We are between a rock and a hard place. Nato cannot get involved. Whilst we admire the resilience and fortitude of the Ukrainian people, the longer they resist, the worse, and more dangerous it will get for everyone. So it seems the best thing would be a swift end to the military resistance and a retreat into non-cooperation and guerilla war. Occupying Ukraine would present Putin with a whole new set of problems.

Then the sanctions can do their work, taking a toll over time.

The problem is that the Ukrainian's don't see it that way, and the Russian's appear incapable of anything other than brutal tactics of destruction. So it's likely to be a long-drawn-out process in which the whole of Ukraine gets laid to waste, with a humanitarian problem of epic proportions, energy and food shortages in Europe and Putin under increasing pressure in Russia. Can we trust a pressured Putin?

Whether diplomacy can find a way through this quagmire is an open question, but so far the signs are not promising.

Does anyone remember why the UK and US went to war in Iraq? Maybe Putin had similar concerns for invading Ukraine! #doublestandards by most!

If Putin really did want the whole of Ukraine he would have had the country within a week! He has given every chance chance to those in charge to end the war! I don't buy into the MSM that the war isint going to plan for Russia!

Edited by eaglesdare (13 Mar 2022 11.52am)

I agree with this. However, I don't think that precludes either long term non-cooperation or guerilla resistance, which I believe is an inevitability. Putin doesn't possess the resources to police the level of determination that exists in the Ukrainian people. It doesn't have a cadre of sympathisers in Ukraine ready to take over. There's no Oswald Mosely in Ukraine.

Sanctions will work. The economic ones are already biting, but the cultural ones will hurt their pride even harder. They are the bargaining chips we can use to gradually extract concessions.

China is not a friend of Russia. It needs the west much more than it needs Russia because that's where it sells things. Sure, it will buy it's oil and some food, but that means we will buy what they got from the Middle East.

For sure, there are no winners. It's all a question of damage limitation and learning lessons, but we are where we are.

It really is all dependant on the content of the diplomatic talks and I for one never believed that diplomacy would bring about an immediate cessation of hostilities.

The west simply have to prevent a drawn-out conflict with human suffering and a destroyed Ukraine, and uncomfortable compromises will have to be made to prevent further bloodshed.[/quote]

But Willo, as you say, Putin will laugh at anything that is neagtive to him, or makes him look like what he did was wrong and so when you say "uncomfotable compromises" you really mean only from Ukraine and their many supporters around the globe. A one-way give in isnt a compromise. Its giving in.
From what I have read Putin isnt in a mood to compromise about anything. So, faced with that, what would you suggest? Persuade the Ukranian prople to capitulate and for all sanctions to cease?

Following Palace since 25 Feb 1978

I am not calling for Ukraine to capitulate or sanctions to be ceased.

Perhaps a deal could be reached concerning NATO membership and/or regions in the Donbask which houses Russian speakers and perhaps with allegiance to Russia rather than Ukraine.

Unless a diplomatic solution is found, the barbarity and bloodshed within Ukraine will continue and maybe an extension of hostilities beyond this conflict.