[khzw8yyy]

All wars have something in common: they end. That thought in your head about lack of hope of normalizing relations is just the current propaganda working.

Edit: it's amazing just how short-sighted people can be. Look, we still bring up the Nazis as an unassailable argument for how something is bad. And yet the war with Germany ended and they are now a US ally fighting Russia. I'm sure in the midst of WW2 the common folk also believed that there can be no peace with Germany, after all the man on the radio said so.

Besides, during WW2 the situation was the opposite: Russia was an ally. And hey, if you study European history at all you'll note that it's a series of wars with shifting alliances.

[rurp]

So do countries, if we're looking at a long enough time scale. There is no end in sight for the war in Ukraine and when the end comes it's likely to be messy. It might be more of a pause than a true end, and one or both sides will likely be pretty unhappy with the outcome. It could be many years before Russia and the west go back to a comfortable economic relationship.

[BlueTemplar]

Well, could go many ways. Depends who is going to "succeed" to Putin (which isn't getting any younger) and especially how.

[khzw8yyy]

Maybe the problem is the shortness of sight rather than the lack of an end?

Rest assured, if the powers that be decide that "Russia is good now" they will convince you of the same within 6 months.

[The_Colonel]

My grandparents carried some anti-German sentiments 70 years after the war ended. Maybe you are able to switch your opinions that quickly, most people can't.

[kiba]

War didn't technically "end" between North and South Korea, North Korea is still a pariah state even if we were to accept the Korean war ended many decades ago.

Relationship between Russia and the west will probably be restored at some point but not without a lot of Russians and to a lesser extent Ukrainian getting killed, their economy and infrastructure gutted.

[thriftwy]

Well, at the current point of time Russia's economy and infrastructure are mostly intact. I'm not sure why is that for a dramatic change.

If you look at Iran, it also has its infrastructure in quite OK conditions - perhaps in better shape than all of their neighbours, and now that may even include Turkey. Russia is larger and has not self-inflicted being a theocracy.

As for the losses of both sides, I'd suggest leaving that to military experts.

[nradov]

As the war drags on we can expect to see escalation in Ukrainian strikes against Russian infrastructure targets such as refineries. Russia is already short of air defense systems and isn't able to provide much coverage for civilian targets. Whether this works will depend on the level of sustained foreign aid for Ukraine.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2024/01/25/ukrain...

[cmrdporcupine]

Depends on if Trump takes the Whitehouse in the fall and how European elections go :-(

In either case, even a Ukrainian defeat means Russia will be a pariah state to countries with reasonable governance. Trade will be difficult and diminished, same as it is with Iran.

Putin&Lavrov have clearly made this calculation and decided this is in their own interests. Whether it's in the interest of the Russian people I think is questionable.

[khzw8yyy]

It's interesting that you bring up Iran. They are actually doing pretty well considering that the US stole all their foreign currency reserves (and also precipitated the original conflict in the first place).

[vkou]

Not to mention having their neighbours destabilized into the most insane civil wars, over the past two decades (with gems like ISIS/Daesh having their year or two in the sun).

If anyone's wondering why Iran has its fingers into Syria and Iraq militias, note they've been invaded (with US support) by one, and are allied with the other.

[Throw73747]

Kremlin will just use those attacks as an excuse to occupy larger parts of Ukraine. Bombing of Belgorod is now used as an excuse to create "demilitarized zone" that includes Kharkiv (second largest city in Ukraine). I guess another "demilitarized zone" will follow in Odessa, after some attack on Crimea.

[u320]

Russia has been trying to occupy a larger part of Ukraine for almost 2 years now without success. They don't need excuses.

[The_Colonel]

The only reason Russia doesn't occupy Kharkiv, Odesa and Kyiv is that they can't. They don't need any excuse.

[thriftwy]

With the current rate of attacks Ukraine is not able to cause any noticeable infrastructural issues, and anything beyond approximately the Volga river is not reachable by any weapon systems.

It's sort of a moving target like "How long would it take for Freddy Krueger to kill all Chinese teenagers"

[kergonath]

Ending wars and normalising relations can take a hell of a lot of time, though. Just ask people who lived in the Balkans, central or Eastern Europe, Korea, or in Palestine at some point in the 20th century, to name but a few examples. Or those who lived in a constant background of warfare basically anywhere in the world at any point in time. The pax romana and the stability brought by well-managed empires are remarquable for a reason.

[whimsicalism]

I agree that animosity is deep rooted between neighbors. But I suspect it is less deep between distant countries that have had working relationships in the past.

[twixfel]

I think there's deep animosity between Russia and much of the West.

It's very easy for Americans to shrug their shoulders and say "we don't care it's a long way away", regardless of whether or not that would be a historic surrender for the global hegemon, but we Europeans cannot. It's on our doorstep. Russia has not just attacked Ukraine, but all of Europe. There will never be normalised relations with Russia whilst he is in power, just as there never could be normalised relations with Adolf Hitler once he had crossed the Rubicon and started WW2.

[thriftwy]

I wonder when you will arrive at the understanding that if Russia is not going to have more revolutions, then you are going to have to live alongside Russia on the tiniest of continents and it would be best for both sides to learn how.

Is's not like you're going in with a military action and capturing Volgograd, after all. Adolf Hitler could be neutralized by capturing Berlin. Good luck dealing with Russia that way.

[The_Colonel]

Learning to live is arming the eastern NATO border to the teeth. Russia has never stopped trying to expand westward, is still very far from giving up on its imperialism and strength is the only language it understands.

[BlueTemplar]

Not sure how much (more) arming to the teeth of NATO is needed when France / UK / USA have thermonuclear ICBMs.

The problem is what to do with the likes of Georgia and Ukraine (which has been deeply regretting giving up nukes against Russian/US/UK "protection" for some years now).

[thriftwy]

Then you will have a permanent war in Europe, get used to it and make yourself comfortable.

[whimsicalism]

The comparison between Putin and Hitler is ridiculous.

Europe’s economy is in shambles, they do not have the power to push back if Russia and the US were to push for détente never mind that the country with the most EU influence (Germany) is a major dove on this issue.

[twixfel]

It's not ridiculous at all. Not all leaders can be negotiated with, that is simply my point. Maybe as an American you do not understand the depth of feeling, it does not affect you because you don't live here and subsequently you don't care. You can regress into the isolationism that the US likes to embrace every now and then. But we still have to live with an imperialist Russia on our door step.

> (Germany) is a major dove on this issue.

No, they're not dovish, they're just not leaders and not willing to take initiative and require others to move first. That stems from their history. They've sent huge amounts of aid already to Ukraine (~1% of GDP versus 0.2% of GDP for the USA).

> Europe’s economy is in shambles

I mean, it's not as good as the USA's, but it's not in shambles. It's relatively OK. I live here. I'd rather live here than in Russia. Russia is a glorified petrol station with nukes and a military. Europe's economy still absolutely dwarfs Russia's. When I speak to my (many) Russian colleagues, it's clear they'd rather be here in Germany than in Russia.

> US were to push for détente

It's not realistic. The only person who is going to do that is Trump. There's no scenario where we Europeans just give up our security and let imperial war conquests become acceptable on our continent (not yours, yank) for the sake of Trump's ego. Why? Because we think he's completely retarded. Only Americans like him. And how would we benefit exactly from trading away our security? How can the US force us? All it would do is seal the USA's historic break from its European allies (And I know it's not popular at the moment in the USA, but any one with a basic understanding of geopolitics knows that the USA's strongest asset its just how many rich and powerful allies it has). Good luck standing up to China alone, in that case. Then the West is truly fucked!

[whimsicalism]

> Not all leaders can be negotiated with, that is simply my point.

Putin isn't Hitler. People are way too quick to write off negotiation when it is people's real lives at play.

> They've sent huge amounts of aid already to Ukraine (~1% of GDP versus 0.2% of GDP for the USA).

False? not sure where you are getting your numbers from but USA has sent both considerably more in magnitude and as a percentage of the GDP through the end of 2023.

Germany doesn't even spend 2% of GDP on all military expenses (they recently pledged to as it is a new NATO requirement), they are not spending half of that on Ukraine allocation.

> It's not realistic. The only person who is going to do that is Trump.

Wavering support for the Ukraine war is not just a Trump-ism phenomenon. I am not sure how the media reports this in the UK but support is collapsing across both parties in the polls.

A majority of Americans think Trump is stupid too and you are very unlikely to meet a supporter on HN.

> Good luck standing up to China alone, in that case

US policymakers already perceive no will to stand up to China among EU lawmakers.

> And how would we benefit exactly from trading away our security? How can the US force us?

EU+UK citizens will not be willing to pay the full brunt of this conflict for an extended period of time.

The fact of the matter is that most Europeans are much more ambivalent about this conflict than you are implying [0] which is obvious from the polling. Ratchet up the spending and energy price impact to considerable portions of GDP and what will happen?

[0]: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/at-your-service/files/be-hear...

[kergonath]

> The comparison between Putin and Hitler is ridiculous.

And yet, here we are with another ultranationalist dictator hell bent on getting back that vital space and dreaming of fallen empires. Hitler had Charlemagne, and Putin has Catherine and Peter the Great. Putin did not gas anybody that I know of, but the gulags remained the whole time. It’s true that he is closer to Stalin than Hitler in many respects, but I am not sure it’s much better.

> Europe’s economy is in shambles, they do not have the power to push back if Russia and the US were to push for détente never mind that the country with the most EU influence (Germany) is a major dove on this issue.

That is a terrible misreading of how the EU functions. By design it cannot be dominated by a single country and Germany is basically following others. It’s not a major dove in any way, it’s just in the middle of the pack and they started from a fundamentally pacifist political background. The fact that they are merely talking about rearming is a demonstration of the seismic shift in domestic politics there.

Détente won’t happen in the current situation, regardless of what the US push for. They simply have no power to force that outcome. What would happen is another Korea, Georgia or Moldova: a country split in two, with one half living under yet another brutal dictatorship.

[foofie]

> All wars have something in common: they end. That thought in your head about lack of hope of normalizing relations is just the current propaganda working.

I don't think your comment is grounded on reality, and it's ironic how it parrots one of Russia's anti-ukraine propaganda tropes: the collective west should just stop backing Ukraine because the faster they cave in, the faster all relationships normalize.

Even if you believe fairy tales about forgetting Russia's perpetual threat of nuclear annihilation and Russia's "our empire will extend to Lisbon" threats, all you need to do is look at the Soviet Union's rejection of peace and a free world up to it's collapse to understand that any talk of normalization is at best thoroughly unsupported and at worst more Russian propaganda.

[jcranmer]

> All wars have something in common: they end.

Not really? Many conflicts routinely simmer on for decades, and peace treaties that officially end a war rarely resolve conflicts. Israel is fighting I believe it's 4th war against Hamas this century, for example; its broader conflict against its neighbors has been going on arguably at least a full century. The Balkans are somewhat infamous for the depth of history of its conflicts: the assassination of Franz Ferdinand was chosen to occur on the 500-somethingth anniversary of another conflict, for example.

[The_Colonel]

Germany was utterly defeated, that's why there could be a reconciliation. Neither Russia nor the West will be defeated like that, Russian regime will likely survive. That means a chance of some meaningful reconciliation is slim during next couple of decades.

[ufmace]

It's true that all wars end eventually. But this happening seems to me a sign that relations might not normalize quite so easily after. Why else would businesses with operations in both Russia and EU be seeking to split themselves apart neatly in advance of sanctions that would make such operations extremely difficult?

[WinstonSmith84]

Everything has something in common: it ends. Whether it's Peace, Countries, Humans, Planets or, yes ... Wars. It's just a question of timescale.

[cmrdporcupine]

> All wars have something in common: they end.

The Korean peninsula would like a word with you.

[ekabod]

Hundred Years' War between the Kingdom of England and France.

[phatfish]

Putin will need to put a gun to his head in a bunker before anything "normal" happens. Russia is a Third Reich level regime at the moment. Hence 300k killed and wounded causes zero reaction from the Russian public.

The Soviet-Afgan war was ended due to public discontent with 100k killed and wounded

[throw-the-towel]

Russian independent media have only confirmed 43k Russian casualties, not 300k. (Yes, Russian independent media exist; they are forced to operate in exile.)

https://www.bbc.com/russian/articles/c2xj7yny4zgo

[phatfish]

Nice try, but that link says 41,731 deceased in the first paragraph, and 43,014 deceased under the the visualisation with the Soviet stars (bit weird). I admit this is based on a machine translation, but I expect that Google and DeepL can get the meaning of "killed" correct.

You seriously think there are only 43k killed and wounded in total?

No Russian attracting enough attention is outside the reach of the Kremlin anyway, unless you avoid tea and underwear your whole life. So i put only marginally more trust in this report than the official figures of 7000 or whatever it is from Puntin himself.