Biden Knows What He's Doing With Putin | Progress Pond - Foreign Affairs |

This is precisely wrong. The goal here is not to negotiate an end to the war. If Ukraine wants to make concessions to Putin which allow him to keep huge chunks of their country, pay no price for the damage he's done, do nothing to rebuild Ukraine's flattened cities, and sit back while the sanctions are lifted, then they can make that call themselves. No outsider, and certainly no allies, should press that kind of decision on them.

The goal here is for Russia to leave Ukraine entirely, including Crimea and Dombas, and pay serious reparations. The second goal is for Russia to rejoin the community of nations, which means normal diplomatic and economic relationships, and this is simply never going to be possible with Putin in charge.

Russian business leaders probably understand this. Russian military leadership probably understands this. And they are the ones who will have to remove Putin from power and negotiate the peace.

You seriously believe Zelensky is his own man??

Martin Longman: "Look how ridiculous Michael O'Hanlon's criticism appears in the context of reasonable end games to this conflict .."

"What it tells me, and worries me, is that the top team is not thinking about plausible war termination," said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of the book "The Art of War in an Age of Peace: U.S. Grand Strategy and Resolute Restraint".