimeans if they would like rejoin Russia. The response was almost a unanimous yes
Sorry but ‘almost unanimous’ is unrealistic in a vote like that. Putin will be re-elected almost unanimously, lol.
I'm basing this "almost unanimous" not by what the Russian government says, but on the findings of independent journalist Eva Bartlett when she visited Crimea in 2019. Feel free to take a look at the article she published then if you'd like to see the details:
Return to Russia: Crimeans tell the real story of the 2014 Referendum and their lives since | Mint Press News
I have a question for you. What will become of the 70% of Ukrainians that resisted and fought against Russia if Russia is allowed to overrun their country?
would you mind letting me know where you are getting this 70% statistic from?
Just a guess based on looking at a map of what Ukraine controls.
Ah, I see.
Forget about percentages. Why isn’t there a sizable or even a nominal resistance to the Ukraine government from within Ukraine? I won’t consider the Donbas.
Discounting the former Donbass Republics is like refusing to look at the elephant in the room. Russia would never have started its military operation had the Ukrainian government been so cruel to tis region of Ukraine. I encourage you to take a look at a documentary done by a team of German journalists called Ukrainian agony. It was filmed over the course of around a year well before Russia's military operation. I challenge anyone who follows the mainstream narrative to see it in its entirety. It can be seen here:
Secondly, from where I stand, Russia has made it amply clear for a long time now that all they've wanted is to have an equitable solution to the terrible civil war that had been wracking Ukraine for 8 years while Russia tried to work out a diplomatic solution with western powers who now admit they were lying to Russia and never had any intention of coming up with a diplomatic solution.
Putin only met with Zelenskyy in Paris prior to the invasion and had zero interest in working out an equitable solution.
On the contrary, Russia is the only country who had any serious interest in a diplomatic solution. In the past, this wasn't so well known, but western politicians have now admitted how they lied to Russia in order to buy time to build up the Ukrainian military's forces:
Former German Chancellor Merkel admits the Minsk agreement was merely to buy time for Ukraine’s arms build-up | wsws.org
Faced with this, as well as NATO's rapid expansion across eastern Europe after the U.S. promised not to go 1 inch east of Germany, I think it's quite understandable that Russia is no longer so trusting of western promises. That being said, Russia still tried to work out a diplomatic solution shortly after its military operation began in March 2022. Their efforts were torpedoed in large part due to Boris Johnson's meeting with Zelensky at the time:
Boris Johnson Pressured Zelenskyy to Ditch Peace Talks With Russia: Ukrainian Paper | Common Dreams
Zelensky could have gotten Russia to leave all the Ukrainian territory they'd taken since their military operation began, but Boris Johnson persuaded him not to.
To date, western powers are still not interested in any serious diplomacy.
Neither is Putin.
On the contrary, Putin has made it abundantly clear that Russia has always been ready to negotiate. You are apparently unaware that Zelensky actually banned Ukraine from negotiating with Russia:
Ukrainian Citizens Banned From Negotiating With Putin, Zelenskyy Orders | haaretz.com
He's reiterated this position more recently as well:
Zelensky Rules Out Peace Talks With 'Insane' Putin: 'It's a Joke for Him' | Newsweek
If they do run out of manpower, weapons, or both, one can expect that they will finally return to the negotiating table and make a deal.
Then they have no bargaining chips.
Sure they do. Their chips are the land they still have and the deals they're willing to make with Russia. Based on Tucker's interview with Putin, it appears the only thing that Putin is asking for that he hasn't already acquired in his military operation in Ukraine is the denazification of Ukraine. And ofcourse he would want a guarantee that Ukraine would never join NATO. As professor Mearsheimer has said, if Ukraine continues to avoid this type of diplomatic settlement, it is quite possible that Russia will continue to take more Ukrainian territory.
