It wouldn't look like millions of displaced, hundreds of thousands dead, and more every day we prolong this and it wouldn't look like right-wing paramilitaries supported by the Ukrainian gov't doing pogroms and shelling Russian-speaking areas as they were in the days leading up to the invasion.
It's impossible for a peace to be worse than the status quo. But in all likelihood, you're looking at a Russian puppet in Eastern Ukraine, a western puppet in Western Ukraine, both selling the copper from the walls to their respective national bourgeoisie.
If Ukraine holds the Russian speaking parts of the country after the war, there's gonna be a genocide. If Russia holds the western part of Ukraine, there's going to be decades of US-backed insurgency.
Of course, this whole thing would have been avoided if the US made its support of Ukraine after the coup contingent on purging the fascists instead of giving them a seat at the table. Later on it could have been avoided by making its support contingent on following Minsk II.
I think the "decades of insurgency" thing is already set in stone.
Can you conceive of a scenario where the region becomes safer than it was between when the coup got bloody and Russia invaded now that there's 100x more weapons and organized fascists?
It wouldn't look like millions of displaced, hundreds of thousands dead, and more every day we prolong this and it wouldn't look like right-wing paramilitaries supported by the Ukrainian gov't doing pogroms and shelling Russian-speaking areas as they were in the days leading up to the invasion.
It's impossible for a peace to be worse than the status quo. But in all likelihood, you're looking at a Russian puppet in Eastern Ukraine, a western puppet in Western Ukraine, both selling the copper from the walls to their respective national bourgeoisie.
If Ukraine holds the Russian speaking parts of the country after the war, there's gonna be a genocide. If Russia holds the western part of Ukraine, there's going to be decades of US-backed insurgency.
Of course, this whole thing would have been avoided if the US made its support of Ukraine after the coup contingent on purging the fascists instead of giving them a seat at the table. Later on it could have been avoided by making its support contingent on following Minsk II.
Don't think this is too likely - in your scenario, NATO would likely break up within 5-10 years and Europe would rid itself of a lot US influence.
I think the "decades of insurgency" thing is already set in stone.
Can you conceive of a scenario where the region becomes safer than it was between when the coup got bloody and Russia invaded now that there's 100x more weapons and organized fascists?