FRANKFURT: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called Sunday for diplomatic efforts to be intensified to achieve peace in...
  • bl4kers@lemmy.mlEnglish
    366·
    3 months ago

    I listened to an interview recently, I believe on BBC, where the interviewee said the biggest issue with peace talks is that the international community isn’t able to trust Putin to keep his word on whatever is agreed upon. I hadn’t considered that, but it makes a lot of sense and I’m not sure how that could change

  • ZealousSealion@discuss.tchncs.de
    4019·
    3 months ago

    Step up military aid to Ukraine significantly. That is the only way to peace. Giving in to russian demands would only lead to a short cease fire, before they launch their next attack.

    That so many Germans have bought into russian propaganda is a major hurdle.

  • Korkki@lemmy.world
    183·
    3 months ago

    The primary problem is that for negotiations to even begin is that Ukraine itself has a law that forbids anybody to negotiate with Putin before Ukraine has regained all it’s lands, even Zelensky himself would technically speaking commit treason by agreeing to talk on peace terms before this law is repealed. That is unless Scholz speaks of the “Zelensky peace plan” that is basically Russia gives up all the pre 2014 territories and then Kiev will negotiate with Moscow. Which is equally nonsensical and impossible situation.

    I don’t know if what if any Scholz is trying to do here. All talk most likely for domestic audience, because the opposition won big in regional elections in Germany lately on “no more money to Ukraine” platform.

    • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
      103·
      3 months ago

      Ukraine’s government can change that law if they want to, of course. And if things keep going as they have been, they will have to choose between doing that and losing even more territory.

      Attempts at maximum escalation have not produced good results for the Ukrainian people. I would like fewer of them to die given the realistic options available.

      Re: Scholz I think the higher-ups in Western Europe are aware that their “support for Ukraine” is more about trying to hurt Russia than help the Ukrainian people. I would expect more to jump ship as the possibility of anything other than a full rout starts to vanish. These countries aren’t going to actually sacrifice anything they value in order to actually help common Ukrainian people. At the moment their “aid” is mostly weapons and ammunition whose main purpose is to prop up military contractors.

      • ziggurat@lemmy.world
        95·
        3 months ago

        Or NATO just allows them to destroy airfields Russia is launching rockets from.

        So our choice is to give the purse to the thief that wants more land in the future, or slap the knife out of his hand

        • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
          97·
          3 months ago

          Russia has far more military capacity than Ukraine. Every escalation runs the risk of Russia adopting NATO’s scorched earth tactics. Russia clearly sees value in the slow grind approach, which they explain as a de facto demilitarization of Ukraine, but if they ever stop seeing value in that…

          Don’t forget what NATO member countries do to their military targets and what the outcomes are. Every population center in North Korea bombed out. Agent orange, napalm, mass bombing campaigns in Laos and Vietnam. Reckless and depraved mass killings in Algeria. Two invasions of Iraq and interceding sanctions that killed millions of children, with a heavy focus on the destruction of civilian infrastructure.

          Hoping for escalation can only mean hoping fot mass death for Ukrainians. This is not a movie or an idle fantasy where we get to play pretend about knocking a knife out if the bad guys hands. This is the real world with actual troop deployments and bombing campaigns and industrial bases and drones that pick people off while they sleep and a country that still functions but can be made to not with about a week of bombings.

            • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
              41·
              3 months ago

              How many people died in Iraq between 1989 and 2007 as a result of NATO member war and sanctions?

              PS the primary targeting of civilians in Ukraine is done by far right cadres against Donbas civilians.

                • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
                  51·
                  3 months ago

                  And how many people in Iran and Kuwait died from Saddam’s bullshit?

                  I’ll wait for you to answer my question first. You seem to be forgetting what we are talking about. Take as much time as you need.

                  You’d be much more effective with these arguments if you weren’t defending war criminals.

                  Please try to engage in good faith and not put words in my mouth.

                  Cute fantasy.

                  It sounds like you are unfamiliar with the civil war in Ukraine from 2014 and on. 4X longer and constant shelling. Union halls burned down with people locked inside.

                  Allow me to retort, but WITH FACTS, because you have NONE to support your laughable assertions: [a list of articles you just Googled]

                  Feel free to state your point and what meaning you would like to share from your list of links. Take as much time as you need to formulate your thesis or counterargument.

                  How fucking evil do you have to be to bomb a children’s hospital?

                  Yes, bombing civilian infrastructure is horrific. The NATO countries I mentioned systematically target it. Rather than one hospital, imagine it was 80% of them. No clean water. Medical personnel routinely targeted. No imports of medicine, limited food. Disruption and control over electricity. Israel is doing this right now in Gaza. You can see with your own eyes what the difference is.

                  How evil are the countries that do this on a much larger scale and systematically?

                  And you say Ukraine is targeting civilians

                  Of course, that is what the shelling of Donbas has been for a decade. UA has continued to bombard civilian areas of the city of Donetsk this whole time.

                  It’s a petty, evil, deliberate distortion of the truth.

                  Have you no shame? not an ounce?

                  I have listed basic fact. Please allow yourself to process this information that is new to you rather than lashing out and making things up.

        • geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml
          45·
          3 months ago

          Endless escalation is impossible. Russia has nukes.

          Even assuming Ukraine starts winning the conventional war against all odds, If the situation ever looks too dire Ukraine does not have the required MAD deterrence to prevent Russia from nuking them.

          • 🦄🦄🦄@feddit.orgDeutsch
            25·
            3 months ago

            Russia has nukes.

            At this point their nukes are likely in the same sorry state as their dictator: old, frail, failing

    • viscacha@feddit.orgDeutsch
      5·
      3 months ago

      I believe it must be seen as a meagre attempt to appeal to the rising numbers of supporters of the AfD and BSW. Both political parties have won significant ground in the latest state elections and both can be considered Putin-friendly, to say the least.

      In the past, Schulz has followed closely the position and decisions of the USA and I cannot see this changing in the foreseeable future.

    • egrets@lemmy.world
      51·
      3 months ago

      I am the most inexpert of laypeople on this subject, but I’ve wondered whether the incursion into Russian territory has been to give Ukraine a better position to negotiate on a mutual return of territory in talks, if they come about.

      • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
        83·
        3 months ago

        We have to speculate about it, but it is a reckless maneuver that has led to the nee, rapid losses on the main front. I would expect that it is reckless ideologues trying to push it.

        Ukraine has seen some high-profile resignations just before and during this, so it is possible that the early resignations was people opposed to invading a sliver of Kursk and the later ones might be people that wanted to invade.

        But this is just guessing.

    • Amju Wolf@pawb.socialEnglish
      64·
      3 months ago

      Sooo they can bend the law and postpone holding elections, but they cannot bend it to hold peace talks? It’s just an excuse.

      • Korkki@lemmy.world
        41·
        3 months ago

        Essentially yes because both holding elections or negotiating would spell doom to many Kiev politicians and very likely not just their political careers.

        • Amju Wolf@pawb.socialEnglish
          3·
          3 months ago

          Quite the irony; somehow not doing anything and getting people killed needlessly and destroying your own nation is an okay path forward, but trying to find a compromise that stops that would cost you your career… I mean, it’s not surprising, but also really sad.

      • Godric@lemmy.world
        32·
        3 months ago

        Sooo they can bend the law and postpone holding elections

        No, Ukraine was attacked, so parliament and president declared martial law. Ukraine is constitutionally prohibited from holding elections until it is over.

  • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.mlEnglish
    167·
    3 months ago

    It’s incredibly funny that the level from which we’d be ‘stepping up’ is holding a 70 nation conference for peace that the country winning the war was not invited to