These all come off as wishful thinking and reminiscent of 2023 punditry. The Russian economy is fine because it’s a petrostate supported by BRICS. Even if we entertain them the time horizon is totally undefined. So we wait around while another million people die?
You’re not a fan of reading comprehension, are you ? That’s just a double down on your “there are only 3 options” post and ignores the two posts you responded to.
Maybe there will be another million russian casualties before Putain gives up on his zerg rush and pulls out, or one of the scenarios happens that prompts a Russian withdrawal, but if Ukraine surrenders there will easily be that many Ukrainians slaughtered (we have Bucha as precedent before you scoff), so there’s no incentive for Ukraine to do anything other than fight until overwhelmed or a win. That’s the POINT of the cartoon.
I’m not ignoring the points about Russian weakness, I’m dismissing them. We’ve been hearing the “Russia is on the verge of collapse” narrative for years. I think it’s wishful thinking and refusing to engage the thought of negotiating because of a vacuous Hitler narrative is just prolonging the conflict. When something doesn’t work for years one looks for alternatives.
Here’s an article about how economic stagnation doesn’t necessarily mean military defeat with authoritarian regimes.
I’m not trying to disprove anything, just showing that counterpoints are available. Ultimately we have no idea about when Putin will decide to stop, or whether he will at all, and we don’t know how the economic implications will affect Russia’s warfighting ability because we can’t apply a democratic model to it. All we have is years of liberal optimists being wrong and a million dead.
The point of the cartoon is to show that negotiating is bad and I think that makes no sense unless you’re a capitalist arms manufacturer or an imperial revanchist.
We’ve been hearing the “Russia is on the verge of collapse” narrative for years.
If you tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth ?
Russian propaganda have being doing variants of this dance for years with the intent to weaken the western resolve to stick to sanctions. It has invariably been Russian aligned sources that have pushed the “russia is about to collapse” as a strawman to then knock down.
The point of sanctions is to weaken Russian capability. It’s never been a position of the West that it will cause Russian economic collapse, although that is in fact now the direction of travel that has become apparent lately, it’s not something that is a goal (in fact the US went to a lot of trouble to hamstring Ukraine to try and prevent it in the Biden years).
Whether Russia will collapse economically is simply one of the many options you chose to ignore to further your narrative. It could, plausibly, happen, although it is not certain, but nor are any of the options you tabled.
What we do have very very clear evidence on, is that Russia (post USSR) breaks every treaty it makes with Ukraine, so the option of a negotiated peace has to be off the table as it is a near certainty they will break it (please don’t give me the battered spouse “this time it will be different” response).
I’m not going off of all of these hypotheticals. The evidence I’m pointing to is a thousand casualties per day. People in the West can sanction and wishcast about oligarchs all they want and meanwhile these lives are being erased. Imagine living in Ukraine and hearing this. “Just keep dying, and eventually something might happen.” It’s absurd.
Do you have any solution that produces a result in a quantifiable amount of time?
I never suggested that Russia was trustworthy, just that temporary peace is better than whatever this is.
Do you have any solution that produces a result in a quantifiable amount of time?
I’m going to set aside the fact that it is impossible to guarantee a timeframe on anything, and assume you meant “realistic suggestions to end the war”.
But, oh you won’t like my suggestions one little bit and we have proof from the thread to date you won’t actually engage with them, you’ll just dismiss them.
So, the minimal effort response is - Russia has already been ground to a halt - they’ve not been advancing in any significant way for at least 2months. What makes you think Russia can win from here ? They can’t get fuel into Crimea where they’ve been staging attacks from, they can’t get supplies into their troops on the frontline in many areas, and on the home front there’s plenty of footage of farmers going broke for various reasons and not being able to produce. Famines are always great for home-front morale so that contributes to one of the options you ignored. Troops without supplies and ammo can’t fight and will have to withdraw that contributes to another.
TL;DR more money and supplies to Ukraine, much more than we are currently supplying. They’re doing a great job of making it difficult for Russia to continue.
Nope despite your hostility I’m really only here because I’m trying to find answers. So am I correct that your hypothesis is that Russia will stop fighting if we just continue with aid, sanctions, and air war? If so, I’m asking how long this will take because of the casualty rate that everyone here seems to ignore.
These all come off as wishful thinking and reminiscent of 2023 punditry. The Russian economy is fine because it’s a petrostate supported by BRICS. Even if we entertain them the time horizon is totally undefined. So we wait around while another million people die?
LOL. I think you’re the one stuck in 2023 not me
Fact: Russia’s refined petroleum production is the lowest it has been in 2 decades since it troughed post USSR breakdown
[(url)https://www.kyivpost.com/post/80189
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/06/11/russian-oil-output-falls-for-sixth-straight-month-as-ukrainian-drone-attacks-hit-infrastructure-a92987
Fact: Russia’s economy is struggling, although it still a distance from collapse, that’s the current trajectory
https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/220766/economics/russias-economic-problems-2026/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/natashalindstaedt/2026/07/13/russias-economy-is-slowly-sinking/ https://www.economist.com/topics/russias-economy
Ok great so just more drones and another million or so casualties and they’ll be ready to surrender
You’re not a fan of reading comprehension, are you ? That’s just a double down on your “there are only 3 options” post and ignores the two posts you responded to.
Maybe there will be another million russian casualties before Putain gives up on his zerg rush and pulls out, or one of the scenarios happens that prompts a Russian withdrawal, but if Ukraine surrenders there will easily be that many Ukrainians slaughtered (we have Bucha as precedent before you scoff), so there’s no incentive for Ukraine to do anything other than fight until overwhelmed or a win. That’s the POINT of the cartoon.
I’m not ignoring the points about Russian weakness, I’m dismissing them. We’ve been hearing the “Russia is on the verge of collapse” narrative for years. I think it’s wishful thinking and refusing to engage the thought of negotiating because of a vacuous Hitler narrative is just prolonging the conflict. When something doesn’t work for years one looks for alternatives.
Here’s an article about how economic stagnation doesn’t necessarily mean military defeat with authoritarian regimes.
https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/why-economic-pain-wont-stop-russias-war
I’m not trying to disprove anything, just showing that counterpoints are available. Ultimately we have no idea about when Putin will decide to stop, or whether he will at all, and we don’t know how the economic implications will affect Russia’s warfighting ability because we can’t apply a democratic model to it. All we have is years of liberal optimists being wrong and a million dead.
The point of the cartoon is to show that negotiating is bad and I think that makes no sense unless you’re a capitalist arms manufacturer or an imperial revanchist.
If you tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth ?
Russian propaganda have being doing variants of this dance for years with the intent to weaken the western resolve to stick to sanctions. It has invariably been Russian aligned sources that have pushed the “russia is about to collapse” as a strawman to then knock down.
The point of sanctions is to weaken Russian capability. It’s never been a position of the West that it will cause Russian economic collapse, although that is in fact now the direction of travel that has become apparent lately, it’s not something that is a goal (in fact the US went to a lot of trouble to hamstring Ukraine to try and prevent it in the Biden years).
Whether Russia will collapse economically is simply one of the many options you chose to ignore to further your narrative. It could, plausibly, happen, although it is not certain, but nor are any of the options you tabled.
What we do have very very clear evidence on, is that Russia (post USSR) breaks every treaty it makes with Ukraine, so the option of a negotiated peace has to be off the table as it is a near certainty they will break it (please don’t give me the battered spouse “this time it will be different” response).
I’m not going off of all of these hypotheticals. The evidence I’m pointing to is a thousand casualties per day. People in the West can sanction and wishcast about oligarchs all they want and meanwhile these lives are being erased. Imagine living in Ukraine and hearing this. “Just keep dying, and eventually something might happen.” It’s absurd.
Do you have any solution that produces a result in a quantifiable amount of time?
I never suggested that Russia was trustworthy, just that temporary peace is better than whatever this is.
I’m going to set aside the fact that it is impossible to guarantee a timeframe on anything, and assume you meant “realistic suggestions to end the war”.
But, oh you won’t like my suggestions one little bit and we have proof from the thread to date you won’t actually engage with them, you’ll just dismiss them.
So, the minimal effort response is - Russia has already been ground to a halt - they’ve not been advancing in any significant way for at least 2months. What makes you think Russia can win from here ? They can’t get fuel into Crimea where they’ve been staging attacks from, they can’t get supplies into their troops on the frontline in many areas, and on the home front there’s plenty of footage of farmers going broke for various reasons and not being able to produce. Famines are always great for home-front morale so that contributes to one of the options you ignored. Troops without supplies and ammo can’t fight and will have to withdraw that contributes to another.
TL;DR more money and supplies to Ukraine, much more than we are currently supplying. They’re doing a great job of making it difficult for Russia to continue.
Nope despite your hostility I’m really only here because I’m trying to find answers. So am I correct that your hypothesis is that Russia will stop fighting if we just continue with aid, sanctions, and air war? If so, I’m asking how long this will take because of the casualty rate that everyone here seems to ignore.