https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/09/30/this-would-be-a-wise-stopping-point-for-this-war-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/
At the risk of upsetting the entire internet, the annexation of those four Ukrainian territories seems like a great time to end this war to me. Does anyone honestly believe a significant percentage of the people who live there want a massive counteroffensive on their doorstep? I don’t.
The west knowingly provoked this war, the thing experts warned for years would happen did happen, and now Ukraine lost some territory. Rather than risking millions or billions of lives escalating this conflict, it seems sensible to draw a line under it. You can yell “Putin bad!” and “International law!” all you want, but it’s just a cold hard fact that after the annexation the US/NATO/Ukraine tandem is going to be presented with the choice of either ending the bloodshed or massively, massively escalating it. Pretty easy choice, in my opinion.
There are two kinds of people who want peace in Ukraine: those who want it to come now via diplomacy, negotiation and compromise, and those who want it to come years from now after pouring millions of lives into driving Russia out of every last inch of Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders. You either support a negotiated settlement right now or you support an extremely long, protracted proxy war that risks nuclear annihilation, ends up costing millions of lives and trillions of dollars, and has no guarantee of success. And the latter position is what’s being planned for:
Of course I don’t actually believe the fighting will end in this way at this time; there’s too much riding on keeping the bloodshed going. I’m just highlighting the fairly obvious fact that it could end now, and should end now.