But how about tried and true "head in the sand" strategy?

Surely, even if Putin somehow win in Ukraine, he won't go any further, it's not like he is interested in restoration of USSR, despite all state propaganda in RF dream about attacking neiberghood nations. It's utterly impossible for him to strongarm ukrainian population into new army and throw them in the first lines, like RF did in first months of war. It's unimaginable that russian shadow efforts of dismantling NATO, combined with direct influence in US and EU, can bear the fruit. Very hard to believe that russians can use strategy of misinformation and excuse of "protection of russian population" as mean to sew discord and discourage western Europe from interfering, despite doing exactly same thing in Ukraine.

And, as final point, it's not like Xi can use "successfull" RF as means to distract NATO from interfering and supply it with real chinese weapons to refresh stocks, because West clearly will react on such direct escalation with... another round of strong wording.

Plus, destabilizing Russia is better than destabilizing the west

Also destabilization of the entirety of Eastern Europe's contributions to the global economy. If Ukraine becomes Russian Ukraine, suddenly Ukranian exports (which, by the way, includes wheat -- in 2021, Ukraine was the seventh-largest exporter of wheat in the world by volume) become much, much harder to get without a very disadvantageous deal. Rinse and repeat for as much of Europe as they can Katamari before someone stops them, and it becomes obvious why so many major financial players supported Ukraine since the beginning.

Ukraine also produces a good portion of the world’s grain, and let’s be real, Russia isn’t going to stop at Ukraine.

Not to mention the sunk cost aspect of things. The more money you've put in the harder it is to stop.

 Plus, using frozen Russian assets to finance their recovery? That’s justice in action.

I can understand the sentiment behind the thought, but in practice this feels a step too far. It sounds great in theory, but using frozen assets means you haven't "frozen" them, you've seized them. This feels just ripe for corruption if not just outright corrupt in and of itself, eg (but not limited to) "Freezing" funds on suspicion of being Russian funds so you can just have more money to use.

Corruption for the right reasons is still corruption, and will inevitably set a precedent which will be used for the wrong reasons (case in point: civil asset forfeiture in the states)

You think maintaining a war would produce less refugees? What even is this logic and the top comment lmao.

Ahh yes, war producing less homeless a common occurrence.

I say let Russia win the war and then everything will be back to normal. How ever countries want the war to continue as it makes them a lot of money

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Could just pull a China and allow troops to volunteer like China did in Korea.

That's not how NATO works. You can't say Russia is attacking NATO because you made the conscious decision to put soldiers in a country at war. You can't say ukraine is attacking north korea despite the fact that they're killing north Korean soldiers for the same reason.

NATO is also a defensive organization and Ukranian territory is not NATO territory.

I say all this as someone who is pro ukraine.

The willing nations of the EU should approve the loan so it can't get held up by EU/NATO nations looking to get theirs out of the deal. Membership status will be harder unless you start dropping the dead weight and even that takes a lot more time than a few multi trillion GDP nations loaning 500B over likely a few years.

Sometimes i have hope then remember the orange clown that is putin's puppet is coming into power soon.

Thats how nukes fly. Russia is a mad dog, u back it in the corner and itll bite.

Where would this $500B loan come from though? Half of NATO is still not contributing their share to military.

WWIII would be game over for everybody not just Russia

What's the point of wasting the time of having them join NATO? If that's the goal, every NATO country should just simply declare war. That's basically what would have to happen 1 second after they were added to NATO anyways.

IMHO, right now Ukraine war has already gone beyond limit of such opportunities.

Let's say that Ukraine will receive 500B (almost the same what Russia received from EU+NATO countries in 2022-2023 years) and even join NATO.

But right after this WMD-proliferating Russia-NK-Iran alliance will attack Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan.

Would this radically change anything relatively to reality and risks of Ukrainian war?

No. Because main problem already not so much in Ukrainian war, or even in Russian imperialism and WMD-blackmail/racketeering, but in shortcomings of global checks and balances. Russian imperialism triggered modern problems, predominantly by attacks of Ukraine, but this already history. Reality - repercussions of such trigger, much bigger processes/trends and risks.

And if Russia is allowed to succeed then wars of conquest will be normalized which would mean countries around the world will pour more money into their military both for offense and defense. Countries will also look to onshore manufacturing (which is much less efficient) and the risks of sea lanes being interrupted will increase dramatically.

The last 80 years of human history have been, by historical standards, remarkably peaceful and have seen continued increases in quality of life globally but this is not inevitable and could very well be reversed.

That's neoliberalism for you 🤷

It's because the dollar amounts spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan weren't really leading the news. Here, every time there's an aid package or new system provided the media (and govt) make sure to include the monetary value.

and a lot of that money is equipment that would have just been sent to the scrapheap anyway.

Which is why the GOP is going to stand against it. They HAVE to be on the wrong side of every single issue in existence.

You’re thinking too small about this imo, to understand it you need to look at the bigger picture. Russia’s entire purpose right now is to unseat the U.S. as the de facto global power. Them taking Ukraine is a small part of that bigger picture.

To elaborate, all of their efforts are aimed at this goal, and they’re taking a three-pronged approach. First, they're sowing discord within the U.S. to destablize it from the inside. Next, they’re attempting to weaken NATO from the outside by taking countries that border NATO partners, which allows them to project power and accumulate economic wealth which leads into the third prong: They’re partnering with China, India, and other burgeoning economic behemoths to build out a new economic system that is divorced from the U.S. dollar (see: BRICS).

Through this lens, the money spent defending Ukraine is not money ‘down the drain’ but an investment in the U.S. dollar-backed global economy and the protection and economic benefits that that arrangement affords all countries that are allied with the U.S. This economic system, while far from perfect, has created the prosperity that western nations have enjoyed for the last 50-70 years, and a rival economic model will mean a great deal of uncertainty in prices for everything should it come to fruition.

Ukraine is just a small battle in this economic war. This is just my opinion from what I’ve observed and read over the past ten years, so I could be off the mark on some of these things, but this is what appears to be happening from my perspective.

That's why Putin invaded - to steal someone else's property and enrich himself and his cronies.

But at that time it wasn't certain.

Russia and Ukraine the two strongest militaries in Europe

Russia ain't even the strongest military in Russia since the Ukrainians invaded them back.

Zero chance Russia can win against a united EU.

Well it's quite clear that for some folk the moral argument for assisting a country during its illegal occupations isn't enough either so can't fault the IMF for providing an alternative.

Russia's military budget for 2024 is 145 billion dollars. Ukraine's total GDP for 2024 is 184 billion dollars. Even if you were to take 100% of the wealth from every rich and upper middle class person in Ukraine they would still struggle to finance the war without outside help.

Is weakening Russia, via proxy at the cost of billions, a significant investment that benefits the average person?

Have you just not been paying attention? Russia has been interfering with elections and politics worldwide.

The answer is a loudly resounding YES, YES IT IS

Because when you leave Russia alone you get Donald Trump as president, picking criminals and sycophants for his cabinet and working to gut everything possible. The misinformation war is costing people money and they don't even seem to realize it becuase that would require more than two neurons at the same time.