Zelenskyy will present ‘victory plan’ to US president during trip to Washington next week, when he is also likely to hold talks with Trump
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged Joe Biden to allow Ukraine to carry out long-range strikes inside Russia with US-supplied weapons, and to earn “a place in history” by “strengthening Ukraine” before he leaves office.
Speaking before a crucial trip next week to Washington, where he will meet Biden and the US vice-president and presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, and address the UN, Zelenskyy said he would present a “victory plan” to end the war.
His vision for a “just peace” has not been made public. But in a media briefing with the Observer in Kyiv, Zelenskyy said it involved carrying out deep strikes with western missiles inside Russia – something London and Washington have so far refused.
So, 2 things:
We need to give them permission, this is an ugly war and we can help bring it to an end, we need to do that.
Our technology, particularly in guided missiles, is basically unfair compared to Russia’s (mostly because of our absolutely omniscient fused targeting intel), even their best. We can pick a target and finger of death it, 30 minutes or your pizza’s free.
I get why we’re hesitant, us giving our missile technology to anyone is pretty unreasonable, it’s like someone getting in a fist-fight, and you hand them an ar-15. But, they didn’t start this fight, and the other side pulled a knife, so they’ve gotta finish this, one way or another.
So, this is something I understand us thinking about, even if I really want us to give them whatever they need to solve this problem ASAP.
Yeah.
When Russian oligarchs see Ukraine has that power and will use it, theyre gonna give Putler the stinkeye at least.
I don’t see any other realistic options for Russia than making a deal if that’s the case.
Although I am slightly concerned of how much power Putler has, as I’m worried he might actually be crazy enough to try to escalate. Which would mean only one thing. But he can’t be that fucking stupid and crazy, and even if he is, then it’d still require other people to make those orders happen.
So yeah I’m of the mind Ukraine should be allowed to use long-range missiles inside of Russian territory. It will hasten the end, not unlike nukes did with Japan in WWII.
Yeah, the real question is: If we don’t stop Putin and Xi here, where we do we stop them? There is no better next place, Ukraine is fighting like demons, far better than we could have ever imagined.
We need Ukraine to be a bulwark for the West, a line in the sand which Russia can never dream of crossing, while we arrange our pieces in the East to ensure the peaceful status quo there.
Any mistakes and we have an escalation to a proper world war, and we’re only avoiding that now at the cost of dear Ukrainian blood. We owe them so much for this, if Zelensky took that ride, domestic pressure on Xi to blockade Taiwan would have been overwhelming, and that road only goes downhill.
Clearly we need to stop them here. There’s no question. And Ukraine should be able to use those missiles.
It’s just somewhat worrying that technically those crazies have access to a way to destroy the planet.
I agree
Give Zelensky missiles, I trust him to pick actually good targets and hope it will influence Russia so much they topple Putler if he doesn’t surrender. Or even if he does. Russia has had revolutions before, surely one more couldn’t be that impossible.
Also, I genuinely do not believe they will do anything about Putin, for a long time.
Russians, are weird. They now see Putin as idempotent to Russia, they are the same thing.
10 years ago things would be different, but now he’s just been in charge too long, and he’s either the only leader people know, or the only decent leader they know (he was a huge improvement in the 2000s in their opinion, he picked Russia off of the dirt).
It’s not just fear of him, Russia fears what they would be without him, they aren’t like us, they don’t think most people are generally trustworthy and decent, they think everybody other than them is corrupt and cheating, Putin is actually the best of the bunch, and if he’s cruel, well you have to be cruel to keep the others in line.
We need to convince him to give up on Ukraine because otherwise they’ll be too weak when China decides to start taking bites.
This is a problem.
And if we let them blackmail us into letting them have their way, it won’t end, because they really think they need to win to make up for the costs of this war and Ukraine alone won’t cover that.
They pulled the trigger on a gun they really should have let alone, the only way this ends well is if everyone understands that was a catastrophic mistake.
Hard agree. Unfortunate as it is. Fucking idiots just couldn’t leave it well alone. Well, aside from all the casualties, it’s better that it stops here and now instead of the blackmailing and appeasement bullshit.
We do Ukraine, a lot. So let them use the fking missiles.
I think the main worry is an escalation not to a full blown WWIII style full nuclear exchange but to using tactical nukes against Ukraine. We haven’t really seen that used yet and if Putin thinks he might lose this I don’t know if he would decide to do it. And once that precedent is set that you can do that there’s no putting that back away. This isn’t to say that giving them this permission is bad or shouldn’t be done, this is just a risk to consider and would be a risk with any strategy that allows Ukraine to attempt to win the conflict.
Alternatively, Ukraine claims they can expand their own military industrial complex by a factor 4 but they don’t have the money themselves. So the US could also just give them cash. But this would hurt their own MIC, so they also won’t do that.