Russia Says They Won't Overthrow Zelensky, Occupy Ukraine

[paulkienitz]

86. But if the people in the eastern provinces keep fighting, and the war just moves east

and no longer threatens Kyiv, then Putin is still trapped in a quagmire and still at risk of a coup, which means that Ukraine may win without losing the territories at all.

On the one hand we have a quicker end to the fighting at the cost of Ukraine disappearing by inches, and on the other we have ongoing bloodshed but a chance at actually beating Putrin and undermining his dictatorship. And in the end, it won't be Zelensky who accepts or rejects the deal, but the armed citizens of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. If they keep shooting at the occupation force, how can Zelensky sell them out? I know that's where right-wing militias have been very pro-Putin, but I've also heard that the average Russian-speaking Ukrainian has swung sharply the other way after the invasion. If Zelensky tries to make that deal a lot of people are going to be very upset and very unwilling to live with it peacefully.