Notes on Ukraine War and Peace

Apparently Russia won’t recognize upcoming elections in Ukraine because it will exclude 12 million Ukrainians that moved to Russia when the war occurred (approximate numbers) and more living in other countries abroad. One gets the feeling that European leaders love the war more than life itself (lives of Ukrainians and Russians) and will continue the war with seized Russian assets paying the bill via a loan from Europe chained to the Russian assets) for another year or two believing that it costs Europe comparatively little and Russia so much that Europe can easily win a war of attrition over three or five more years.

Russia of course cannot unilaterally stop the war because that would enable Ukrainian reorganization and reinforcement and they would counter attack Russians that would become defenders along interior lines. Sun Tzu’s art of war probably says that defending interior lines tends to be a losing proposition over time- I don’t have the time to look that up now. Anyway with a unilateral Russian halt to the conflict Europeans would reinforce Ukraine and they would try to return to the 1991 boundaries set by Clinton and a stressed Boris Yeltsin. Russia would be in a far worse strategic position with a very swollen N.A.T.O. chomping on the bit at its front door.

Unless a peace agreement is reached directly with Russia keeping all of the Donbas and occupied areas of the present, and a mostly demilitarized Ukraine with some sort of free trade zone for the entire country on both East and Western portions, with sanctions ending universally and presently there seems little hope for peace and perhaps for human civilization as nuclear conflict is probably the bright light at the end of the tunnel at some point if the European team has its way.