One minor "victory" in Bakhmut is nothing in the overall context of the war. Wagner will leave, the incompetents of the Russian army will take over and Bakhmut will be taken back, sooner or later.
It's nobody's call except the people of Ukraine. Those who support Ukraine realise that allowing Russia to occupy some Ukranian territory in 2014 was a mistake. Anyone who imagines that Russia would stop at Ukraine is deluded. Putin wants to emulate Catherine the Great. If he is allowed to succeed in Ukraine, he will rebuild his forces until he is confident that he can take out other former soviet nations. How do I know? He's implied that himself and his actions have demonstrated his resolve.
If Ukrainians want Russian control, they should be allowed to let Putin take over. If not, they should be backed to the hilt. So far, they have shown no willingness to step back. Ukraine complains that the West has not done enough to help.
Good faith negotiations? With Putin? Dream on.
Her is a lesson in $$$geopolitics$$$ for you buddy. The reality is anything if not sobering.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/seymour-hersh-something-else-cooking-ukraine
But something else is cooking, as some in the American intelligence community know and have reported in secret, at the instigation of government officials at various levels in Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Estonia, Czechoslovakia, and Latvia. These countries are all allies of Ukraine and declared enemies of Vladimir Putin.
This group is led by Poland, whose leadership no longer fears the Russian army because its performance in Ukraine has left the glow of its success at Stalingrad during the Second World War in tatters.
It has been quietly urging Zelensky to find a way to end the war—even by resigning himself, if necessary—and to allow the process of rebuilding his nation to get under way. Zelensky is not budging, according to intercepts and other data known inside the Central Intelligence Agency, but he is beginning to lose the private support of his neighbors.
One of the driving forces for the quiet European talks with Zelensky has been the more than five million Ukrainians fleeing from the war who have crossed the country’s borders and have registered with its neighbors under an EU agreement for temporary protection that includes residency rights, access to the labor market, housing, social welfare assistance, and medical care.
A February analysis of the European refugee issue by the Council on Foreign Relations found that
“tens of billions of dollars” in humanitarian aid were poured into Ukraine’s neighbors during the war’s first year.
“As the conflict enters its second year with no end in sight,” the report says, “experts worry that host countries are growing fatigued.”
Weeks ago I learned that the American intelligence community was aware that some officials in Western Europe and the Baltic states want the war between Ukraine and Russia to end.
These officials have concluded that it is time for Zelensky to “come around” and seek a settlement. A knowledgeable American official told me that some in the leadership in Hungary and Poland were among those working together to get Ukraine involved in serious talks with Moscow.
“Hungary is a big player in this and so are Poland and Germany, and they are working to get Zelensky to come around,” the American official said.
The European leaders have made it clear that “Zelensky can keep what he’s got”—a villa in Italy and interests in offshore bank accounts—“if he works up a peace deal $$$even if he’s got to be paid off$$$, if it’s the only way to get a deal.”
So far, the official said, Zelensky has rejected such advice and ignored $$$offers of large sums of money$$$ to ease his retreat to an estate he owns in Italy. There is no support in the Biden Administration for any settlement that involves Zelensky’s departure, and the leadership in France and England “are too beholden” to Biden to contemplate such a scenario. There is a reality that some elements in the American intelligence community can’t ignore, the official said, even if the White House is ignoring it:
“Ukraine is running out of money and it is known that the next four or months are critical. And Eastern Europeans are talking about a deal.” The issue for them, the official told me, “is how to get the United States to stop supporting Zelensky,” The White House support goes beyond the needs of the war: “We are paying all of the retirement funds—the 401k’s—for Ukraine.”
And Zelensky wants $$$more$$$, the official said.
“Zelensky is telling us that if you want to win the war you’ve got to give me more money and more stuff. He tells us, ‘I’ve got to pay off the generals.’ He’s telling us”—if he is forced out of office—“he’s going to the highest bidder. He’d rather go to Italy than stay and possibly get killed by his own people.”
