I don’t see how Russia getting to keep the occupied territories is good news. The human losses are nothing to Putin. His reference point is the Soviet Union, and the greater the “heroic” sacrifice, the closer he gets to that. No economic hardship would take away from his personal wealth either. It’s a net win from the territorial gains, which will enable him to try again later, irrespective of whether that’s going to be Ukraine or a country next in line after regions of Moldova, Africa, Syria, Georgia, or Ukraine.
The human losses are nothing to Putin. His reference point is the Soviet Union, and the greater the “heroic” sacrifice, the closer he gets to that
Russia burned through not only the last Soviet tanks and guns, but also the last Soviet people. Russia was in population crisis before the war, and this has made it massively worse.
Putin may not care about deaths, but he will care about lack of living.
Why would he? And even if he did, his way of solving the problem would be to take further steps against abortion and to “acquire” new people by annexing more land.
No one, except Ukraine, can give up those territories (and legally they actually can’t) so no putin will not get any territories because of this “deal”.
Perhaps not legally, but does that really matter? The world hasn’t recognized the annexed parts of Moldova and Georgia as Russian either, but those countries have no control over them, whereas Russians freely enter the regions and do as they please.
I don’t see how Russia getting to keep the occupied territories is good news. The human losses are nothing to Putin. His reference point is the Soviet Union, and the greater the “heroic” sacrifice, the closer he gets to that. No economic hardship would take away from his personal wealth either. It’s a net win from the territorial gains, which will enable him to try again later, irrespective of whether that’s going to be Ukraine or a country next in line after regions of Moldova, Africa, Syria, Georgia, or Ukraine.
Russia burned through not only the last Soviet tanks and guns, but also the last Soviet people. Russia was in population crisis before the war, and this has made it massively worse.
Putin may not care about deaths, but he will care about lack of living.
Why would he? And even if he did, his way of solving the problem would be to take further steps against abortion and to “acquire” new people by annexing more land.
No one, except Ukraine, can give up those territories (and legally they actually can’t) so no putin will not get any territories because of this “deal”.
Perhaps not legally, but does that really matter? The world hasn’t recognized the annexed parts of Moldova and Georgia as Russian either, but those countries have no control over them, whereas Russians freely enter the regions and do as they please.
Oh yes it matters a lot!
The rules based order is what we abide to, and it says “no stealing land”.
Remember, Germany got back east Germany, France got back Alsace.