[Gareth321]

Russia is demanding Ukraine become a vassal state like Belarus. They don't want them forming even economic trading agreements with the EU. Russia is demanding Ukraine remain poor and cut off from the West. For tens of millions of Ukrainians who were born under Soviet occupation, this prospect scares them to the core. This means secret executions, torture, indefinite prison sentences for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person, state controlled communication and propaganda, hunger, and abject poverty. They're much more afraid of this life than dying. That's why they're fighting so hard to keep their freedom and independence. I think a lot of the West just doesn't really understand that there are fates worse than death.

[Gwypaas]

You mean like the Budapest memorandum where Russia agreed to:

> [...] security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

What this shows is that Russia is losing the war, since the rhetoric previously was "denazification" and that "Ukraine is not even a country, it is part of Russia".

[jyounker]

He's started trying to undermine the Baltic states a few years ago. If we capitulate now, this is eventually going to happen again in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania too.

[toyg]

Those are NATO members, surely not even he is willing to risk complete nuclear annihilation for the sake of a couple ports more...

[akmarinov]

It'll be 10-15 years before he can do this again, he might be gone by then and the next guy might be more reasonable.

[forty]

If you accept everything someone ask because that person starts killing random people when you don't do everything they ask, what is going to prevent that person from asking more unreasonable things?

[ajuc]

If they accept in a few years Putin repeats this for the next slice.

They already accepted 2 "cease fire agreements" in Minsk after 2014. Putin used them to plan this invasion.

[Demiurge]

Ukraine never implemented the Minsk agreements. Zelenskiy won the election as a peace candidate who was supposed to implement them, yet even he didn’t. If the Ukrainian parliamentary process was not a race to “who hates Putin the most”, those regions would have gotten their federalist autonomy and there would be much less pretext for Russia to invade now, and less justification to the rest of Russians. Minks agreements had the opposite effect of what you’re claiming, creating a cease fire for 8 years, and we’re a viable compromise with the separatist regions.

[jonnycomputer]

That is what is insidious about the terms. The suffering--caused by Russia--is so great, that to many Ukranians the terms may seem a reasonable trade-off for a return to normal life.

But I doubt Putin would be content with leaving the current government in power in Ukraine, even if the terms were agreed to.

Update: It appears that the demands may have also included a Russian choice of Prime Minister: https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1500812687009267712...

[ben_w]

That use of “otherwise” implies a belief that Putin would actually leave them in peace. Past behaviour suggests that he won’t.

[pixl97]

Yes, just give up and let Putin move in his secret police to kill you one at a time, in wholesale.

[bigodbiel]

Finland like solution would have been the best option (demilitarization? have your army renamed self defense force! denazification? heck, outlaw Nazi symbolic doing humanity a favor)

I mean implementing the damn Minsk deal now seems like fantasy, but no sane person needs this hell to continue!

[pc86]

How about allowing sovereign countries to remain democratic? How about opposing blatantly illegal, unprovoked military aggression against a sovereign country as forcefully as possible?

Frankly, the people calling for Ukraine to just accept what's happening - those who aren't just Russian trolls anyway - are absolutely disgusting.

[helloooooooo]

The Minsk agreements wholly benefit Russia. Why the hell would Ukraine accept those terms?

[vogre]

> outlaw Nazi symbolic doing humanity a favor

I just wonder how EU citizens(Germans especially) would react when Azov Batallion becomes the part of EU military force.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion