Updated 3 years ago
TRT World, “The Roundtable”UKRAINE WAR: ONE MONTH
Will peace talks bring a lasting solution? Are hopes of one even realistic at this point? If there’s to be a peace deal in Ukraine, then both sides will have to be able to claim victory. What’s it going to take for the bloodshed there to end?#ukrainianswillresist#Putinswar#StandWithUkraine#UkraineRussiaWar#supportukraine#ukrainePeter Zalmayev / Orysia Lutsevych
…so the prediction goes: Russia pulls out. Permanent ceasefire. Ukraine agrees to never join NATO and to not harbor foreign military bases. Russia keeps eastern breakaway provinces and Crimea.
Sanctions end.
Ukraine, having garnered the world’s sympathy, will be flush with investment and – maybe join the EU? I know we said no NATO but EU inclusion? Yes? Please? As such Ukraine would join the ranks of Austria, Cyprus, Finland, Ireland, Malta, and Sweden.
All in all, not really satisfying as a Hollywood ending, and I have wanted Ukraine to join NATO so badly I made a banner with the NATO symbol:
…but it is probably the best win-win we can hope for, and certainly better than Putin resorting to tactically nuking Kyiv. The big loser here is the prestige of the Russian military.
I just hope this isn’t like WW1 and the Russians will feel they have been backstabbed by “certain elements” like the Nazis did, and come back for a re-do.
And what comes afterwards?
How can the largest country on Earth with vast resources (2nd highest oil in the world, timber, minerals) have an econ the size of Texas? That is Venezuela level failure.
Can you imagine the wealth creation within a decade if you gave control to 1,000 Texas entrepreneurs?
This can, by the way, be explained by the Resource Curse.
Not advocating invasion (we know how that goes) but it’s nice to dream. Have the UN dismantle the nukes. Disband the FSB. Nationalize the oligarch’s empires, get some Scandinavian admins to go in, redistribute, and make it all equitable. Consider it Glasnost/1990s part 2.
Build a bullet train and superhighway over the Bering Strait.
Transform Russia with a Marshall Plan and make it like Germany and Japan post WW2. Restore Russian pride. I would call it the “White Tiger.”
And then…. Russia joins NATO..
