For those who say negotiations are impossible, we have only to look at the talks that took place during the first month after the Russian invasion, when Russia and Ukraine tentatively agreed to a fifteen-point peace plan in talks mediated by Turkey.
Vladimir Putin likes to talk about the second world war, Russia’s best war, but the closest parallel is probably the Crimean war, which dragged on for two and a half years, from 1853 to 1856, before the exhausted belligerents worked out a peace agreement.
Under Vladimir Putin, Russia’s Communist Party has been a tame opposition kept on a tight leash. With a few brave exceptions, the party has eagerly supported the war in Ukraine.
Regardless of the outcome in Ukraine—a Russian occupation of the eastern regions, an unending insurgency, or a Ukrainian victory—the European security order will continue along an East-West divide.
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