Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin – the Russian mercenary leader whose plane crashed weeks after he led a mutiny against Moscow’s military leadership – shows what happens when people make deals with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
As Ukraine’s counteroffensive moves into a fourth month, with only modest gains to show so far, Zelensky told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria he rejected suggestions it was time to negotiate peace with the Kremlin.
“When you want to have a compromise or a dialogue with somebody, you cannot do it with a liar,” Volodymyr Zelensky said.
A ‘Treaty of Versailles’ type solution is not a good idea for durable peace though, harsh reparations, despite any sense they might be ‘fair’, seldom lead to both countries returning to be prosperous democratic countries (and to be clear, neither is a capitulation by Ukraine - that would be seen by Putin as locking in its current gains, with no real incentive not to try again for more despite what the treaty might say).
The best outcome for everyone is if Russia ends up being a genuinely pluralistic democracy (i.e. anyone in Russia can have political views, and the public selects its leadership in free and fair elections). Then Ukraine can normalise relations with Russia, and Russia stops being a threat to democratic institutions across the world as a whole.
I think the best way of thinking about it is not that Ukraine has a Russia problem, but rather that Ukraine and Russia have an oligarch problem (with Putin chief amongst them). Therefore, in a fair world, the oligarchs, and not the Russian people, would pay. It is true that Russians (and indeed some Ukrainians in occupied regions) have been radicalised by the oligarchs, so some kind of deradicalisation would be needed even if the oligarchs disappeared.
Solutions that look to negotiate how to reduce corruption and authoritarianism in Russia from the top are therefore the most likely to succeed long term. Shorter term solutions could include a negotiated end to hostilities coupled with agreements for Ukraine to join a defensive alliance that the oligarchs wouldn’t consider provoking - which could be followed up by a carrot approach to easing sanctions in exchange for progressive movements towards genuine Russian democracy. This might give oligarchs enough push to take off ramps to cash in what they have plundered already, and slowly be replaced by less corrupt alternatives going forward.
Recovery from oligarchy for Russia might also by costly for Russia though - essential assets plundered from the USSR are now in private hands through crony capitalism; the best solution would be for many of the major ones to go back to or be rebuilt under state ownership, under genuine democratic leadership. But that is likely easier said than done given the state of Russia.
Socialism worked in Russia: it dragged hundreds of millions of people out of subsistence farming and turned the USSR into an economic powerhouse. Of course, the collapse of the USSR showed the failings of an aggressively socialist state, but the funny thing is that China already has the solution: a market-based economy with strong state control. Putin doesn’t dare piss off the oligarchs though, so we’re stuck with this crony bullshit.
China’s also showing the problem of that. The state control is too susceptible to corruption. That’s how they have a whole industry if fake construction, fake goods etc… And why they’re on the brink of a massive Construction bond related crash.
| Socialism worked in Russia:
Bullshit. Prosperity advanced much more in the west than in the Soviet Union, or anywhere in the soviet bloc. Corruption was rampant. Lying was rampant. People were miserable. Cultural genocide was the name of the game. Subjugated people hated it, and have fared significantly better since getting out. The only people who seem to be nostalgic about the USSR is the Russians, because they lost the ability to benefit from the slave labor of conquered vassal states.
Yeah China had the answer. 🙄
Oppression of ethnic minorities, complete disregard for culture and individualism, zero tolerance for criticism and challenge, absolutely authority by a select few to do as they please.
Yeah that’s fucking tankie logic for you. Fuck off bootlicker. We don’t want authoritative commie dictatorships. If you want it, FUCKING MOVE THERE.
Is the “commie” in the room with you now? This is an unhinged level of angrv to get over a really quite tame comment.
This guy is commenting all over this thread with low key support of the CCP, USSR and the Putin thug regime.
So don’t tell me it is unhinged anger. This guy is a tankie shill and a dirtbag who supports genocidal maniacs.
This may be true but the negotiations are with a dictator. It’s not like Putin is going to step down so that the problem is resolved peacefully.
Yep. The only way to make progress on that front is to serve Putin some polonium tea…
That won’t work, it’s not just Putin doing this alone you know. You’d need a powerful (the most powerful, actually) faction inside the Russian state apparatus that want to just give up, and there’s no real reason to think there is such a group. And no anti-war opposition has enough support to do a coup or win elections.
No defeatist is getting into power. It’s not going to happen unless Lenin rises from the dead.
I bet if they had a real option, they’d love to stop sending their kids to die.
Saying as much now gets you thrown in jail.
Ukraine itself is not a “genuinely pluralistic democracy” despite appearances, it’s almost as corrupt and authoritarian as Russia.
It’s not the case where only Russia has to become more democratic cause democracies usually don’t fight each other.
But for Russia to stop being a threat it’s sufficient to just lose this war finally. It won’t recover its ability to attack anyone anytime soon, and when it will, the process of recovery itself is going to naturally ensure that it’s not interested in attacking Ukraine.
So yes, you are right about oligarchs and the general structure of the societies.
Essential assets you are talking about are what exactly? If you mean factories and plants, then actual equipment in most of them was obsolete even in 1991, and through the 90s and 00s has mostly been scrapped.
There are some remaining and even functioning, yes, but whether state ownership is going to prevent those from slowly crumbling due to growing obsolescence, irrelevance and lack of expertise, I’m not sure.
Basically industrial capacities are something to be created from scratch mostly.
What would be the definition of “losing” in this case? Countries tend use all the weapons at their disposal in order not to “lose”, in the case of Russia that would include its nuclear arsenal.
Sounds like a better outcome for everyone would be for Russia to get a civil war, and just “forget” about Ukraine.
All weapons which make sense for Russia’s leadership. Nukes are not that, they want to still rule over something when this ends.
Chemical weapons are possible, I think.
If we go far enough up the command chain, there are fallout shelters and
slavessubordinates to rule over.But you’re right, chemical and biological are likely lower on the “let’s fuck every treaty” scale.
I suspect they are getting second thoughts there about those fallout shelters and how different they are from wow hypersonic missiles and wow radioelectronic warfare and other kinds of wow they considered real.