The question is what the west can offer at this point that still allows the west to save face. The key demand for Russia is demilitarization of Ukraine and keeping it out NATO, and it would be pretty hard to dress that up as anything but a total Russian victory over the west.
There’s really not much leverage the west has over Russia at this point either. The sanctions failed, and Russia’s military is only getting stronger. Meanwhile, Europe isn’t doing so hot economically and the economy in US isn’t doing much better either. The relative damage to the west is clearly more significant than to Russia. Not to mention that the war is now a major driving factor behind dedollarization and the rise of BRICS which puts the west in a far weaker position geopolitically going forward.
The key demand for Russia is demilitarization of Ukraine and keeping it out NATO, and it would be pretty hard to dress that up as anything but a total Russian victory over the west.
To this day westerners keep painting the Winter War as a Finnish victory because the USSR didn’t annex the whole country, regardless of if they ever wanted to. Don’t underestimate the West’s ability to revise recent history by moving goalposts.
The question is what the west can offer at this point that still allows the west to save face. The key demand for Russia is demilitarization of Ukraine and keeping it out NATO, and it would be pretty hard to dress that up as anything but a total Russian victory over the west.
There’s really not much leverage the west has over Russia at this point either. The sanctions failed, and Russia’s military is only getting stronger. Meanwhile, Europe isn’t doing so hot economically and the economy in US isn’t doing much better either. The relative damage to the west is clearly more significant than to Russia. Not to mention that the war is now a major driving factor behind dedollarization and the rise of BRICS which puts the west in a far weaker position geopolitically going forward.
To this day westerners keep painting the Winter War as a Finnish victory because the USSR didn’t annex the whole country, regardless of if they ever wanted to. Don’t underestimate the West’s ability to revise recent history by moving goalposts.