How this ends is anyone's guess though I think Russia wins a hard tough slugging match at the end and Ukraine becomes neutral. After that, we have Cold War 2.0 and NATO has a reason to exist, the real goal of this whole thing ...until China grabs Taiwan a week after this war ends.
A written promise to keep Ukraine neutral in exchange for a written Russian pledge not to invade Ukraine could have kept this from happening.
Given the quality of world leadership in 2022, this failure comes as no surprise.
Notice how COVID suddenly vanished from the news...
NATO's eastward expansion led to this. I don't excuse (or understand) the Russian attack, but serious substantive negotiations could have prevented the biggest war in Europe since 1945. Remember how Ukraine's democratic government, ready to stand for re-election in May 2014, was overthrown in March 2014. Remember who back that. That was why Russia grabbed Crimea.
Putin is described as a thug heading a oligarchic kleptocracy. Ukraine is basically the same thing, and, to be brutally honest, the people in the West need to look at their own leaders. At the end of the day, this is not a battle of good vs evil as the media is trying to portray this as. It is a battle between nations pursuing their interests. Failure and a lack of common sense has led us here.
Don't expect the United Nations to do anything.
Russia and Ukraine are going to have to settle this.
Hopefully it ends soon.
