Arthur Stepanyan
Innovation Guru (2014–present)1h

Sami Salmi
Lieutenant of the Reserve of Finnish Defence ForcesJun 17

Putin will never accept a humiliating and embarrassing Russian defeat.
What should the west and Ukraine propose to Putin so that he can save
face in front of the Russian people?
I don’t think you understand what is at stake, here, do you?

This is WAAAYYY bigger than Russia. Even Russia’s nuclear arsenal is not
the biggest concern, here (although it is certainly not negligible).

Russia led by Putin has nullified international treaties they signed,
committed massive amount of war crimes, violated human rights
systematically, kidnapped children, shot down a passenger plane with
international passengers, caused grain prices to rise so that Third
World countries are at the brink of a famine, toyed with blowing up more
than one nuclear plant, flooded a valley with people living in it,
caused unnecessary death of civilians and military personel and vast
material distruction. All in hopes of material gain and for hunger of
power. Putin’s goverment has bet the farm to commit genocide in Ukraine.
Putin has tried to utilize international energy trade as a weapon, and
his minions have threatened the international community with attacks on
information cables in the seabed and rattled the nuclear sabre.

Everyone, NOT JUST PUTIN, are waiting to know, whether such
transgressions are punishable? Everyone. Jury is stil out. Does the
international community stand in support of the values they have
declared to protect? Or are they just big words that vanish, when push
comes to shove? Putin clearly objects to such international values and
has very deliberately violated against them all to make a point.

If he is driven out of Ukraine and Russia needs to oust him and show
remorse of what they have done, international treaties such as
Declaration of Human rights and the Geneva Convention will grow
stronger. Everyone will see that violating international agreements will
bring no benefit and a clear, physical punishment from the international
community. Even for a dictator of mighty Russia. Even to the richest man
of the World. No-one is bigger than all the people in the world. No-one
will dare challenge them all at once. If the people of the World choose
to cooperate. IF.

If Putin, after doing all of this that he has done, “saves face”, it is
the end of the international community as a whole. Then it is (again) a
free-for-all every-man-for-himself -scenario. The one with the nukes
gets to do what he wants. So, everyone will get themselves a nuke or
two. Everyone allies with the biggest and strongest, not the one who
they like, not the one who will keep the world safe. Everyone just
allies with the guy with the biggest guns.

Time for human rights, time for fair trade, time for international
treaties on climate change and collaboration in the polar regions are
over. Every little pesky country will try to get nukes and bigger powers
- US, China, UK, Germany(!), India - are forced to shed their thin veil
of peace.

Putin declared that sovereign countries between Russia and US should be
divided into spheres of influence and lose their independence. They
caused Finland to join NATO and Sweden has applied too! These are
countries that previously believed in non-alliance and buffer zones
between great military powers. Believed in assertive military power,
defence without projection of power abroad. This is bad enough, it is a
death of a dream. It is not like Finland thinks that US is this saint of
a giant. We know full well they can - on a bad day - invade a country to
rid them of weapons of mass destruction that do not exist. US sometimes
disguised their bad behaviour quite poorly, but at least they tried to
disguise it. Putin makes no real effort to even disguise his actions. He
wants his approach to be out in the open, he wants this to be the way of
the world from now on. He wants to return to imperialism - not just for
Russia but for all of the world. He believes that in the chaos that
ensues, Russia and his mafioso ways will find prosperity.

The World either wants that. Or we don’t.

We shall see.

On 9/21/23 19:46, a425couple wrote:
> Arthur Stepanyan
> Innovation Guru (2014–present)1h
>
> Sami Salmi
> Lieutenant of the Reserve of Finnish Defence ForcesJun 17
>
> Putin will never accept a humiliating and embarrassing Russian defeat.
> What should the west and Ukraine propose to Putin so that he can save
> face in front of the Russian people?
> I don’t think you understand what is at stake, here, do you?
>
------

another

Sylvain Saurel
Founder at Sylvain Saurel's Newsletter (2019–present)Sep 7

What would happen if Vladimir Putin stopped the war and pulled out of
Ukraine altogether unilaterally?
It is September 2023.

One morning, Vladimir Putin wakes up and has a revelation: I will stop
sacrificing human lives with a stupid and heinous war that I cannot win!

Vladimir Putin decides to withdraw his troops and give back to Ukraine
what belongs to him.

The Russian people realize that Putin made a monumental mistake and that
he only irreparably weakened Russia. The future of Russia will be
darkened for several generations because of Putin's madness!

In Russia, such a decision would be seen as a complete weakness of the
tyrant.

Putin would quickly be overthrown one way or another because everyone
would see this as a loophole to exploit. Putin would be overthrown and
probably killed in public. Imagine some people walking through the
streets of Moscow with Putin’s head as was done with Gaddafi in Libya...

For Ukrainians, all this would obviously be a blessing. They could
regain their full sovereignty as well as put an end to the horror in
which they have lived for more than 18 months.

Unfortunately, you can already forget about this scenario.

Putin started the war in Ukraine to maintain his power in Russia as long
as possible. From then on, he can no longer turn back. Putin will only
stop if he has a way to emerge victorious in the eyes of the Russian
people to retain his power.

If Putin cannot save face, he will never stop even if it means
sacrificing more and more human lives in unnecessary ways. For Putin to
stop, Ukraine will have to bring down Russia with total and humiliating
defeat!

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77 comments from
Ed Francis
and more

Ed Francis
· Sep 7
A very good and crisp analysis, Sylvain. It supports my contention that
there is no turning back for Russia’s decline. I believe we will see
Russian life returning to about the 1920s in just a few more years.

Stephen Venables
· Sep 8
Good.

Simon Davies
· Sep 7
Unfortunately, the average russian wouldn't do a thing.

Regardless of which way the cookie crumbles, the vast majority will do
what they've always done.. blame someone else, stick their heads in the
sand, and wait for another lunatic to fleece them while telling them
that russia can be great again.

Meylis Babayev
· Sep 7
Did Americans do a thing when countries were invaded by US? So why
should Russians do something to please westerners?

Simon Davies
· Sep 7
Whatever it is that you think the USA did, there is one thing for sure;
they weren't destroying their own country. russia is on an accelerating
spiral of self-destruction, due to a bunch of maniacs at the helm and an
apethetic population.. it's time they “woke up and smelled the coffee”,
the clock is ticking.

Douglas Williams
· Sep 8
“It’s time they woke up and smelled the coffee.”

Or the overflowing outhouse.💩

Jeffrey Crampton
· Sep 7
It's Mr Whatabout whatabouting.

Which is all he seems capable of doing.

Douglas Williams
👍

Steve
· Sep 7
For Putin to stop, Russians will have to stop him!

Anton Dubrick
· Sep 7
Here is the sad part. I honestly think he could declare victory somehow
and pull out of Ukraine with minimal risk to himself- just like the US
pulled out of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan and still verily survived.
He has such complete control of Russian media that he can get away with
this in Russia just as well. Which makes all of this suffering doubly
unnecessary.

Horst H. von Brand
· Sep 8
The US was far from bankrupt after Vietnam or Afganistan, for starters.

Luis Pérez García
· Sep 7
Sooner rather than later, the Russian military will understand that its
strategic target is none other than the Kremlin. If they manage to take
it, they will put an end to this absurd carnage (the risk is that
someone could start another one).

Krzysztof Werkun
· Sep 7
This forgets to mention that Putin’s total control of media in Russia
means that he has freedom to redefine what “victory” actually means.
Even full withdrawal could conceivably be construed as some form of
victory if he so wished. I would imagine that most Russians, including
elites, would go along with even far fetched definition if that meant an
end of the war.

Horst H. von Brand
· Sep 8
Just turning away after the recent blustering about “retuning
non-country Ukraine to Russia”, with horrific losses that aren’t easy to
hide, would be a hard sell in the best case. Economy is tanked, millions
of the best and brightest fled, hundreds of thousand casualties.

Irineo Romero
· 4h
He might declare “victory” the fact that his cannon- fodder………..er.
uhhhhhhhhhhh………..troops withdrew several Kilometers A DAY but in an
“orderly” fashion, instead of the traditional “everybody for himself/the
last ones to get back shall clean the toilets of the whole regiment” ,
Krzysztof