Reason for hope? Ukraine operation to end with agreement - Lavrov Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday (March 19), Moscow expects its operation in Ukraine to end with a signing of a comprehensive agreement on security issues, including Ukraine's neutral status.
Hey Sergei, your definition of neutral or the Ukraineian’s definition of neutral? And maybe a little something, something for reparations
Guess he's expecting them to surrender due to that ultimatum in Maripol? Ukraine has already said repeatedly it would entertain the neutral status especially after NATO left them hanging. But their other "conditions" included denazification/the government being replaced, complete dearmament, etc. So I think he's getting ahead of himself/putting that out there so when Ukraine says not a chance, they can say "well we tried, we're the good guys" and then starts in with the chemicals/more hypersonics, because let's be real they don't care what they hit.
Tiktok from CBS has a video/article where Ukraine has dead Russian soldiers in cold storage that they want to return to their families in Russia, but Putin & company won't take then/acknowledge because they'd have to admit more casualties. *facepalm*
Honest question, but who is drawing any equivalencies between the Russians and Ukrainians? I haven’t seen anyone do that.
All I can think is this refers to the few against sanctions because it's too hard on Russians. I just thought it was a good tweet.
I suspect that if Ukraine agrees to neutrality it will only do so if it can maintain a military roughly equivalent to those of Sweden and Finland, two other neutral countries. As examples the latter is in process of replacing the 55 F/A 18s in its Air Force with 64 F35s and the former currently has 71 JAS 39 Gripens (roughly equivalent to F16s) with 60 more advanced variants of the same fighter on order. Prior to 1994 the Swedes had 400 fighters in their Air Force but decided that a smaller air force would be sufficient with the end of the Cold War.
Ukranian Air Force Reporting staggering (if true) losses by the Russian Air Force and Army Air Corps. Ukraine’s old air defense proves unexpectedly effective in combat
And that could work except the Russians also wanted Ukraine to fully disarm. And if the EU, who is taking Ukraine in, decides to go forward with plans to militarize, then does Russia go after then again? BTW, Finland and Sweden are looking to join NATO thanks to Russia's actions, so it's not like they'll be "neutral" for long...and does that mean Russia gets to invade Finland & Sweden now?
Finland and Sweden and also Switzerland for that matter are neutral and also have formidable militaries for self-defense. I think that Finland and Sweden will remain nominally neutral but will treat Russia as a potential adversary as they did with respect to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. As far as Ukraine is concerned disarmament is probably the one truly non-negotiable demand. Disarmament would give Putin the opportunity to accomplish through negotiations what he so far has been unable to accomplishment on the battlefield. The Ukrainians know that if they agree to disarm the Russian army will invade again some time in the future only they will be able to do so unopposed. It's never going to happen.
That's never going to happen. Mariupol is the base of the Azov battalion, the poster boy of neo-Nazis world-wide. Russia stated quite clearly (and falsely since Azov is a fringe group in Ukraine from what I can tell), that one of their primary goals is to de-nazify Ukraine, and they most likely do not consider this group a part of the Ukraine military. This means that Russia will not show them mercy as they 1)want to make an example of them, and 2)do not believe that they're bound by the Geneva Convention's rules on war crimes when it comes to treating these fighters. This also means that Azov will probably fight to the last man. A tragedy for sure for the civilians caught in between. For those who still don't believe the Azov battalion is a fascist group even though they use a SS Panzer division symbol their symbol, there's a good article on them a few days ago: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/03/14/neo-nazi-ukraine-war/
