
<p>According to reports, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy hinted on Monday that he is willing to concede two major points demanded by Putin. ; First, Kyiv is willing to shelve its NATO ambitions and put the constitutional criterion to join NATO up for referendum. ; Second, the status of contested territories in the country’s east could be up for debate. This is in exchange for the withdrawal of Russian forces.</p>



<p>As we wrote before, Putin’s demands are for Ukraine to cease military action, change its constitution to enshrine neutrality, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory, and recognize the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states. ; With Zelenskyy’s statements, Putin has 100% of his demands.</p>



<p>There were other demands thrown about, like the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine. But this is a red herring since the whole Nazi narrative was largely a Russian propaganda campaign. If anything, Russia will demand the purge of Ukraine’s bravest nationalists (nazi or no nazi) or anyone who may cause trouble. But this is secondary.</p>



<p>If this indeed comes about, Putin wins &#8211; with the most brutal of methods, in an exceedingly short period of time.</p>



<p>This also means that Biden’s sanctions will fail. Certainly, a condition of a ceasefire will be for Zelenskyy to request that the sanctions be lifted. This was part of Putin’s strategy in the first place.</p>



<p>What does this mean for the world?</p>



<p>This is the WORST possible outcome for the West.</p>



<p>This outcome creates an emboldened Putin who will likely do this again, feeding Putin’s ambitions to re-create an empire as large as the old Soviet Union. Putin will be locked in as the genius leader of Russia for the next 20 years.</p>



<p>China now sees the impotence of the West in preventing the kind of naked aggression the Russians just demonstrated. Their sights have been set on Taiwan. Now they have a road map, most of the risk factors gone.</p>



<p>China is patient, this may not happen for a couple of years, they may even wait for the next weak U.S. president. But it will happen, and at their leisure.</p>



<p>It didn’t have to be this way. Putin could have easily been threatened, cajoled and ridiculed out of this invasion by someone who is used to dealing with power. The Biden Administration was clueless and allowed it to happen.</p>



<p>I would love to stand on a soapbox and demand that we not let this happen. But our leadership at the top is so weak and so inept that in real life I don’t see any other path. Thanks to Biden, we walked straight into the trap.</p>



<p>If I had faith in our leadership, I would urge that they not lift any sanctions until the “contested territories” were returned to Ukraine and reparations were paid. Perhaps even that Putin be removed from power.</p>



<p>It must become clear that Putin’s “victory” be a pyrrhic victory, that the cost to the Russian people is so great and permanent that further action of this kind would be unthinkable.</p>



<p>And I hear … crickets…</p>



<p><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/22/zelenskyy-renews-offer-of-putin-talks-says-all-issues-on-table">https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/22/zelenskyy-renews-offer-of-putin-talks-says-all-issues-on-table</a></p>