Summary
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated that restoring Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is “unrealistic,” signaling a shift in U.S. policy toward negotiated settlements.
Speaking at NATO headquarters, he argued that pursuing full territorial recovery would prolong the war and emphasized the need for security guarantees without NATO membership or U.S. troops in Ukraine.
Hegseth outlined Trump’s approach of reducing Russian war funding through increased U.S. energy production while shifting more military support responsibility to Europe.
The problem is - while he might not be wrong, simply because it’s unlikely that Russia would accept a total territorial loss at the negotiation table - ceding anything to the Russian imperialists is an invitation to keep pushing.
The truth is that the US of course do not care about the Ukraine as a sovereign entity. They care only about maintaining their own geopolitical interests.
On the other hand do I doubt that Russia is interested in merely maintaining their territorial gains - maybe as a special zone of some sort - if that would mean that the Ukraine would pursue a proper membership in NATO.
So what we will likely see is that Russia will want to maintain or increase their presence in eastern Ukraine, maintain Crimea and want assurances that Ukraine will remain a neutral buffer state.
Leading to the Ukraine being screwed over either way.
Russia may want a pause of several years to allow Ukraine’s arms support relationships with the West to expire, whereupon it would attack again, this time informed by everything that went wrong in this recent war.
I dunno. Maybe? It’s just a thought.
It’s just “Ukraine”. “The Ukraine” implies that it’s a territory and not the name of an independent country.
Technically it’s both, given the etymology of the word. Just as you say ‘The United States of America’ or ‘The Republic of Congo’.
Except it’s not like that. “The Ukraine” is how it was referred to when it was part of Russia. “Ukraine” is correct.
You might want to look up the historic usage. And I don’t mean the slavic etymology nor soviet russia. It has been named both until the article became a politicized matter. So if you want to object to me accidentially implying I would not affirm the independence of Ukraine as a country, then I understand that.
That used to be the case. Now the US only cares about whatever Trump wants, AKA whatever Putin told him he wants.
Any time anyone says something like OP did, I imagine them in front of a whiteboard trying to explain to themselves how the US of today is the same US as last month.
Along with geopolitical interests, the US is interested in Ukraine’s natural resources.
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/09/16/senator-lindsey-graham-ukraine-trillion-minerals/