>>513458197
>Ukraine unironically has the strongest army in Europe besides Russia
could be
my main point is that Russia is supposed to be the third major power in the triumvirate of NATO-China-Russia, all of whom maintain a tense detente because each can deal a mortal blow to another
it's now pretty clear that avoidance of conflict with russia is not a tremendous mortal imperative but just kind of more trouble than it's worth
>>513458237
>That was the entire reason Putin attacked in the first place
no it wasn't, putin attacked to "denazify" the DPR and LPR on the justification that "there are ethnic russians there who want above all else to join russia, and ukrainian nazis are genociding them"
it was framed as a humanitarian peacekeeping mission
>>513458471
>but now the US will not support any possible concessions of any kind in return for that
except they will, because Trump wants the war to end
this is the "big ask"
Russia came in with the ENTIRE donetsk and luhansk regions, which is fucking huge. this will probably end with the conflict frozen and the currently captured territories given to russia with ukraine joining NATO or with a military agreement that the US has a base there