Shove it where the sun don't shine.
My grandfather was a Kulak, north of Odessa, who had to flee the Bolsheviks (seems he may have been involved in a little black market operations, common during 1917-20).
I grew up reading
And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov
I've followed the war before it started, the best site is the Institute for the Study of War
www.understandingwar.org
which provides daily detailed updates.
I'm also writing a book on the World Oil Market, with a chapter on Russian oil, which has had me reading about Putin, Russia and the 2014 and current invasion b/c of their impact.
Ukraine is a more complex situation than presented in Western media.
Kiev was the ancient center of the Rus, who are loosely connected to the Russian nation that emerged after the Mongol conquest (though the Rus were as much Nordic as Slavs).
en.wikipedia.org
The Ukraine was generally part of the Russian empire, under Catherine the Great, after centuries of bouncing between various conquerors. Like many East European countries, boundaries are artificial. In this case, established after the fall of the Soviet Union. To make matters worse, there was substantial emigration of Russians into what is now considered Ukraine in the 19th and 20th centuries, the Donbas was primarily Russian speaking.
en.wikipedia.org
Stalin tried to destroy Ukrainian identity and killed millions with an engineered famine in the 1930s, which explains why many Ukrainians backed Hitler in WWII, better the devil you don't know.
Anne Applebaum,
Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine.
The 2014 invasion of the Crimea was an example of overreach, the Crimea was vital to the Russian Black Sea fleet, but the best solution was something similar to Guantanamo Bay, a long-term lease that preserved Ukrainian sovereignty but giving Russia de facto control. However, as far as I know, this alternative was never broached by either side.
This is a brutal war b/c Putin may be going crazy, it makes no sense for the Russians, their scorched earth tactics means whatever land they conquer will have negative economic value for them. It doesn't make them more secure, in fact, the war drove Finland and Sweden into NATO, effectively blocking the Baltic sea and giving NATO a bigger arctic presence. And Russian power in the Black Sea has been diminished by a loss of a 1/3 of their fleet and the need to retreat a hundred miles away from Crimea
It is bleeding Russia dry, but so far Putin has been able to raise volunteers from ethnic impoverished Russians by huge (by Russian standards) bonuses, but at some point this strategy will no longer work and conscription will be required, which could sour Russian support for the war. The war has driven out a good number of educated, skilled Russians abroad, hurting the long-term prospects for the country. It is also forcing the Russians to be more dependent on China, the greatest long-term threat to Russian hegemony and Iran, who see the Russians as a long-term enemy (threatening their control over Syria and contesting their influence in the Caspian sea region).
It is a tragedy for the Ukraine, but Zelensky is in a bind, the Ukrainian people are still buying the concept that land, not people are the nation. In the end, Ukraine can only hope to trade land in the East for Russian blood until the Russians are exhausted, then rebuild the country west of Kiev. Kharkiv has no future being too close to the Russian border other than as a fortress city. But this probably cannot be stated publicly as their strategy, even if it becomes the reality on the ground.
You cannot negotiate with Putin, he will break any agreement when it is convenient for him.
You can only hope to exhaust Russia to the point that the Russian people start to feel the pain of the war and stop supporting it.
