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Purely strategically, the best bet is for NATO to fund and lend/lease materiel to Ukraine sufficient to make the Russian effort protracted and expensive. Maybe Ukraine can solidify some territorial gains in Russian oblasts enough to have bargaining chips. From there it is just a game of finding acceptable off-ramps. Maybe a treaty gets signed that trades territory back to something like the “original” borders circa the beginning to the current conflict.
Russia clearly doesn’t care about personnel losses (and historically never has). But maybe if it drags on, the conflict will become economically and politically costly enough that Putin is looking for offramps.
Putin doesn’t give a shit about personnel losses but Russia very much does, even if it doesn’t know it yet. So many young men have been erased from the economy, either by them fleeing the country or being killed, it will affect Russian economy negatively for decades
“figure out what a peaceful settlement looks like,”
Per the article, followed immediately by ceding the currently occupied parts of Ukraine to Russia and Ukraine promising never to join NATO or “related” organizations. Ukraine gets a “demilitarized” zone to do what, of course, THE INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNIZED BORDER was supposed to do.
Fucking hell. We wouldn’t ask Iran for terms like that, but a maturing democracy that is allied with us… it’s fine. After all, the west did shitty things like “offering a more appealing value proposition.” Trump is not even good at being a hegemonic power.
His plan is “give Putin everything he wants.” Real great negotiator there. /s
That’s what he did (and more) for the Taliban.