"Russia is winning the war."--This evidence-free useful idiot Putin parrot has obviously missed Igor Girkin's and Prigozhin's Telegram channels. The Wagner PMC butcher has said that without more shells allocated to his mercenary army the front in Bakhmut could collapse. As always, Mr. Dunn never, ever takes responsibility for previously wrong forecasts that Russia was winning the war just before Ukraine's counteroffensives in Kharkiv and Kherson. But his de-escalation fantasy with an openly genocidal enemy requires fabricating nonexistent Ukrainian military failure to sound coherent to naive readers that swallow this useful idiot Putin parroting propaganda.
"Ukraine has been mostly destroyed...recovery will require decades": Nobody told my friends in Kyiv and its suburbs, who have electricity. This is as nonsensical as the forecasts that Russia would freeze the EU into submission. These Putin parrots should be required to buy natural gas futures to put their money where their mouths are.
Postwar Western Europe's and Japan's recovery from the destruction of a far higher % of urban infrastructure took less than a decade.
"compromise": How do you compromise with someone who denies you exist and has openly declared his intent to exterminate you? https://www.justsecurity.org/81789/russias-eliminationist-rhetoric-against-ukraine-a-collection/
"The present war in Ukraine is not that much different than the war in Ireland."--Britain never denied Ireland's existence. Russia openly declares its intention to exterminate Ukraine's. The conflict in Northern Ireland has as much in common with and is as open to compromise the war in Ukraine as the Warsaw ghetto uprising against the Germans does.
"Ukraine is a party to the war, but I believe that the real party in interest on the Western side..."--This parrots Russian propaganda about Ukraine as a passive pawn: "There are “no fools to fight for Ukraine. And it is pointless for [Russia] to deal with vassals. Business must be done with the suzerain.”--Dmitry Medvedev.
"They are sure that defeating Russia would serve the common good. They are sure that Russia can be defeated."--If you want to see us return to pre-UN Charter 19th century sphere of influence geopolitics with proliferating nukes (to Saudi, Iran, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Turkiye, Australia, South Africa), let Russia win militarily or through a dirty deal peace that annuls the Budapest Memorandum that failed to guarantee Ukraine's territorial integrity. The true fog of war is in the heads of those who don't see this.
Russia has lost every war but one it fought without a wealthier more technologically advanced western ally providing it the resources to fight: Crimea 1853-56, Japan 1904-05, WWI, Afghanistan 1979-89, the first 3-6 months of WWII before substantial Lendlease and British aid arrived.
"“no compromise” attitude is very, very expensive. We’re spending a lot of money to support Ukraine."--This MAGA Republican "blank check" Russian useful idiocy. This Putin parrot is on the same side as MTG/Gosar/Putin-chanting Holocaust denier neo-Nazi Trump dinner buddy Nick Fuentes.
The US gets an enormous security dividend--a terminally weakened Russia--with no risk to its own troops and all for a GDP rounding error.
"Russia has been around for 1000 years"--This parrots Putinist propaganda that the Vladimir Christian convert of 988 was Russian. It's complete nonsense. Moscow was a forest when Kyiv was the second largest city in Europe. The Russian state didn't begin to free itself from the Golden Horde until it conquered Novgorod in 1480.
"They have old and deep institutional knowledge of war."--Russia has institutional expertise in losing wars without a western ally. See above. Russia's serf army muzhiki (peasants) know how to die, not fight when not supplied by a more powerful and wealthy western ally. Ask Tsars Peter, Nicholas I and II and Stalin ("a toast to American war production, without which the war could not be won."--Tehran, Nov 1943.
"Ukraine is going to have to make a compromise. But this time, it’s not to get what they want. It’s going to be to keep whatever they have left."--
Only if this kind of political sabotage of western support for Ukrainian victory becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Of course, this Putin parrot never mentions what the terms of a compromise might look like since Russia's terms are: accept annexations and the Sebastopol naval base's blockade of Ukraine's ports.
"Are you absolutely sure you’re willing to pay for this, no matter the cost, for as long as it takes?"
--Yes, absolutely. Like Lendlease to aid the Soviets to fight the Germans and kill 7/8 of German troops lost, this is a huge bargain.
Raise my capital gains taxes and impose a 2% wealth tax on me to do it. I can afford it and I'll be happy to pay it. 2% of US GDP = >$500bn. The $113bn spent up to now = <1/4 of that. 1944 saw the US spend 44% of GDP on the war IN ONE YEAR while losing >half the number of troops killed in the entire war.
"Can you see where this is going....They're doing something similar to Ukraine..."--This is parroting Putinist propaganda that Russia is as strong as the USSR was. It's nonsense. It has 1/2 the population and a tiny fraction of the Soviets' old defense industrial base. Here's a dose of reality from the
Australian defense economist Perun:
https://www.youtube.com/@PerunAU/videos
Negotiating a compromise after Kharkiv and Kherson would be like compromising with Germany after it lost North Africa and Sicily and just before D-Day or negotiating with Japan after Midway and Guadalcanal.
