Ukraine is winning the war. Why should they give up anything?
Ukraine can join NATO if it damn well pleases. Why should Russia get a say in the foreign affairs of Ukraine? NATO is a purely defensive alliance and poses no aggressive threat to Russia. It is not a reasonable ask for Ukraine to create a constitutional amendment saying they will only ever join alliances that Russia allows them to join.
All the Russian-conquered territories are part of Ukraine. Donbas is part of Ukraine. Crimea is part of Ukraine. Russia took all these territories by illegal military force, committed ethnic cleansing and population transfers on a massive scale, and held phony referendums to try and justify their annexation. None of this deserves to be given an ounce of credibility by the international community. Ukraine has the absolute right to re-conquer and re-annex all of those territories under the doctrine of self-defense.
It is ridiculous for Russia to make any sort of demands from their current position of weakness but especially for them do demand spoils of war from a war that they have lost. If Russia wants to end the war, then complete withdrawal and surrender of all illegally-occupied territory and a guarantee of Ukrainian sovereignty are the bare minimal baseline. What Russia should be negotiating is whether or not sanctions get lifted and whether or not their leaders and soldiers are granted immunity from war crimes, not whether or not they get to keep the territory they stole.
And even if Russia does keep Crimea in the end, it's utterly ridiculous to suggest that Ukraine should completely cut itself off from the Sea of Azov, as well as major port cities such as Meriupol, Melitopol and Berdyansk, by granting Russia a contiguous land-link between Crimea and Russia.
I completely agree; Russia isn't in a position to negotiate, and they lose more of it with each day that they pursue a losing war.
