Should Biden and Putin agree to end the Ukraine war as a stalemate?

[BG-NY]

People on both sides are dying en masse, while the front hasn’t moved much in 2023.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Will you people stop robbing Ukraine of its own agency and sovereignty?! Any deal to end the war will be between Ukraine and Russia

[OSR stands with Israel]

Will you people stop robbing Ukraine of its own agency and sovereignty?! Any deal to end the war will be between Ukraine and Russia

I disagree with him but we make deals on behalf of other nation's all the time. Its part of the role with being the world's super power in a way

[WalterWhite]

Does Zelensky get a say in this hypothetical scenario?

[Pericles]

Ukraine hasn't achieved all its objectives so they still want to keep fighting. It is not at all clear that Russia wouldn't crack first in a war of attrition or that the stalemate won't be broken in the future. There after all is no general rule that democracies don't outlast dictatorships if you actually look at history, and Ukraine are fighting for their homeland and obviously are a lot more motivated than the Russians.

Ukraine can't accept losing 15% of their country and can't accept the awful tyranny their citizens in the occupied territories are living under. No country could justify allowing that to happen to them when they can prevent it.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Will you people stop robbing Ukraine of its own agency and sovereignty?! Any deal to end the war will be between Ukraine and Russia

I disagree with him but we make deals on behalf of other nation's all the time. Its part of the role with being the world's super power in a way

We’ve broker sure but to outright negotiate Ukraine’s territory to Russia would be something completely different

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Will you people stop robbing Ukraine of its own agency and sovereignty?! Any deal to end the war will be between Ukraine and Russia

I disagree with him but we make deals on behalf of other nation's all the time. Its part of the role with being the world's super power in a way

We’ve broker sure but to outright negotiate Ukraine’s territory to Russia would be something completely different

Yeah, this would have similar vibes to Trump giving the Taliban the keys to the kingdom in Afghanistan--maybe a bit better because this wouldn't be the entirety of Ukraine, maybe a bit worse because Russia is an invading power rather than a party to a civil war, but similar.

[Upper Canada Tory]

'Biden and Putin'. Zelensky of course does not matter here, because 'lesser states' like Ukraine have no rights. Ukraine has to agree with whatever solution the world's top two nuclear powers impose on them.

[Isaak]

Biden has nothing to say here.

[pppolitics]

Will you people stop robbing Ukraine of its own agency and sovereignty?! Any deal to end the war will be between Ukraine and Russia

I disagree with him but we make deals on behalf of other nation's all the time. Its part of the role with being the world's super power in a way

From the Budapest Memorandum:

1. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine;

2. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations;

[dead0man]

Biden's opinion on the matter doesn't mean that much and that's obvious to any thinking person.  Or really even dummies can figure that out, unless you think the only thing giving Ukraine hope is aid from the US and that's a silly thing to think and just shows you aren't paying attention.  Ukraine is going to fight on no matter what happens, especially after it's been established how weak Russia actually is.  It will be long, it will be hard, but they will fight on without US support.  Which is why we should have given Ukraine more and better gear when the war started, it would have saved a lot of lives of Ukrainian civilians.  We seem to not want Ukraine to lose, but also don't really want to see them win either.  That's not cool.  I'm not sure what the goal of these weasels are, but I know how to spot them.  Ask them if it would be ok for Ukraine to invade Russian territory, if they say no, they don't want Ukraine to actually win.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Biden's opinion on the matter doesn't mean that much and that's obvious to any thinking person.  Or really even dummies can figure that out, unless you think the only thing giving Ukraine hope is aid from the US and that's a silly thing to think and just shows you aren't paying attention.  Ukraine is going to fight on no matter what happens, especially after it's been established how weak Russia actually is.  It will be long, it will be hard, but they will fight on without US support.  Which is why we should have given Ukraine more and better gear when the war started, it would have saved a lot of lives of Ukrainian civilians.  We seem to not want Ukraine to lose, but also don't really want to see them win either.  That's not cool.  I'm not sure what the goal of these weasels are, but I know how to spot them.  Ask them if it would be ok for Ukraine to invade Russian territory, if they say no, they don't want Ukraine to actually win.

2 points :


1. We obviously wouldn’t do this right now

2. The likely deal we would broker but Ukraine has said they wouldn’t  is 2021 borders and that is cause our own military does not think it’s realistic to restore 2013 borders . If our military thinks it’s realistic Ukraine can restore 2013 borders then we wouldn’t broker that deal but if they still believe they can’t , then we probably would.

The US military knows more than any other military when it comes to what is or what isn’t possible in a conventional war so we obviously should just go with what they tell us here .

[dead0man]

Biden's opinion on the matter doesn't mean that much and that's obvious to any thinking person.  Or really even dummies can figure that out, unless you think the only thing giving Ukraine hope is aid from the US and that's a silly thing to think and just shows you aren't paying attention.  Ukraine is going to fight on no matter what happens, especially after it's been established how weak Russia actually is.  It will be long, it will be hard, but they will fight on without US support.  Which is why we should have given Ukraine more and better gear when the war started, it would have saved a lot of lives of Ukrainian civilians.  We seem to not want Ukraine to lose, but also don't really want to see them win either.  That's not cool.  I'm not sure what the goal of these weasels are, but I know how to spot them.  Ask them if it would be ok for Ukraine to invade Russian territory, if they say no, they don't want Ukraine to actually win.

2 points :


1. We obviously wouldn’t do this right now

2. The likely deal we would broker but Ukraine has said they wouldn’t  is 2021 borders and that is cause our own military does not think it’s realistic to restore 2013 borders . If our military thinks it’s realistic Ukraine can restore 2013 borders then we wouldn’t broker that deal but if they still believe they can’t , then we probably would.

The US military knows more than any other military when it comes to what is or what isn’t possible in a conventional war so we obviously should just go with what they tell us here.

maybe, but:
1.the US military ain't perfect at guessing who will win a war
2.even if they guess correctly that Ukraine will never gain all their territory back or that the costs in blood and coin far outweigh the gains doesn't mean Ukraine would or should stop fighting

The US (Biden or the military) get no vote on when this war ends.  The Ukrainian people and Putin are the only two entities that matter (and the Russian people to a much smaller extent because while they have to power to make Putin stop, they don't want him to, don't think they can or are too scared to try, so they have made themselves irrelevant...again).  Putin apologists in the West need to stop trying to convince their friends to stop supporting Ukraine and start sending messages to Putin if they want the war to end, but we all know that's not the direction information flows.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Biden's opinion on the matter doesn't mean that much and that's obvious to any thinking person.  Or really even dummies can figure that out, unless you think the only thing giving Ukraine hope is aid from the US and that's a silly thing to think and just shows you aren't paying attention.  Ukraine is going to fight on no matter what happens, especially after it's been established how weak Russia actually is.  It will be long, it will be hard, but they will fight on without US support.  Which is why we should have given Ukraine more and better gear when the war started, it would have saved a lot of lives of Ukrainian civilians.  We seem to not want Ukraine to lose, but also don't really want to see them win either.  That's not cool.  I'm not sure what the goal of these weasels are, but I know how to spot them.  Ask them if it would be ok for Ukraine to invade Russian territory, if they say no, they don't want Ukraine to actually win.

2 points :


1. We obviously wouldn’t do this right now

2. The likely deal we would broker but Ukraine has said they wouldn’t  is 2021 borders and that is cause our own military does not think it’s realistic to restore 2013 borders . If our military thinks it’s realistic Ukraine can restore 2013 borders then we wouldn’t broker that deal but if they still believe they can’t , then we probably would.

The US military knows more than any other military when it comes to what is or what isn’t possible in a conventional war so we obviously should just go with what they tell us here.

maybe, but:
1.the US military ain't perfect at guessing who will win a war
2.even if they guess correctly that Ukraine will never gain all their territory back or that the costs in blood and coin far outweigh the gains doesn't mean Ukraine would or should stop fighting

The US (Biden or the military) get no vote on when this war ends.  The Ukrainian people and Putin are the only two entities that matter (and the Russian people to a much smaller extent because while they have to power to make Putin stop, they don't want him to, don't think they can or are too scared to try, so they have made themselves irrelevant...again).  Putin apologists in the West need to stop trying to convince their friends to stop supporting Ukraine and start sending messages to Putin if they want the war to end, but we all know that's not the direction information flows.

Our foreign policy decisions should be made on what our military thinks is realistically possible. So my belief on aid is it should be given to achieve the goals our military thinks is realistically possible and the current discussion over it is moronic as aid is a tool to be used to achieve certain goals we set .

So no we should not stop aid right now but we should not give it to achieve goals our military does not think is possible

[dead0man]

Our foreign policy decisions should be made on what our military thinks is realistically possible. So my belief on aid is it should be given to achieve the goals our military thinks is realistically possible and the current discussion over it is moronic as aid is a tool to be used to achieve certain goals we set.

our goal should be victory for Ukraine, and we should give whatever aid is necessary to achieve that goal.  I guarantee that the US military believes Ukraine can win if given the proper resources, so I agree with you that we should give Ukraine what the US military thinks it needs to win.  If we had done that from the start, there would be a lot more living Ukrainian civilians right now and Ukraine would be far closer to ending this war (if it hadn't already).  We should correct this ongoing mistake as soon as possible.  There is no excuse for Ukraine to not be 100% covered with anti-missile systems, this is a great failure of the west.  Every train station and apartment building the Orcs destroy is another embarrassment we leave for future historians to shake their heads about.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Our foreign policy decisions should be made on what our military thinks is realistically possible. So my belief on aid is it should be given to achieve the goals our military thinks is realistically possible and the current discussion over it is moronic as aid is a tool to be used to achieve certain goals we set.

our goal should be victory for Ukraine, and we should give whatever aid is necessary to achieve that goal.  I guarantee that the US military believes Ukraine can win if given the proper resources, so I agree with you that we should give Ukraine what the US military thinks it needs to win.  If we had done that from the start, there would be a lot more living Ukrainian civilians right now and Ukraine would be far closer to ending this war (if it hadn't already).  We should correct this ongoing mistake as soon as possible.  There is no excuse for Ukraine to not be 100% covered with anti-missile systems, this is a great failure of the west.  Every train station and apartment building the Orcs destroy is another embarrassment we leave for future historians to shake their heads about.

I’d argue 2021 Borders is a Ukrainian victory and is certainly a Russian defeat. That result would mean :

1. Russia’s military capabilities was shown to be far far weaker then ours

2. Russia’s economy will have gotten far far weaker

3. 2021 Borders Ukraine would be completely westernized


So this is still a massive loss for Russia and a major win for us and our interests for sure .

[SnowLabrador]

Neither side has any reason to accept this. Ukraine in particular would be giving up territory that is rightfully theirs, and Russia will have succeeded in some of its goals, something none of us should consider acceptable.

[dead0man]

Our foreign policy decisions should be made on what our military thinks is realistically possible. So my belief on aid is it should be given to achieve the goals our military thinks is realistically possible and the current discussion over it is moronic as aid is a tool to be used to achieve certain goals we set.

our goal should be victory for Ukraine, and we should give whatever aid is necessary to achieve that goal.  I guarantee that the US military believes Ukraine can win if given the proper resources, so I agree with you that we should give Ukraine what the US military thinks it needs to win.  If we had done that from the start, there would be a lot more living Ukrainian civilians right now and Ukraine would be far closer to ending this war (if it hadn't already).  We should correct this ongoing mistake as soon as possible.  There is no excuse for Ukraine to not be 100% covered with anti-missile systems, this is a great failure of the west.  Every train station and apartment building the Orcs destroy is another embarrassment we leave for future historians to shake their heads about.

I’d argue 2021 Borders is a Ukrainian victory and is certainly a Russian defeat. That result would mean :

1. Russia’s military capabilities was shown to be far far weaker then ours

2. Russia’s economy will have gotten far far weaker

3. 2021 Borders Ukraine would be completely westernized


So this is still a massive loss for Russia and a major win for us and our interests for sure .

1 and 2 are true whether Ukraine gives up land or not and a longer war makes them even more true.  3 as well, but that depends on what you mean.

If Biden does what you suggest and pressures Ukraine into giving up land for peace*, would you be willing to let Ukraine in NATO (assuming they fit all the normal criteria) even if Russia says they'll be angry if we do?  I know a lot of your party mates are way too far gone (you can tell because they parrot stupid things like Russia had to attack Ukraine to defend itself from western aggression) to ever accept such a thing.




*has giving up land for peace ever worked in the long or even medium term?  For anyone?  I guess it kind of worked for Israel with regards to Egypt and Jordan, not so much Gaza or Lebanon.

[Landslide Lyndon]

I see that the Russian trolls are starting to become desperate.
What happened to the denazification and disarmament of Ukraine boys? Are you going to just leave that modern-day Jew Hitler in Kiev to continue to govern?

[CumbrianLefty]

Biden's opinion on the matter doesn't mean that much and that's obvious to any thinking person.  Or really even dummies can figure that out, unless you think the only thing giving Ukraine hope is aid from the US and that's a silly thing to think and just shows you aren't paying attention.  Ukraine is going to fight on no matter what happens, especially after it's been established how weak Russia actually is.  It will be long, it will be hard, but they will fight on without US support.  Which is why we should have given Ukraine more and better gear when the war started, it would have saved a lot of lives of Ukrainian civilians.  We seem to not want Ukraine to lose, but also don't really want to see them win either.  That's not cool.  I'm not sure what the goal of these weasels are, but I know how to spot them.  Ask them if it would be ok for Ukraine to invade Russian territory, if they say no, they don't want Ukraine to actually win.

2 points :


1. We obviously wouldn’t do this right now

2. The likely deal we would broker but Ukraine has said they wouldn’t  is 2021 borders and that is cause our own military does not think it’s realistic to restore 2013 borders . If our military thinks it’s realistic Ukraine can restore 2013 borders then we wouldn’t broker that deal but if they still believe they can’t , then we probably would.

The US military knows more than any other military when it comes to what is or what isn’t possible in a conventional war so we obviously should just go with what they tell us here .

Depends what you mean by "2013 borders" - I continue to think that those borders *minus Crimea* is a realistic end point for Ukraine. Not least because Crimea is all that most ordinary Russians (as opposed to brain poisoned Duginist fanatics) actually care about.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Immediately.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Biden's opinion on the matter doesn't mean that much and that's obvious to any thinking person.  Or really even dummies can figure that out, unless you think the only thing giving Ukraine hope is aid from the US and that's a silly thing to think and just shows you aren't paying attention.  Ukraine is going to fight on no matter what happens, especially after it's been established how weak Russia actually is.  It will be long, it will be hard, but they will fight on without US support.  Which is why we should have given Ukraine more and better gear when the war started, it would have saved a lot of lives of Ukrainian civilians.  We seem to not want Ukraine to lose, but also don't really want to see them win either.  That's not cool.  I'm not sure what the goal of these weasels are, but I know how to spot them.  Ask them if it would be ok for Ukraine to invade Russian territory, if they say no, they don't want Ukraine to actually win.

2 points :


1. We obviously wouldn’t do this right now

2. The likely deal we would broker but Ukraine has said they wouldn’t  is 2021 borders and that is cause our own military does not think it’s realistic to restore 2013 borders . If our military thinks it’s realistic Ukraine can restore 2013 borders then we wouldn’t broker that deal but if they still believe they can’t , then we probably would.

The US military knows more than any other military when it comes to what is or what isn’t possible in a conventional war so we obviously should just go with what they tell us here .

Depends what you mean by "2013 borders" - I continue to think that those borders *minus Crimea* is a realistic end point for Ukraine. Not least because Crimea is all that most ordinary Russians (as opposed to brain poisoned Duginist fanatics) actually care about.

Let’s wait till next February anyway to see where the state of the war is , but if it’s not really changed by now then I don’t know how that can be a realistic end . In that case the war has become more like WW1 than WW2 (and unlike WW1 a war the US would not directly enter) and we’d have to reassess.

This is why we should defer to what the Pentagon thinks is realistic but I will say this and that is if the state of the war hasn’t changed in 6-8 months , then the Likely deal we’d get is worse than now . If we are encouraging Ukraine to fight on for goals that our military thinks is unrealistic then we are giving them false hope and we should not really do that .

[DavidB.]

This isn't a war between Russia and the U.S., so not sure why the thread title mentions Biden?

[All Along The Watchtower]

ur goal should be victory for Ukraine, and we should give whatever aid is necessary to achieve that goal.  I guarantee that the US military believes Ukraine can win if given the proper resources, so I agree with you that we should give Ukraine what the US military thinks it needs to win. If we had done that from the start, there would be a lot more living Ukrainian civilians right now and Ukraine would be far closer to ending this war (if it hadn't already).  We should correct this ongoing mistake as soon as possible.  There is no excuse for Ukraine to not be 100% covered with anti-missile systems this is a great failure of the west.

Define "the start." And regardless, the real issues are:

- on the Ukrainian side, deep and longstanding political divisions that have been reduced/suppressed since February 2022 but aren't gone with the exception of pro-Russian sentiment, the country having been stuck with a Soviet-era military that simply can't be turned into into one that operates many modern American systems within the space of a couple of years, and longstanding corruption (again, many such cases in former Soviet republics, not least of which is Russia itself of course) which makes military preparedness and competence challenging---something that the Russians have also had to confront, and apparently to a much greater extent.

It's a real credit to the Ukrainians (and conversely, a real embarrassment for the Russians) that they've fought so well thus far, and have continued to learn rapidly and thus improve---to say nothing of their conventional military not collapsing like almost everyone had expected once the war started, including the US and other NATO governments; preparations were being made to support an insurgency against the expected Russian invasion (which we were already doing a little bit in the Donbas).

- on the NATO side, each country generally wanting to keep their best military stuff to themselves, so there's that. And as for the US, besides our own military needs, we have our treaty allies (alongside our non-treaty allies, e.g. our problematic friends in the Middle East) to whom we sell a lot of weapons and to whom we plan to sell more---especially to our Asian allies against China. Oh, and don't forget about domestic political support within the US and our NATO allies. You know, that whole democracy thing.

Lotta factors, and it can get pretty messy!

[It’s so Joever]

The deal should be 2021 borders. Crimea probably should be a part of Russia anyways. As for the cleansed parts of occupied Donbas and Luhansk…it’s awful but I don’t think Ukraine honestly is strong enough to be able to reintegrate them back in at this point. Yes this is essentially a nice way of saying the genocide/mass suppression worked.
However the rest of Ukraine is more than welcome. Additionally we should admit Ukraine to NATO immediately. If Russia wants a war over it they can try.