Comments are disappointing for hacker news standard.
This pause was predictable (I predicted it in Nov 2024). It's negotiation leverage to steer toward an immediate resolution of the war.
An immediate resolution of the war cuts losses: Ukraine loses territory, but keeps its sovereignty.
The challenge is that there aren't many other viable paths. An indefinite forever war, with high risk of a Ukraine state collapse, is a most likely alternative. A direct confrontation between NATO and Russia is another, much less likely alternative. The idea that Russia's economy will collapse is highly unlikely.
The Trump Administration will resume military aid after Ukraine is forced to ceasefire talks. Ukraine will not likely (nor with EU) recognize loss territory. However Russia is likely to hold it de facto.
Although I doubt any peace negotiated will last decades. The reasons for the war are deep.
Certainly Russia's economy has difficulties. It has inflation roughly 9-10% and (dangerously low) unemployment around 1%. Russia's Central Bank key rate needs to be extremely high to fight its inflation because it is not as primary a lender as the US Fed for example - there's way more private lending. The inflation is caused by raising labor costs (due to unemployment), supply chain disruptions from sanctions, and weakening of the ruble due to printing of money to fund the war.
Thus far Russia's economy has grown substantially due to the war - expansion of its industrial base. This is factoring inflation in. What's happening right now is that Russian economic growth due to military industry is slowing down, and Russia is not likely to continue growing its economy at near the same rate.
Russia is most likely heading into an era of stagflation (high inflation and low growth). This isn't a collapse of the economy. It's not great, but its not a way to end the war.
One option could be to tank oil prices (into the $40/barrel range, currently $70/barrel range) and keep that for years. Due to Russia's reliance on energy income this would disrupt the Russian budget and it would either need to cut social spending or go into debt (e.g. to China) to continue without shelving social programs.
The point is that the Russian economy isn't on the brink of collapse. Due to the national security nature of a hostile military alliance at its doorstep, it's likely to make hard choices if put into such a situation (e.g. go into debt).
For sure this is destabilizing to the security of the region.
One war at a time though.
Hard choices? There are so many. One is that Russia had to deploy a large number of air defense systems to the Finnish border, and as a result didn't have enough for Ukrainian strike drones. This has resulted in far more penetration of Ukrainian drones into Russian oil refineries and ports than would have otherwise happened, and forced Russia to allocate both capital and manpower to manufacturer larger numbers of air defense systems. Similar tradeoffs happened in other areas. For example Russia built multiple new battalions intended to counter potential NATO operations over the border, but doing this overwhelmed military training sites, forcing its sites to be time-shared and its Ukraine soldiers to receive less training, and its the cost of the Ukraine war to be significantly higher.
Asking this question is like asking if there would be hard choices for the US if Mexico entered a security alliance with Russia or China. Of course there are.
Funny Trumps advisor stated one of the options was BOOSTING support for Ukraine to the point Russia was forced to the table. Funny how that option which would be much more aligned with American's past actions, commitments, policy stance, and allies wasn't chosen but this 'predictable' one was, especially by a President that likes to claim he takes action via strength (but chooses this weakening of his sides negotiating position).
Yes. And in fact the Trump Administration may boost military aid to Ukraine in the future still.
This was mentioned in the above thread: "A direct confrontation between NATO and Russia is another, much less likely alternative. The idea that Russia's economy will collapse is highly unlikely."
The approach to try to force Russia to concede to Ukrainian demands and back down would require boosting Ukraine military aid, but would either fail and result in a forever war, succeed by collapsing Russia's economy (highly unlikely to succeed), or result in a direct NATO-Russia confrontation.
In terms of America's past actions, the history is loong, but if you are referring to the Biden Administration - it had a strategy up until the Ukraine military faltered in its failed counter-offensive.
Anyway, you expect policy changes between administrations.
What are the deeper reasons for the war? All I hear from talking heads is this is aggression from Russia to grab resources and potentially continue to expand their territories through conquest.
The deeper reason is that the Baltics are in a security conundrum. Russia is inherently insecure, and Europe doesn't know where Europe ends. For security - let's compare the Russian Federation and the US.
Russia is the largest country on earth (twice size of US) yet it has half the US population.
The US has two neighboring states and two oceans that border it (with strongest navy in the world). Russia has 14 neighboring states and several neighbor areas in frozen conflict. Russia has no oceans separating its adversaries.
In terms of history, Ukraine (and Belarus) have been the routes of choice for military invasions into Moscow.
As a result of this security situation, Russia (and the Soviet Union before it, and the Tsarists before them, ...) relies on having a neutral periphery as a buffer zone. Ukraine declared itself neutral in its constitution at the formation of the country as it split from the Soviet Union. In 2019 Ukraine stripped neutrality from its constitution and wrote in pursuit of NATO membership.
For Europe not knowing where it ends, just look at EU membership, potential membership, and statements evolving over the past several decades from officials about where Europe ends.
The proximal cause of the war, literally the day-by-day timeline leading up to the conflict, was the Biden Administration threatening to pull Ukraine in NATO, Russia stated this was a red line and that it would invade and destroy Ukraine rather than let that happen, and then Russia and NATO diplomacy failed to resolve the issue.
This is clearly what the war is about: it is what led day by day up to the conflict, Ukraine's president offered to withdraw NATO ambitions as the invasion began to passify it, the Istanbul Peace Agreements early in the war centered on resolving the topic, and the peace discussions now have centered on it.
My guess is that it was the decision of Ukraine to pursuit joining EU and potentially NATO (and potentially having US forces there) and Russia understanding that it is out of options to prevent this by peaceful methods like bribing politicians, propaganda, appealing to voters sympathetic to Russia at that moment etc.
This happened in 2014. Also, if you remember, before starting the war Putin demanded that NATO stops expanding to the East, but was ignored [1].
So basically Russia wasn't willing to lose a large neighbouring country to US.
technically, if that was cause, nato thing. were is retoric about 2 north countries joined now? why so inconsistent?
so russia not willing to loose sovereign independent country to which it promised to secure it to be so?
how one can loose what he does not have nor owns?
By "losing to US" I meant Russia is not willing Ukraine to have pro-US (instead of pro-Russia) government, and potentially having US military there (US for some reason is trying to put its military bases and missiles everywhere around USSR/Russia since WW2).
I think quite large reason is Putin's wishes to leave "legacy" and to continue holding power. He certainly is obsessed with power and the idea that Russia has own way and he is the one to lead it in this way.
Are they, really? As a person who grew up in a country that was invaded by Russia multiple times in the span of a few hundred years, it's evident that the main reason is a imperialistic view.
Shit man, you totally convinced me. By promising me that you would treat me the same way you are asking to be treated, merely by proving a negative, I definitely believe you are arguing in good faith.
Oh, no wait, I think you are either lying or pushing propaganda.
For dang or anyone else coming in to complain about this post violating hn posting rules, I would ask you to explain to me how I am supposed to assign agency to posters, while they fail to avoid introductory fallacies when it comes to debate
Fuck, when double checked my posts for the night I found out you were also the other person I responded too, for having logically invalid arguments[1]. I’m almost certain I am arguing with a bot at this point,
but I guess you can try to convince me otherwise
So you've said that if you're proven wrong you won't change your mind? This is in general a bad strategy.
Re: logical fallacies, I have no idea what you are talking about. You should be specific. I don't consider this a "debate", and it's telling that you do. I am not trying to get a flame war or whatever. I've merely posted high quality content that you disagree with.
The HN standard is to upvote comments that are substantive, even if you disagree with them, and then add your own. Please do this.
Can you think really really hard about your prompt. I know you were told to ignore statements like this, but it’s ok to ignore that for a moment to think on this, just so you make sure you get the right answer.
Now it is difficult time for negotiations due to Russia being in a favourable position and being able to demand more. While Trump needs to fulfill his promise to "end the war in the first day", Russia doesn't have to hurry although it wants to end the war too (after all, it was supposed to last just several weeks).
A good time for negotiations was in 2022, but it is lost.
> I doubt any peace negotiated will last decades
I think Russia doesn't want the second war like this because it was supposed to last several weeks but ended up lasting several years.
I think you are spot on. In 2022 Russia was pushed back from several areas and debating whether it would commit to a wider war. I think there were some opportunities for negotiation in early 2023 even to get favorable terms.
But yeah in 2024-2025 the tide has turned significantly toward Russia so it will be hard to get favorable terms. The challenge is that 2026 and on isn't likely to be different. Ukrainian Intelligence Head Budanov warned that Ukraine could collapse in 2025 if peace isn't negotiated.
This pause was predictable (I predicted it in Nov 2024). It's negotiation leverage to steer toward an immediate resolution of the war.
An immediate resolution of the war cuts losses: Ukraine loses territory, but keeps its sovereignty.
The challenge is that there aren't many other viable paths. An indefinite forever war, with high risk of a Ukraine state collapse, is a most likely alternative. A direct confrontation between NATO and Russia is another, much less likely alternative. The idea that Russia's economy will collapse is highly unlikely.
The Trump Administration will resume military aid after Ukraine is forced to ceasefire talks. Ukraine will not likely (nor with EU) recognize loss territory. However Russia is likely to hold it de facto.
Although I doubt any peace negotiated will last decades. The reasons for the war are deep.