So to clarify...your position is that: it's better that Ukraine has been completely decimated and half a million have died fighting an un-winnable war...instead of taking lesser concessions upfront than they will ultimately have to make for this thing to end?

Russia was clearly in the wrong here, and I wish Ukraine could win, but reality exists, and we kind of have to anchor our decisions based on it or suffer the consequences.

I get it, realism is emotionally upsetting. But if you actually care about Ukraine, the only approach that can get the best outcome is realism.

▲ mopsi an hour ago | parent | next [-]

  > to make for this thing to end

Why should it end after concessions? You've just validated their strategy.

There is surprisingly little realism among the crowd calling themselves realists.

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pembrook an hour ago | parent [-]

Because while Russia was in a way stronger position than western media was portraying, they don't have an infinite capacity for pain.

They would absolutely love to not be sending their kids to die and selling natural resources to whomever again and traveling around the globe without sanctions.

The concessions they would have accepted at the beginning were less. However, now that they've lost so many men and risked their regime on it, they can't simply accept the same deal.

This is why the incentives that wars create are so terrible, especially for authoritarian regimes, even if they're at fault.

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toss1 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Wow, clueless. You entirely miss the point of the war.

Putin sees the mere existence of a successful Ukraine's as an existential threat. Putin initially got elected on promises that included becoming an advanced Western-style economy. He abandoned that to crony oligarchism, stripping the country for parts. Now, he and the Russian people see former Soviet state Ukraine actually becoming successful, well-off, and aspiring to EU membership. THAT can not be tolerated, because it would give Russian people the idea that they should have the same, and create a likely revolution at home.

So Putin's goal is to wipe Ukraine not only off the map, but off the consciousness of everyone in the world as Ukrainians as a people

Putin will stop until either 1) he achieves this goal, or 2) he is forced to stop.

THAT is the reality.

Thinking that Putin would somehow have accepted lesser sanctions earlier, and that he would have actually respected your new peace plan when he has never respected any other is to be played for a fool.

Allowing 1) to happen is unacceptable. Note the Ukrainians who are directly suffering the daily assaults can think as well as you can of the "realpolitik solution", and they reject it, because they know it is absolutely stupid, and leads only to rape, torture, and death — theirs, personally.

Making 2) happen is the only course of action. Ukrainians will follow it until they cannot.

If you want to stop the suffering, then accelerate Russia's exit. Garry Kasparov articulated a fine plan days ago [0]:

1: Provide complete protection of Ukrainian airspace

2: Immediately send Ukraine all the weapons it needs; no delay

3: Enforce existing sanctions. To this I add including seizing Russian and Iranian shadow fleet vessels

4: Cessation of diplomatic affairs with Russia

5: Seize Russian sovereign funds immediately and use them to power the war effort in Ukraine

This would be a start. Ukraine continuing its "long-range sanctions" is already bringing the Russian state coffers to rapid decline and looming budget crisis. Continuing it longer will force Putin's hand.

[0] https://ukrainetoday.org/five-hammer-blows-that-could-finall...

	▲	pembrook 16 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I agree the EU actually stepping up and entering the war in a serious way would tilt everything in Ukraine's favor. The problem is they just won't. The most important members of the EU (Germany and France) are in shambles domestically and turning far right. Both have little desire to stick their necks out to support Ukraine any further and are likely turning the opposite direction. Also, Russia has nukes. Nobody wants to provoke that any more than necessary. If Europe weren't a feckless, fragmented military vacuum things might be different, but nothing about that appears to be changing any time soon.

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mopsi an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

If Russia does not have "an infinite capacity for pain", then it does not sound like an unwinnable war. Ukraine estimates that they need to inflict at least 50 000 casualties a month to break the backbone of Russian military. The latest surge has brought it to 42 000 a month, up from 30 000 earlier this year. This already exceeds recruitment and training capacity.

Who are those who would love not to send their kids to die, sell resources and travel the world? Putin? His children already live a pampered life in palaces and he himself is probably the richest man in the world, currently on a trip to India. The rest don't matter. Even the head of security services Patrushev, historically the second most powerful man in the country, is scared of Putin like a schoolboy and fumbles words before him. That has been one of the most shocking revelations since the war began: that oligarchs, security services, nor anyone else can put out even the slightest opposition. The whole country dances to Putin's whims. His only real opponent is time.

And Putin doesn't give a shit about Donbas. The aim is to restore the world that birthed him, the USSR at its peak. Russia has not backed one one inch from the 2021 ultimatum to return to the European political order of the 1980s. Any concession only confirms that attacking Ukraine was a viable strategy, that piece by piece he can claw his way closer to that goal.

Military specialists from Northern Europe estimate that Russia would be in position to attack the Baltics and Poland (and have a reasonable chance of succeeding, especially if "realists" are at the helm in Western Europe and the USA) no more than 6 months after the war with Ukraine ends.

▲ toss1 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Your "realism" is [unprintable here]. Worse, it is not reality at all, but believing a false promise from Putin.

The ACTUAL realism is to recognize Putin's Russia for what it is: a relentless aggressor who will respect no peace. Putin's Russia has violated EVERY "peace agreement it has ever made. "Peace" in their mind is merely a strategic pause in the conflict to regroup and rearm.

The list is extremely long, Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, Donbas, and more. Exactly ZERO concessions brought peace.

The REALITY is Ukraine submitting to such a peace would merely be buying another worse war a few months or years down the road, after Russia has had a breather and a chance to rearm. It'll just be more deaths at a faster pace in Ukraine.

If you think otherwise, I'd have both a bridge and some oceanfront property in Kansas to sell you.

Meanwhile, your view of Ukraine is years out of date and was never true.

Ukraine has been anything but "completely decimated" — they have emerged as the leading global power in drones and air defense.

As to your 'half-million who have died', they are overwhelmingly Russian fighters — the absolute f'kn aggressors, and documented war criminals, torturers, rapists, thieves and worse. Zero sympathy. If they didn't want to die they could have just stayed home.

Also recognize the absolute goal of Russia, and Putin has NOT ONCE backed off from the stated goal: The entire concept of Ukraine as a people and as a state must be eliminated.

There is not even a surrender that can be acceptable to the people of Ukraine.

There is no compromise with someone who has the goal of murdering you or genociding your people.

The ONLY realistic solution is to boot Russia from every square inch of Ukrainian land, and force it back i it's box.

You obviously haven't noticed that Ukraine is on its way to accomplishing that, both decimating Russia's economic engine, and now taking back more land than RU has taken in 2026.

The shame here is the Western countries and Russia convinced Ukraine to give up nukes in return for inviolate borders, and when Russia violated that treaty back in 2014 taking Crimea, not one Western country pushed back.

Allowing Ukraine to get wiped off the map, and Ukrainians each, individually, to be forced to abandon their identity and language, and suffer rape, torture, and death may be a "realistic" option, but it is not an option to anyone who has an ounce of morality. Perhaps you should learn about it.

The only outcome that actually works is to force despots like Putin back into their box. Preferably six feet underground.

	▲	pembrook 39 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It sounds like your whole position is again dependent on the west's wishful thinking narratives of this war being true (which it hasn't been thus far). The numbers I cited were purposely in between the Russian numbers of Ukrainian casualties (1.5M, obviously false) and the Ukrainian numbers (100k, obviously undercounted). The Netherlands intelligence service and the CSIS put the number around 500K, which could also be wrong, but intelligence services tend to have better methods than media orgs like the BBC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrain... As far as your assessment of 'decimated', the UN projects Ukraine will require over half a $Trillion to rebuild. For a country with a GDP per capita of $7,000...I would call that decimated unfortunately. And that's not something that makes me happy: https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2026/02/23/u... The idea that Ukraine is winning or Russia is winning on any given week is entirely dependent on which news source you're reading, and given the fog of war, unless you have actual intelligence service briefs we don't actually know how its going other than the fact the frontlines have basically stayed +/- some kilometers for a super long time at this point. Also, the idea that Russia would not accept concessions and also that Putin being dead would be desirable (hard truth: there's people who are even more hardliners than Putin waiting in the wings), are unfortunately incomplete assessments of the reality. Again, I don't disagree with your emotional take on this, or the moral question of who's right or wrong. But on the reality of the situation I don't think your assessment is accurate as far as what's going to get the best outcome for Ukraine.