The Ukraine ‘peace deal’ is proving to be a scam

[Scott]

For starters, Zelensky's Ukraine has proven time and again that they can't be trusted.

I see the opposite. Putin promised to DEFEND Ukraine's borders, not to invade them.

First of all, you're not addressing all the times that Ukraine has broken its word in the agreements it made with Russia, most notably in the Misnk and Minsk II agreements before Russia's military operation even began. Secondly, you're ignoring the fact that it was the U.S. the helped organize a coup against Viktor Yanukovych, the elected President of Ukraine back in 2014. If you're unfamiliar with this event, I suggest you take a look at the following article:

Timeline: Euromaidan, the original “Ukraine Crisis”

As Russia actually do launch an invasion or “special operation” in Ukraine, we thought now was a good time to recap on how we got here. The historical, political and ethnic divisions in…

off-guardian.org

 

[Scott]

Putin -did- agree to a limited ceasefire involving not attacking energy infrastructure.

And broke the promise within an hour. For Putin, a real ceasefire would be a major step towards his death. He simply cannot do it.

I've seen no evidence of this. I -have- seen plenty of evidence that Ukraine broke the ceasefire though. I pointed out on such article in the post you were responding to, but once more in case you missed it:

Ukraine again violated energy strike ceasefire – Russia

Kiev launched an artillery and drone attack on power grid infrastructure in border Bryansk Region, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has said

www.rt.com

 

[Scott]

Another point to consider is that Ukraine is currently on the backfoot and so Russia has nothing to gain by agreeing to a comprehensive ceasefire, allowing Ukraine to resupply from its NATO allies.

Sounds strange to say, but both are on the back foot right now.

I disagree- I've already shown you evidence, from a Ukrainian publication no less, that Russia is planning some major offensives soon.

Russia has not been able to get a major breakthrough in several years.

I suppose it all depends on what you consider to be a major breakthrough. What I -have- noticed is that, with a minor blip near the start of the war, they've been taking territory from Ukraine at a pretty good clip.

They are unable cross the Dnieper River.

The fact that they haven't done it doesn't mean they're incapable of it. As I've also shown you, there is strong evidence that they plan to cross it soon as well.

They are slowly advancing in the center of the front, but they have lost over a third of their original gains.

I suspect that much of this "third" had not been meant as a permanent capture. Could you specify what land you are speaking of?

 

[Scott]

I have yet to see Putin demanding this for a truce. Honestly, I think that Putin and Russia in general have very limited interest in a truce, especially considering Zelensky's constant breaking of said temporary agreements- what they'd like is a permanent solution.

About a third of what Putin calls the "Four Donbas Provinces" are not controlled by Putin. When Putin demands international recognition that the "Four Donbas Provinces" are Russian, he is demanding internal recognition that he deserves territory he could not take in war.

I haven't seen the U.S. or anyone else suggest that they would be willing to allow Russia to keep what it currently controls and in exchange, he would relenquish any claim to what he doesn't yet control. If things were worded in such a way, I highly suspect Putin would go for it. Failing this recognition, I can see why he's thinking he might as well go for all parts of these regions. It would also reduce Ukraine's army size, which I know is one of the things he'd like to achieve for any lasting peace agreement. Finally, he has not -yet- taken these in war. The war is not over and from what I've seen, Russia is clearly winning it. The more time Ukraine dithers on negotiating an end, the more land Russia is likely to take. And any land it takes, I think it's unlikely it would give back at this point.

 

[Nordberg]

Putin will not honor any deals. He will do what he wants and taking Ukraine is what he wants.
Trump is his usual childish fashion, promised he would settle the Putin war in under 24 hours. He said it was easy to do. Trump is so unqualified. And his followers will NEVER figure it out. They have been conned and lied to.

 

[Walt]

First of all, you're not addressing all the times that Ukraine has broken its word in the agreements it made with Russia, most notably in the Misnk and Minsk II agreements before Russia's military operation even began.

I see things the opposite way. Russia refused to allow international observers for elections in the region, and sent troops into the region in clear violation of the agreements. Putin made clear that he would not follow the agreements in any way.

And remember, this was all in violation of the previous Budapest Memorandum, where Russia promised to DEFEND the borders of Ukraine.

Secondly, you're ignoring the fact that it was the U.S. the helped organize a coup against Viktor Yanukovych, the elected President of Ukraine back in 2014.

You ignore that Russians had murdered several of the opposition leaders, refused to allow audits of the election, and even tried to kill the main opposition leader in the election. Yushchenko never fully recovered from the Russian poisoning of him.

 

[Walt]

I suppose it all depends on what you consider to be a major breakthrough.

Russia has lost a third of their initial gains. They are now advancing along about a 100 miles of the frontline, at a rate of about a mile every month. At that rate, it will take several million years for them to win the war. They have all but given up at trying to push back Ukraine's beachheads on the left side of the Dnieper River.

Russia did finally get back most of their own territory from Ukraine, but it took 7 months. And Ukraine still has some Russian territory, which the Russians have now decided just to surrender to them.

What I -have- noticed is that, with a minor blip near the start of the war, they've been taking territory from Ukraine at a pretty good clip.

Russia had a huge success at the beginning of the war. That was followed by Ukraine having huge successes of seizing back a third of the territory. There was then a stalemate. Ukraine could not cross the minefields, and Russia could not cross the river. Ukrainian positions on the north and south are extremely solid, so there is only about 100 miles in the center of the line where Russians can advance. They are using human wave attacks to advance slowly there.

Then about 7 months ago, Ukrainians advanced in Russia seizing ten times as much territory as the Russians have been able to get in Ukraine in the last 2 years. Russia was given a choice, either give up their tiny offensive, or surrender their territory. Putin decided to keep up the offensive, and to ignore the seizure of Russian territory for a few months. He then looked for whoever he could find to retake the Russian territory, including North Korean mercenaries.

Putin has taken back most of the Russian territory taken, and is regularly seizing about 25 to 50 square miles of Ukraine a month. Ukraine is giving up territory to save lives.

I suspect that much of this "third" had not been meant as a permanent capture. Could you specify what land you are speaking of?

The Kharkiv counteroffensive captured the entire northern frontline. The Kherson counteroffensive captured all of Mykolaiv, and a major chunk of Kherson. Kherson is one of the "Four Donbas Provinces", and the capital city of Kherson is the biggest city in the Kherson Oblast. According to Putin, it is part of Russia now.

These offensives meant that Putin had lost the second biggest city in Ukraine, Kharkiv, and had lost all hope of seizing the third biggest city in Ukraine, Odesa. Had he been able to capture Odesa, then Ukraine would be landlocked, and have an absolutely huge, undefendable frontline to defend just south of their capital city Kyiv.

 

[Walt]

I haven't seen the U.S. or anyone else suggest that they would be willing to allow Russia to keep what it currently controls and in exchange, he would relenquish any claim to what he doesn't yet control.

Putin has claimed the "Four Donbas Provinces" are now part of Russia, and demanded international recognition of that for any ceasefire to happen. The problem is Putin does not even control one of the capitals of those provinces. If he is given those provinces, he will have crossed the Dnieper River, which he cannot cross with war.

Once Putin officially made this territory part of Russia, surrendering it (even though he does not control it) would be impossible.

 

[Scott]

Putin will not honor any deals.

Why do you believe that? From what I've seen, Putin has been quite good at honoring deals he actually makes. I don't believe the same is true for the Ukrainians, or the U.S. for that matter ("not one inch east of Germany" indeed -.-).

 

[Scott]

First of all, you're not addressing all the times that Ukraine has broken its word in the agreements it made with Russia, most notably in the Misnk and Minsk II agreements before Russia's military operation even began.

I see things the opposite way. Russia refused to allow international observers for elections in the region, and sent troops into the region in clear violation of the agreements.

What region are you speaking of?

And remember, this was all in violation of the previous Budapest Memorandum, where Russia promised to DEFEND the borders of Ukraine.

The United States sabotaged any such agreement when it played such an integral role in the removal of Viktor Yanukovych, the elected Ukrainian President in 2014 via the U.S. sponsored Euromaidan protests. American Professor Jeffrey Sachs, a statesman and advisor to 3 U.N. Secretary Generals, had this to say on the 2014 Euromaidan coup and the Minsk agreements that followed to the European Parliament on February 19, 2025. Quoting from his speech:
**
As you know, Viktor Yanukovych was elected as president of Ukraine in 2010 on the platform of Ukraine’s neutrality. Russia had no territorial interests or designs in Ukraine at all. I know. I was there off-and-on during these years. What Russia was negotiating during 2010 was a 25-year lease to 2042 for Sevastopol naval base. That’s it. There were no Russian demands for Crimea, or for the Donbas. Nothing like that at all. The idea that Putin is reconstructing the Russian empire is childish propaganda. Excuse me.

If anyone knows the day-to-day and year-to-year history, this is childish stuff. Yet childish stuff seems to work better than adult stuff. So, there were no territorial demands at all before the 2014 coup [in Ukraine]. Yet the United States decided that Yanukovych must be overthrown because he favored neutrality and opposed NATO enlargement. It’s called a regime change operation.

There have been around one hundred regime-change operations by the U.S. since 1947, many in your countries [speaking to the MEPs] and many all over the world.

(Political scientist Lindsey O’Rourke documented 64 U.S. covert regime-change operations between 1947 and 1989, and concluded that “Regime change operations, especially those conducted covertly, have oft en led to prolonged instability, civil wars, and humanitarian crises in the affected regions.” See O’Rourke’s 2018 book, Covert Regime Change: America’s Secret Cold War. After 1989, there is ample evidence of the C.I.A. involved in Syria, Libya, Ukraine, Venezuela, and many other countries.)

That’s what the C.I.A. does for a living. Please know it. It’s a very unusual kind of foreign policy. In the American government, if you don’t like the other side, you don’t negotiate with them, you try to overthrow them, preferably, covertly. If it doesn’t work covertly, you do it overtly. You always say it’s not our fault. They’re the aggressor. They’re the other side.

They’re “Hitler.” That comes up every two or three years. Whether it’s Saddam Hussein, whether it’s [deposed Syrian President Bashar] al-Assad, whether it’s Putin, that’s very convenient. That’s the only foreign policy explanation the American people are ever given. Well, we’re facing Munich 1938. We can’t talk to the other side. They’re evil and implacable foes. That’s the only model of foreign policy we ever hear from our government and mass media. The mass media repeats it entirely because it’s completely suborned by the U.S. government.
The Maidan Revolution & Aftermath

Oct. 8, 2014: U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland at a Ukrainian State Border Guard Service Base in Kiev. (U.S. Embassy Kyiv, Flickr)

Now in 2014, the U.S. worked actively to overthrow Yanukovych. Everybody knows the phone call intercepted by my Columbia University colleague, Victoria Nuland, and the U.S. ambassador, Geoffrey Pyatt. You don’t get better evidence. The Russians intercepted her call, and they put it on the Internet.

It’s fascinating. By doing that, they all got promoted in the Biden administration. That’s the job. When the Maidan occurred, I was called soon after. “Professor Sachs, the new Ukrainian prime minister would like to see you to talk about the economic crisis.” So, I flew to Kyiv, and I was walked around the Maidan. And I was told how the U.S. paid the money for all the people around the Maidan, the “spontaneous” Revolution of Dignity.

Ladies and gentlemen, please, how did all those Ukrainian media outlets suddenly appear at the time of the Maidan? Where did all this organization come from? Where did all these buses come from? Where did all those people come from? Are you kidding? This is an organized effort. And it’s not a secret, except perhaps to citizens of Europe and the United States. Everyone else understands it quite clearly.

Then after the coup came the Minsk agreements, especially Minsk II, which, incidentally, was modeled on South Tyrolean autonomy for the ethnic Germans in Italy. The Belgians too can relate to Minsk II very well, as it called for autonomy and language rights of the Russian speakers of Eastern Ukraine. Minsk II was supported unanimously by the U.N. Security Council. (The Minsk II agreement was endorsed by the United Nations Security Council through Resolution 2202, which was adopted unanimously on Feb. 17, 2015.)

Yet the United States and Ukraine decided it would not be enforced. Germany and France, the guarantors of the Normandy process, also let it be ignored. This dismissal of Minsk II was another direct American unipolar action with Europe as usual playing a completely useless subsidiary role though it was guarantor of the agreement.
**

Full speech:

Jeffrey Sachs: The Geopolitics of Peace

The author explains manipulative U.S. post-war foreign policy to European MPs, explodes myths about Ukraine and urges an independent European foreign policy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjcMoDFU1xg&ab_channel=MichaelvonderSchulenburg This is an edited transcript of Professor Jeffrey Sachs’

consortiumnews.com

 

[Scott]

Secondly, you're ignoring the fact that it was the U.S. the helped organize a coup against Viktor Yanukovych, the elected President of Ukraine back in 2014. If you're unfamiliar with this event, I suggest you take a look at the following article:

Timeline: Euromaidan, the original “Ukraine Crisis”

As Russia actually do launch an invasion or “special operation” in Ukraine, we thought now was a good time to recap on how we got here. The historical, political and ethnic divisions in…

off-guardian.org

You ignore that Russians had murdered several of the opposition leaders, refused to allow audits of the election, and even tried to kill the main opposition leader in the election. Yushchenko never fully recovered from the Russian poisoning of him.

Viktory Yanukovych was the elected leader in Ukraine at the time that Euromaidan protests began. Yushchenko was the President of Ukraine -prior- to Yanukovych. His Presidency ended in 2010, whereupon Yanukovych became President. Have you looked at the article I cited above?

 

[Scott]

I suppose it all depends on what you consider to be a major breakthrough.

Russia has lost a third of their initial gains.

You keep on saying that, but I haven't seen any tangible evidence of it. I suspect you're probably talking the initial phase of the war, when Russia made a bee line for Kyiv with a very small force. It appears that Russia had hoped initially that heading straight to the capital would pressure Zelensky into making a peace deal they could accept. It almost worked too, until the U.S. and the U.K. encouraged Zelensky to 'keep on fighting'. Again, Jeffrey Sachs gets into the details of this peace deal that would almost went through in the same speech I've brought up in a previous post. Quoting:
**
When Zelensky said a few days after Russia’s invasion that Ukraine was ready for neutrality, a peace agreement was in reach. I know the details of this because I talked to key negotiators and mediators in detail and have learned much from public pronouncements of others. Shortly after the start of negotiations in March 2022, a document was exchanged between the parties that President Putin had approved, and that Lavrov had presented. This was being managed by the Turkish mediators. I flew to Ankara in the spring of 2022 to hear first-hand and in detail what happened in the mediation. The bottom-line is this: Ukraine walked away, unilaterally, from a near agreement.

End of the Ukraine War

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky walking around the center of Kiev on April 9, 2022. (President of Ukraine, Public domain)

Why did Ukraine walk away from the negotiations? Because the United States told them to and because the U.K. added icing to the cake by having BoJo [Boris Johnson, the former U.K. prime minister] go to Kyiv in early April to Ukraine to make the same point.

[U.K Prime Minister] Keir Starmer turns out to be even worse, even more of a warmonger. It’s unimaginable, but it is true. Boris Johnson explained, and you can find it on the web, that what’s at stake here is nothing less than Western hegemony! Not Ukraine but Western hegemony.

Michael von der Schulenberg and I met at the Vatican with a group of experts in Spring 2022, and we wrote a document explaining that nothing good can come out of continued war. (The meeting at the Vatican was the Fraternal Economy Session on Jubilee 2025: “Hope in the Signs of the Times.”)

Our group argued strenuously, but to no avail, that Ukraine should negotiate immediately, because delays will mean massive deaths, risk of nuclear escalation, and possibly an outright loss of the war.

I wouldn’t want to change one word from what we wrote then. Nothing was wrong in that document. Since the U.S. talked Ukraine out of the negotiations, perhaps one million Ukrainians have died or been severely wounded.

And American senators who are as nasty and cynical as imaginable say this is a wonderful expenditure of U.S. money because no Americans are dying. It’s the pure proxy war. One of our senators nearby New York State, Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal, said this out loud. Mitt Romney said this out loud. It’s the best money America can spend. No Americans are dying. It’s unreal.

Now, just to bring us up to yesterday, the U.S. Ukraine Project has failed. The core idea of the project all along was that Russia would fold its hand. The core idea all along was Russia can’t resist, just as Zbigniew Brzezinski argued in 1997. The Americans thought the U.S. surely has the upper hand.

The U.S. will win because we’re going to bluff them. The Russians are not really going to fight. The Russians are really going to mobilize. We’ll deploy the economic “nuclear option” of cutting Russia out of SWIFT. That will destroy the economy. Our sanctions will bring Russia to their knees. The HIMARS will do them in. The ATACMS, the F-16s, will do them in. Honestly, I’ve listened to this kind of talk for more than 50 years. Our national security leaders have spoken nonsense for decades.

I begged the Ukrainians: stay neutral. Don’t listen to the Americans. I repeated to them the famous adage of Henry Kissinger, that to be an enemy of the United States is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal. Let me repeat that for Europe: To be an enemy of the United States is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.
**

Full speech:

Jeffrey Sachs: The Geopolitics of Peace

The author explains manipulative U.S. post-war foreign policy to European MPs, explodes myths about Ukraine and urges an independent European foreign policy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjcMoDFU1xg&ab_channel=MichaelvonderSchulenburg This is an edited transcript of Professor Jeffrey Sachs’

consortiumnews.com

 

[moon]

Give unto Russia that which is Russia's.

Here endeth the sermon.

 

[Scott]

[Russia is] now advancing along about a 100 miles of the frontline, at a rate of about a mile every month. At that rate, it will take several million years for them to win the war. They have all but given up at trying to push back Ukraine's beachheads on the left side of the Dnieper River.

As I pointed out to you before, there is plenty of evidence that Russia is gearing up for another go at crossing the Dnieper. I'm not going to quote what I've quoted in the past, as you seem to be ignoring most of it. I'll just leave you with an article I've linked to before that gets into the evidence, including evidence from a Ukrainian publication:

SITREP 3/28/25: Putin Vows to 'Finish Off' Ukraine?

Putin made some very interesting statements in his meeting with the sailors of the Arkhangelsk nuclear submarine in Murmansk, ones bound to reignite hope in the doomsayer quarters who’ve long believed Putin is looking for any opportunity to ‘concede to the West’.

substack.com

 

[Scott]

Russia did finally get back most of their own territory from Ukraine, but it took 7 months.

Yes, it took Russia 7 months, but what did it cost Ukraine to take and then hold on to that territory for that long? I think it's telling that the New York Times stated that attacking Kursk was the sole decision of Syrsky, a Ukrainian General and that the only reason they eventually helped them out in that was because Ukrainian soldiers would have died even more had they not done so. But don't take my word for it, I'll quote the New York Times here:
**
Summer 2024: Ukraine’s armies in the north and east were stretched dangerously thin. Still, General Syrsky kept telling the Americans, “I need a win.”

A foreshadowing had come back in March, when the Americans discovered that Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, the HUR, was furtively planning a ground operation into southwest Russia. The C.I.A. station chief in Kyiv confronted the HUR commander, Gen. Kyrylo Budanov: If he crossed into Russia, he would do so without American weapons or intelligence support. He did, only to be forced back.

At moments like these, Biden administration officials would joke bitterly that they knew more about what the Russians were planning by spying on them than about what their Ukrainian partners were planning.

To the Ukrainians, though, “don’t ask, don’t tell,” was “better than ask and stop,” explained Lt. Gen. Valeriy Kondratiuk, a former Ukrainian military intelligence commander. He added: “We are allies, but we have different goals. We protect our country, and you protect your phantom fears from the Cold War.”

In August in Wiesbaden, General Aguto’s tour was coming to its scheduled end. He left on the 9th. The same day, the Ukrainians dropped a cryptic reference to something happening in the north.

On Aug. 10, the C.I.A. station chief left, too, for a job at headquarters. In the churn of command, General Syrsky made his move — sending troops across the southwest Russian border, into the region of Kursk.

For the Americans, the incursion’s unfolding was a significant breach of trust. It wasn’t just that the Ukrainians had again kept them in the dark; they had secretly crossed a mutually agreed-upon line, taking coalition-supplied equipment into Russian territory encompassed by the ops box, in violation of rules laid down when it was created.

The box had been established to prevent a humanitarian disaster in Kharkiv, not so the Ukrainians could take advantage of it to seize Russian soil. “It wasn’t almost blackmail, it was blackmail,” a senior Pentagon official said.

The Americans could have pulled the plug on the ops box. Yet they knew that to do so, an administration official explained, “could lead to a catastrophe”: Ukrainian soldiers in Kursk would perish unprotected by HIMARS rockets and U.S. intelligence.

Kursk, the Americans concluded, was the win Mr. Zelensky had been hinting at all along. It was also evidence of his calculations: He still spoke of total victory. But one of the operation’s goals, he explained to the Americans, was leverage — to capture and hold Russian land that could be traded for Ukrainian land in future negotiations.
**

Full article [unlocked]:

The Secret History of the War in Ukraine

This is the untold story of America’s hidden role in Ukrainian military operations against Russia’s invading armies.

www.nytimes.com

There are some who believe that the decision to enter Kursk was not the sole work of a Ukrainian General. That doesn't really matter though- the fact that, at least publicly, the U.S. is saying it played no part in that decision strongly suggests that they know what a boondoggle it was.

 

[Scott]

Russia did finally get back most of their own territory from Ukraine, but it took 7 months. And Ukraine still has some Russian territory, which the Russians have now decided just to surrender to them.

Do you really believe that second sentence? I remember once that Ukraine had made a beachhead in some swampy terrain east of the Dnieper river. Some Russians had suggested that Russian forces get rid of them post haste. Putin, who knows something about strategy rather than PR stunts, knew that the Ukrainians were losing way too many troops there and said that they shouldn't be in such a rush to remove them. Now, Kursk is technically in 'old' Russia, so I imagine Putin wouldn't say the same thing with Kursk, but I can't help but think that he's using the same strategy now- to allow Ukraine to bleed itself out holding some tiny little towns in Kursk while Russia bleeds them out.

 

[Scott]

What I -have- noticed is that, with a minor blip near the start of the war, they've been taking territory from Ukraine at a pretty good clip.

Russia had a huge success at the beginning of the war. That was followed by Ukraine having huge successes of seizing back a third of the territory.

Alright, so I think I now get where you're getting this third from. It's true that Russia initially underestimated Ukraine's ability to counter attack, but that was the only time they did so. I think everyone agrees that Ukraine's 2023 counteroffensive was dead on arrival. And while Ukraine certainly got a fair amount of land in Kursk in the summer of 2024, it was strategically unimportant and they paid a very heavy price for it, only to lose most of it now. Meanwhile, Russia continues to advance where it really matters.

There was then a stalemate. Ukraine could not cross the minefields, and Russia could not cross the river. Ukrainian positions on the north and south are extremely solid, so there is only about 100 miles in the center of the line where Russians can advance. They are using human wave attacks to advance slowly there.

I imagine you're getting this "human wave" bit from the mainstream media. From what I've read, I believe that Ukraine has been losing more troops than Russia. When combined with the fact that Russia has a lot more troops, I think the writing on the wall as to how this will end is clear.

Then about 7 months ago, Ukrainians advanced in Russia seizing ten times as much territory as the Russians have been able to get in Ukraine in the last 2 years.

Strategically unimportant land and as we both know, Russia's now taken most of it back. What you might want to look at is how many lives and gear Ukraine lost to hold on to most of that Russian land for 7 months.

Russia was given a choice, either give up their tiny offensive, or surrender their territory. Putin decided to keep up the offensive, and to ignore the seizure of Russian territory for a few months. He then looked for whoever he could find to retake the Russian territory, including North Korean mercenaries.

From what I've heard, North Koreans played a minimal role. I -suspect- I may have seen a video that explained that Russia took units from areas -other- than the Pokrovsk region to deal with the Kursk invasion. This is why many areas in northern Ukraine haven't moved positions for a while, as their role went from actively moving forward to just maintaining position.

Putin has taken back most of the Russian territory taken, and is regularly seizing about 25 to 50 square miles of Ukraine a month. Ukraine is giving up territory to save lives.

I certainly commend saving lives, but the easier way to do that would be for Ukraine to simply make a deal with Russia as soon as possible. The longer it waits to do so, the more Ukrainian lives will be lost and the less territory it'll probably end up with.

 

[Scott]

I suspect that much of this "third" had not been meant as a permanent capture. Could you specify what land you are speaking of?

The Kharkiv counteroffensive captured the entire northern frontline. The Kherson counteroffensive captured all of Mykolaiv, and a major chunk of Kherson. Kherson is one of the "Four Donbas Provinces", and the capital city of Kherson is the biggest city in the Kherson Oblast. According to Putin, it is part of Russia now.

Alright, thanks for the elaboration.

These offensives meant that Putin had lost the second biggest city in Ukraine, Kharkiv, and had lost all hope of seizing the third biggest city in Ukraine, Odesa. Had he been able to capture Odesa, then Ukraine would be landlocked, and have an absolutely huge, undefendable frontline to defend just south of their capital city Kyiv.

The war isn't over yet. As I've mentioned before, there's a lot of evidence that Russia is gunning for Odessa in the near future. I for one would prefer that Ukraine takes Russia's offer of peace now, as Putin has said that Ukraine could keep Odessa and other areas it's planning on attacking soon if they do so. Failing that, I believe that not only will Ukraine lose more soldiers, but a lot more land as well.

 

[Scott]

I haven't seen the U.S. or anyone else suggest that they would be willing to allow Russia to keep what it currently controls and in exchange, he would relenquish any claim to what he doesn't yet control.

Putin has claimed the "Four Donbas Provinces" are now part of Russia, and demanded international recognition of that for any ceasefire to happen.

Fine, but as I've suggested previously, I haven't seen the U.S. try to haggle with Putin on details like allowing Ukraine to keep what Russia doesn't yet control. I strongly believe that Putin might be amenable to that. You may have forgotten, but at the start of Russia's military operation, Russia had been prepared to walk away from -all- the territory it had taken since the start of its military operation in exchange for some very reasonable demands. If he was prepared to walk away from it all at that point, I can easily imagine him settling for only getting the territory he currently controls.

 

[Scott]

Just saw this video posted 8 hours ago on youtube, looks pretty informative...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl-3lTsVxiA&ab_channel=ruslanbelov