Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If you don’t like it argue with a wall

Today the NATO-Russia Council "negotiations" took place. Russia demanded security guarantees from NATO and NATO rejected them, nothing new.

https://twitter.com/MarQs__/status/1481313684836265987?s=20

Didn't Ukraine pass laws targeting Russian when Poroshenko was president? Wasn't cultural autonomy part of the Minsk Accords?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/VALERIEin140/status/1488624751098667008


Not that Hungary has a say there, but 😬

Honestly, he has a point. How much effect did the sanctions implemented in response to the Crimean invasion and annexation have on the Russian economy?

Though, I don't think Russia's security demands were "normal and should be the basis for negotiations". There isn't much point in a military alliance if you're not able to station troops in nearly half of said alliance's member countries. Just as Western leaders have talked about NATO's "open door" policy toward states seeking membership in response to Russia's demand for guarantees of no further NATO expansion, member states are also free to close the door and leave.

In response to your comment: Fortunately Hungary does have a say since the North Atlantic Council (the governing body of NATO) cannot make decisions without unanimity.

A lot of people seem inclined to look at sanctions as a "thing to do when opposing leader does something", but this ignores the diminishing returns, and the fact that, yes, Russia is much more sanction-proof than it was in 2014.

I don't like that. You don't sanction to virtue-signal. Virtue-signalling has no major place in foreign policy.
You do sanctions when they are likely to be effective and withdraw them and apply them as the situation demands, not to "send a message". They are overused, trite, and consistently fail to do anything major but weaken international commerce and exchange between nations, bit by bit.

Sanctions against Russia if it invades Ukraine are likely to be ineffective and are not to be the main instrument of "punishing" Russia (aka, forcing Russia to run to China).

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1488926785848946692

The crux of his argument lies in the odd assertion that the US cannot fulfil its obligations in Europe while also countering the increasing military threat posed by China. I thought the US was able to win a world war with major theaters in Europe and Asia. Maybe I'm just losing my marbles but, didn't the US also work to contain Communism in Europe and Asia during the Cold War? Didn't that effort involve massive military commitments in both regions?

The correlation of forces in the world is not as favorable to the USA as it was in the Cold War.  And even in the Cold War, the USA roped in the PRC as a de facto ally against the USSR. 

His argument mostly matches my own proposal for the USA strategy which is to do everything to break the PRC-Russia alliance.  If that means demarkating a Russian sphere of influence that sounds reasonable given Russia's Great Power status. The USA should seek to be on friendlier terms with every Great Power in the world than they are with each other.  That is how the USA will maintain its relative power in an era where its relative strength has dimished since the 1990s.

I don't disagree.
I think China+Russia is too big of a coalition against us as well and it's a problem.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1488926785848946692

The crux of his argument lies in the odd assertion that the US cannot fulfil its obligations in Europe while also countering the increasing military threat posed by China. I thought the US was able to win a world war with major theaters in Europe and Asia. Maybe I'm just losing my marbles but, didn't the US also work to contain Communism in Europe and Asia during the Cold War? Didn't that effort involve massive military commitments in both regions?

The correlation of forces in the world is not as favorable to the USA as it was in the Cold War.  And even in the Cold War, the USA roped in the PRC as a de facto ally against the USSR.  

His argument mostly matches my own proposal for the USA strategy which is to do everything to break the PRC-Russia alliance.  If that means demarkating a Russian sphere of influence that sounds reasonable given Russia's Great Power status. The USA should seek to be on friendlier terms with every Great Power in the world than they are with each other.  That is how the USA will maintain its relative power in an era where its relative strength has dimished since the 1990s.

I don't disagree.
I think China+Russia is too big of a coalition against us as well and it's a problem.

The China-Russia alliance is one factor why I was disappointed the TPP was scuttled. The US needs to do more than just renaming the military command for the region from "Pacific" to "Indo-Pacific". Creating an Asian NATO has long been floated among academics, but I doubt there will be a willingness to do so unless China does something blatantly aggressive (such as invading Taiwan). Since there are lingering disputes/issues between possible members (S. Korea and Japan for example) and China's overall increasingly dominant influence over the region. China would make all efforts to prevent SE Asian nations from joining.

The single biggest issue with an Asian NATO is this: the situation in the Asia-Pacific has more factors to consider than Europe does, on balance. Japan has conflicts with China but actually mainly with SK. SK and Japan are conflicted with NK (more the latter than the former under the left government, but that changes if the right takes control). India, while receptive to working with Japan and us, treasures its strategic autonomy and neutrality. Australia is very reliant on Chinese university students, as Australia's world-class universities are where the Chinese elite takes its children. Also Australia's mines are basically controlled (and needed) by China, so Beijing will keep a tight lid on that as well.

Then you have a Non-Aligned tradition in the region, with many players in the area wheeling and dealing and working with China, Washington, Tokyo, etc., on an issue-by-issue basis.

Force-fitting a NATO framework onto Eastern Asia looks nice and paper and would be a great accomplishment. But it's also very difficult to bring about on the first place, maybe even if China took Taiwan. Eastern Asia has a lot of players with their own interests.

Sure, there are differences between players here. For example, Japan and China are competing for soft power in Africa, India and China are competing for the support of the Arab World's bigwigs, et cetera. But that's not enough to make an East Asian NATO a workable goal.

Like you, I was disappointed that TPP was scuttled. I believe we need to confront China, and we lost credibility there. The steps the administration is doing to tighten relationships with Japan, India, and Australia are good by-and-large (though I'd be careful to maintain ties with Burma and Pakistan just to be safe), but it'd be good if we got a very good operative framework in the long-term, with bipartisan backing. China is a powerful opponent that is going to be potentially very powerful in the future, evenmoreso than now. We aren't an Asian country, but we can be of assistance to Asian allies, and let them generally dictate how things work in broad strokes, in a flexible framework.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This is what happens when you constantly stoke the Kremlin's paranoia.

If the US and its NATO allies aren't prepared to send their own citizens over to defend Ukraine, then they should just shut up about "serious consequences" for Russia (more sanctions won't work). I'm tired of this chicken hawkery from geopolitical chess playing Blob suits who have never had to face anything remotely approaching war.

Sanctions are mere virtue signalling that make it harder for people across boundaries to interact as part of one global world order. Much like what the Cuba sanctions did.
The only real winner from round no. 3,532 of sanctions is China. That, and media aiming to use culture war against Russia for clicks and ratings.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Around a week ago I came to the conclusion Russia was very likely to invade.

This video is what convinced me Russia feels obliged to act now.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

So, ground troops didn't actually invade.
Very minor egg on face for the US intelligence apparatus?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

So, ground troops didn't actually invade.
Very minor egg on face for the US intelligence apparatus?

I think the word originally was "ready to invade by the 16th".

Decision-makers should know if they give a date then Putin probably won't invade on that date even if he was planning. It's in his interest to not have U.S. intelligence be right, and you want the element of surprise against your adversary anyway.

As it is, Putin may or may not have planned to invade on that date, but he could do things that he was planning to do slightly later and push them forward instead. That is to say, he'd rearrange the schedule in response to the US showing its hand.
Nonetheless, it's something of a defeat for the US that the naunces of the "ready to invade" vs "invade" could be getting forgotten and Russia could notch a minor win merely by fiddling around with dates.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Let's say the USA had real intelligence that is pretty much a smoking gun on a Russian invasion. 

How should they handle it? 

One thing they should NOT do is to have "unnamed senior intelligence sources" tell the media and put it all out there.  Doing so merely embarrasses Russia and might provoke them to do something so they do not lose face to their own population.

What would make sense is a behind-the-scenes contact with someone high up in Russia and ideally Putin and show him the evidence.  Then say to Putin: We know, you know that we know and we know that you know that we know.  Let's cut this out because if you do we already have our own "men in black" on the ground in Ukraine and even Russia that could do all sorts of stuff.  Let's instead chat about why you want to do this and we can even bring in Ukraine to do some offline deals and compromises and diffuse this.  You will not get everything you want but an invasion will get you less.

Given this, I am convinced the USA only has circumstantial evidence as well as their projections on what is going on in Putin's mind.

Your overall mentalities on this are quite smart.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

First "casualties":

https://twitter.com/UkrWarReport/status/1494791327724281873

What exactly sparked this?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

First "casualties":

https://twitter.com/UkrWarReport/status/1494791327724281873

What exactly sparked this?

Well, I don't know all the details (Andriy would be more helpful). But the guy who was beaten has very pro-Russian views and has been called for fifth column together with other guy Muraev (whom per UK/US intel Putin would install after taking Kiev) earlier on this debate show. He's against NATO and, I believe, he blamed current situation mostly on Poroshenko's team and didn't want to put much blame on Putin, and that's why he got beaten.

Ah, thanks for the info!
I didn't understand a word from that video, I don't speak, or understand, the Ukrainian language.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This has been such an useful thread in identifying the wretched posters on this site.

For a forum that is quite politically aware that pores over every intricacy and facet of US domestic issues, it's quite strange to me that the vast majority accept American "freedom and democracy" propaganda as the inalienable truth and refuses to even consider the notion that American actions paint a quite different picture than what they say, and that they're just a side in the great power competition, like one side of a football match where both sides try to game the system and cheat the rules to win.

America is hardly the white knight it claims itself to be, and NATO moving east is a real threat to Russia (right at a time when geographic armor makes for less than it used to be, and the only geographic armor Russia has is flat land on the North European Plain).
I've said it before but I'll say it again: Russia is refreshingly honest about how the game is actually played.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This has been such an useful thread in identifying the wretched posters on this site.

For a forum that is quite politically aware that pores over every intricacy and facet of US domestic issues, it's quite strange to me that the vast majority accept American "freedom and democracy" propaganda as the inalienable truth and refuses to even consider the notion that American actions paint a quite different picture than what they say, and that they're just a side in the great power competition, like one side of a football match where both sides try to game the system and cheat the rules to win.

America is hardly the white knight it claims itself to be, and NATO moving east is a real threat to Russia (right at a time when geographic armor makes for less than it used to be, and the only geographic armor Russia has is flat land on the North European Plain).
I've said it before but I'll say it again: Russia is refreshingly honest about how the game is actually played.

What threat is NATO to Russia? Does anyone realistically think that anyone in the NATO alliance would ever dream of an offensive attack against Russia? NATO is very clearly a defensive alliance, and Russia's actions in Georgia and Ukraine only continue to prove why the alliance is valid and necessary.

Russia and America both engage in sphere of influence politics. Only Russia admits that publicly. Maintaining a larger sphere tends to make the country richer and more influential, and America's sphere has grown at the expense of Russia's.
NATO moving east is absolutely not a benign thing. It's a dagger held at the Russian heartland, and in fact we've disrespected Russia for decades now. Now Russia is running to China, and it's mainly our fault.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Russia and America both engage in sphere of influence politics. Only Russia admits that publicly. Maintaining a larger sphere tends to make the country richer and more influential, and America's sphere has grown at the expense of Russia's.
NATO moving east is absolutely not a benign thing. It's a dagger held at the Russian heartland, and in fact we've disrespected Russia for decades now. Now Russia is running to China, and it's mainly our fault.

A crucial question here is, could Russia ever be a member of NATO? Putin himself mentioned this in his speech today (in his own particular way).

Personally I would say the question is clearly no while Russia is an autocratic dictatorship under Putin. But could it never, if it hypothetically became a democratic country similar to e.g. Latvia?

It is true that Russia may perceive NATO as a dagger held at the Russian heartland, and we should be willing to acknowledge that perception. But at the same time, need it necessarily be?

On the one hand, we should not be surprised that some people in Russia would have the perception of threat, but at the same time we should also be willing to acknowledge that this can be a manifestation of their own attitudes and paranoia.

It can be a chicken-and-the-egg issue, which is how I would think about it at any rate.

Russia being able to join NATO would instantly alter the nature of NATO overnight, turning it into a de facto anti-Chinese alliance. If Russia was allowed to make a home for itself inside NATO, then that would change so many things about it. Probably the biggest hurdle for Russia becoming a NATO member though is that any of NATO's current members have a veto, which gives the Baltic states a veto on any arrangement. If anyone would be opposed to the very idea of Russian NATO membership, it would probably be them.
Up to this point, NATO has functioned as a defensive alliance against any Russian resurgence. I don't know what to think about it being anything else because like most people, I've never imagined it as anything else. But the time might someday come that it perhaps would be the better if it did.
If we're being brutally honest with ourselves, that day might even be now.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

snip

I'd like to thank you for sharing your perspective on this. It's generally good to hear a unique opinion that breaks from the groupthink (and this holds on both sides of the quasi-Iron Curtain we see nowadays).
If you appreciate this post, just recommend it. I don't expect a reply or anything like that.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Russia and America both engage in sphere of influence politics. Only Russia admits that publicly. Maintaining a larger sphere tends to make the country richer and more influential, and America's sphere has grown at the expense of Russia's.
NATO moving east is absolutely not a benign thing. It's a dagger held at the Russian heartland, and in fact we've disrespected Russia for decades now. Now Russia is running to China, and it's mainly our fault.

A crucial question here is, could Russia ever be a member of NATO? Putin himself mentioned this in his speech today (in his own particular way).

Personally I would say the question is clearly no while Russia is an autocratic dictatorship under Putin. But could it never, if it hypothetically became a democratic country similar to e.g. Latvia?

It is true that Russia may perceive NATO as a dagger held at the Russian heartland, and we should be willing to acknowledge that perception. But at the same time, need it necessarily be?

On the one hand, we should not be surprised that some people in Russia would have the perception of threat, but at the same time we should also be willing to acknowledge that this can be a manifestation of their own attitudes and paranoia.

It can be a chicken-and-the-egg issue, which is how I would think about it at any rate.

Up to this point, NATO has functioned as a defensive alliance against any Russian resurgence. I don't know what to think about it being anything else because like most people, I've never imagined it as anything else. But the time might someday come that it perhaps would be the better if it did.
If we're being brutally honest with ourselves, that day might even be now.

He says, as Russia prepares to invade and create a massive crisis in a country not far off from other NATO members' borders. And Putin would've probably already had his way with the Baltic nations too, had they not joined the alliance.

Ukraine is a mere sideshow for the United States, and it's an area that has been under either Russian control or closest to Russia (vis a vis other power centers) since the reign of Catherine the Great. Intricate management of relations with the bigwigs of the world, for the sake of the country's broader long-term public interest - Russia, China, India, et cetera - ought to be much more important to America than whatever happens in Ukraine.
Preservation of this American national interest matters above all else. We must keep an open mind to things that will help renew it and protect it into the future.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

snip

I'd like to thank you for sharing your perspective on this. It's generally good to hear a unique opinion that breaks from the groupthink (and this holds on both sides of the quasi-Iron Curtain we see nowadays).
If you appreciate this post, just recommend it. I don't expect a reply or anything like that.

Yes, thank you random new poster whose only contribution to the thread is to smear the majority of posters here as savage Russophobes.

I checked if it was a new poster. Turns out they've been posting since 2008.
Please check your facts.
check out this first post of theirs, if you don't believe me

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Ukraine is a mere sideshow for the United States, and it's an area that was under either Russian control or closest to Russia (vis a vis other power centers) since the reign of Catherine the Great. Intricate management of relations with the bigwigs of the world, for the sake of the country's broader long-term public interest - Russia, China, India, et cetera - ought to be much more important to America than whatever happens in Ukraine.
Preservation of this American national interest matters above all else. We must keep an open mind to things that will help renew it and protect it into the future.

Rhineland, Austria, Sudetenland, Memel, Danzig, Ethiopia, Mukden... I'm sure plenty of Americans considered those places to be sideshows to them in the 1930s as well. How did that turn out?

Bullies are only encouraged by weakness and appeasement. And when they keep on bullying, they will eventually bully someone you do care about -- or they'll just bully you. "How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing", said Chamberlain in 1938. A year later, they were digging those trenches anyway.

And if you want to go back to the times of Catherine the Great... Well, New Mexico was a part of Spain longer than it has been part of USA. Does Spain get to have it, then? And Russia, too, might want Alaska back -- after all, there are some Russian nationalists who claim that the czar did not have the authority to sell it...

Notwithstanding any hackneyed and tired comparisons that could be drawn between Hitler and Putin, it ought to be recognized as fact that in politics, what matters is not the truth but rather what people perceive to be the truth. This extends to leaders. Putin and other Russian government officials clearly see NATO expansion as a threat to Russia. Ergo, we ought to take it into account that Russia's leadership will see it that way and try to think about how Russia will likely interpret policies before doing them and not after.

Putin sees Ukraine as a very closely linked entity to Russia proper on numerous cultural grounds and opposes it being in separate camps politically, and he's far from wrong in regards to cultural matters here. But even if he was, we'd have to act as though he wasn't,    because what passes for "reality" in politics can run parallel OR be dramatically different from what actual reality is. In any case, Russia's population (the most populous singular European nation, let's not forget) have implicitly and explicitly accepted Putin as their leader, and we have to work with the leaders of nations if we want to get anything done in the political sphere.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Yes, thank you random new poster whose only contribution to the thread is to smear the majority of posters here as savage Russophobes.

Charming stuff isn't it. I note that one must also have a 'recent' ancestral connection to a particular territory before having any views as to its politics or general fate: a genuinely stupid position, of course, and really quite a remarkable one for a poster on this forum of all forums to take.

While I take exception with the idea that hailing from a region inherently makes one's general set of views about said region automatically more valid, it's as clear as day this is not a new poster, and ignoring this fact doesn't make it any less true. One could be forgiven for first assuming that they were new (since they post very rarely; even I suspected as such), but there's no such excuse now that this not being true has been put to light. There's a number of posts from that person from 2008 that prove the claim laughably false.

If y'all were less close-minded on this topic, then you'd actually take the time to look at their postings to realize this and consider them someone coming from a legitimate perspective, even if it's one that sensible people can disagree completely about.

They posted this back in October 2020:

Half of my ancesters lived in what is now the southeastern Ukraine in the Russian Empire, so I always like talking to any Russians/Ukrainians/Belarusians that I meet in real life. From my experience, Russian-Americans are definitely not all Republicans as many Democrats here seem to believe. The ones that are secular or non-religious are mostly all Democrats. The more religious ones (especially converts to Protestant sects) are, naturally, Republican.

That is all.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Ukraine should give up Donbass at this point, and give up NATO membership as well, in exchange for continued sovereignty. If Russia pushes further, surrender without fighting.

An analogy is this: when being robbed, you give up exactly what the robber asks for. Your possessions aren’t worth your life. Similarily, Ukraine’s sovereignty is not worth having hundreds of thousands of people die.

Worth noting they did this in 2014- didn’t fight over Crimea.

There’s a risk that no matter what they agree Putin will still come back.

What TheReckoning is positing sounds similar to the Finlandization suggestion I believe Macron suggested? Could be confusing things here.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If I were Zelensky I'd be doing everything in my power to get my hands on nukes as quickly as possible.

As soon as he actively attempts this, Putin would possibly see this as invitation and invade Ukraine entirely. And without active military intervention from NATO forces (which wouldn't happen), Russia would have occupied the whole country in a matter of weeks and Zelensky would either be arrested or in exile.

More importantly, even if he had nukes, where exactly would he use them? In Donbass and occupied territory? He would conquer back territory that's no longer habitable from nuclear fallout. He would have to attack Russia directly, which would not only cause thousands of innocent deaths, it would be the starting point for WWIII.

Last but not least, arming Ukraine with nukes would embolden Russia, the PRC or other bad actors to arm other horrible regimes with nukes with whom they're allied because "the West has done the same."

The NATO bloc already tore down one precedent by separating Kosovo from Serbia, emboldening Russia and allowing it to support allied movements in Georgia and later Ukraine.
It'd be for the best if we didn't destroy another precedent for sake of short-term gain. No one should supply Ukraine any nukes. The knock-on effects would be disastrous.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If I were Zelensky I'd be doing everything in my power to get my hands on nukes as quickly as possible.

As soon as he actively attempts this, Putin would possibly see this as invitation and invade Ukraine entirely. And without active military intervention from NATO forces (which wouldn't happen), Russia would have occupied the whole country in a matter of weeks and Zelensky would either be arrested or in exile.

More importantly, even if he had nukes, where exactly would he use them? In Donbass and occupied territory? He would conquer back territory that's no longer habitable from nuclear fallout. He would have to attack Russia directly, which would not only cause thousands of innocent deaths, it would be the starting point for WWIII.

Last but not least, arming Ukraine with nukes would embolden Russia, the PRC or other bad actors to arm other horrible regimes with nukes with whom they're allied because "the West has done the same."

The NATO bloc already tore down one precedent by separating Kosovo from Serbia, emboldening Russia and allowing it to support allied movements in Georgia and later Ukraine.

It didn't just embolden Russia, it emboldened literally every separatist political movement globally and countries like Russia have continuously rubbed the Kosovo logic in the West's face since.

Anyone that tries to make the "Kosovo was not a precedent" argument, I don't respect that person nor anything else they say: everything is a precedent.

Fair points.
Kosovo is one of the most major own-goals of Western diplomacy over the past two decades, re: Eastern Europe. Its creation was a major factor in creating this crisis more generally.

I'd also add it's easy to adhere to a set of generally understood rules if you feel like you aren't losing very badly. (Basically every?) precedent that the West is using against Russia, it has violated itself at some point. And Russia's been the net loser from all those violations, in the eyes of the Kremlin. What's the point of a set of rules if equals don't have the right to do the same things under said rules?

If Putin isn't interested in playing ball now, it's because he thinks talking with NATO leaders won't solve his problems. He needs to change the reality on the ground. Then NATO can talk to him, with him being in a position of strength. Russia thinks itself at least somewhat equal to NATO countries. Ergo, it can intervene in the same vein as NATO countries. Ukraine lies within its sphere, just as though Mexico (perhaps Canada would be a better example?) lies in the American sphere.

The way we've been engaging with Russia has long undermined the rules-based international order. We didn't realize it much at the time, but it was unwise to act as though the high tide of the 1990s and 2000s, when Russia was weak, was going to be some sustainable status quo.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If I were Zelensky I'd be doing everything in my power to get my hands on nukes as quickly as possible.

As soon as he actively attempts this, Putin would possibly see this as invitation and invade Ukraine entirely. And without active military intervention from NATO forces (which wouldn't happen), Russia would have occupied the whole country in a matter of weeks and Zelensky would either be arrested or in exile.

More importantly, even if he had nukes, where exactly would he use them? In Donbass and occupied territory? He would conquer back territory that's no longer habitable from nuclear fallout. He would have to attack Russia directly, which would not only cause thousands of innocent deaths, it would be the starting point for WWIII.

Last but not least, arming Ukraine with nukes would embolden Russia, the PRC or other bad actors to arm other horrible regimes with nukes with whom they're allied because "the West has done the same."

The NATO bloc already tore down one precedent by separating Kosovo from Serbia, emboldening Russia and allowing it to support allied movements in Georgia and later Ukraine.
It'd be for the best if we didn't destroy another precedent for sake of short-term gain. No one should supply Ukraine any nukes. The knock-on effects would be disastrous.

Russia more or less helped Abkhaz separatists to expel and kill thousands of Georgians (47 % of the Abkhaz population in 1989, 21 % in 2003) for instance by refusing to step in when Abkhaz separatists violated a ceasefire agreement (Sokhumi massacre of 1993) in the early 1990s before the Kosovo War even started.

Thanks for the new information (and it shouldn't be surprising that Russia was doing divide-and-conquer games in the Caucusus of the 1990s), but it is still fact that Russia was allowed to militarily intervene and recognize Abkhazia in 2008 by using the Kosovo precedent, no?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If I were Zelensky I'd be doing everything in my power to get my hands on nukes as quickly as possible.

As soon as he actively attempts this, Putin would possibly see this as invitation and invade Ukraine entirely. And without active military intervention from NATO forces (which wouldn't happen), Russia would have occupied the whole country in a matter of weeks and Zelensky would either be arrested or in exile.

More importantly, even if he had nukes, where exactly would he use them? In Donbass and occupied territory? He would conquer back territory that's no longer habitable from nuclear fallout. He would have to attack Russia directly, which would not only cause thousands of innocent deaths, it would be the starting point for WWIII.

Last but not least, arming Ukraine with nukes would embolden Russia, the PRC or other bad actors to arm other horrible regimes with nukes with whom they're allied because "the West has done the same."

The NATO bloc already tore down one precedent by separating Kosovo from Serbia, emboldening Russia and allowing it to support allied movements in Georgia and later Ukraine.
It'd be for the best if we didn't destroy another precedent for sake of short-term gain. No one should supply Ukraine any nukes. The knock-on effects would be disastrous.

Except there was an ethnic cleansing issue in Kosovo, so I don't think that is much of a precedent.

There was precedent for stopping genocide in Kosovo, but not precedent for Kosovo being an entity effectively separate from Belgrade altogether. Vojvodina remains part of Serbia to this day, voting in Serbian elections and participating in the country's political scene as an autonomous unit.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If I were Zelensky I'd be doing everything in my power to get my hands on nukes as quickly as possible.

As soon as he actively attempts this, Putin would possibly see this as invitation and invade Ukraine entirely. And without active military intervention from NATO forces (which wouldn't happen), Russia would have occupied the whole country in a matter of weeks and Zelensky would either be arrested or in exile.

More importantly, even if he had nukes, where exactly would he use them? In Donbass and occupied territory? He would conquer back territory that's no longer habitable from nuclear fallout. He would have to attack Russia directly, which would not only cause thousands of innocent deaths, it would be the starting point for WWIII.

Last but not least, arming Ukraine with nukes would embolden Russia, the PRC or other bad actors to arm other horrible regimes with nukes with whom they're allied because "the West has done the same."

The NATO bloc already tore down one precedent by separating Kosovo from Serbia, emboldening Russia and allowing it to support allied movements in Georgia and later Ukraine.
It'd be for the best if we didn't destroy another precedent for sake of short-term gain. No one should supply Ukraine any nukes. The knock-on effects would be disastrous.

Except there was an ethnic cleansing issue in Kosovo, so I don't think that is much of a precedent.

There was precedent for stopping genocide in Kosovo, but not precedent for Kosovo being an entity effectively separate from Belgrade altogether. Vojvodina remains part of Serbia to this day, voting in Serbian elections and participating in the country's political scene as an autonomous unit.

1991 census of Vojvodina:
57 % Serbs
17 % Hungarians
8 % Yugoslavs
no other ethnicity above 5 %

1991 census of Kosovo:
82 % Albanians
10 % Serbs

When 82 % of the population of a region is was targeted to be purged it is doubtful that they have much appetite to return to the country that wanted to genocide them. None of that applies to Vojvodina.

Under a strict reading of territorial integrity (a major part of Western government arguments in regards to Ukraine), Kosovo would have to go back to Serbia's umbrella.
Serbs voted out the genocidal government anyway in 1999 and forced them out through a color revolution, so it's not like there would have been some humanitarian impulse to Kosovo independence strong enough to override this.
Russia's effectively correct in recognizing territorial integrity as just another tool to keep it down - highlight when convenient for me, ignore when convenient to thee.
It was Western policies that created the Russia we have today. If we sought to integrate it into our coalition more rigorously when Yeltsin was president, or stopped moving NATO east when Putin was president the first time, or in general just gave the starving bear some room, we'd be in a better position against China now.