Commentary
By any traditional criteria, it’s obvious that the Ukraine war is now ready for serious negotiations. The whole world knows that there are millions of Ukrainian refugees, that Russia has occupied approximately 20 percent of the country, though its possession of that is tenuous and severely contested, and that the physical destruction wrought in what was in many respects already an underdeveloped country, has been terrible.
Despite the customary bravura from the Kremlin, it can’t be disguised that the material cost to Russia of this ill-considered invasion is extremely serious and, over time, will not be sustainable. Russia has more than three times the population of Ukraine, but the Ukrainians entirely endorse a general mobilization, and the whole able-bodied adult population appears not only willing but also enthusiastic to fight for their independence….