I don’t understand who really makes decisions in Ukraine. What individual or group of people need to make the call on suing for peace? Ukraine has a unicameral parliament (Verkhovna Rada) with 450 members not including prez, prime minister and cabinet. Any law passed by the parliament can be vetoed by the president; parliament can override their veto with a 2/3 constitutional majority vote. Rada’s history reads like a shitshow (fist fights, bribes, Ponzi schemes etc.) and they don’t inspire a lot of confidence.

March 2022 everybody was saying Zelensky would be assassinated if he didn’t take a hard line and other Ukrainians have already been murdered for even suggesting a peace deal with Russia so in this kind of a paranoid environment who would even do that? Are they really waiting for Biden to give them an ok? Russia seems to still be in land acquisition mode. If they start an offensive in the north and far south while holding the line in the middle they could force Ukraine to choose between Odessa and Kiev. Once they secure the south they could make the situation untenable for Ukie politicians and bypass USA/UK approval (maybe) for a peace deal. Ukrainian leaders like those big bags of USD but you can’t spend it when your dead.

Yes I thought it was worth it. All those skyscrapers have architectural easter eggs that you can only see from the river. Everyone on the boat groaned when we came around a bend and you could see the giant TRUMP sign on his building. Someone from the Chicago Architectural Society narrates the history via mic and pa system. If you do the trip make sure to bring a jacket its cold on the river even in the summer.

Lol I remember that. I did that boat tour two years ago. $50 for a two hour trip.

Just finished Liu Cixin’s ‘The Three Body Problem’ where Venezuela defeats the USA in a guerrilla war. It got me thinking that if I took 100 seasoned RF off the front line and put them on one side of a field with 10 artillery pcs and I took 100 USA military and put them on the other side of the field with the same 10 guns and ammo the RF would eat USA for dinner and poop little pcs of them the next morning. The same is probably true for the Ukies. Ukrainians would have their guns ready and drone swarms in the air locking in coords before the Americans knew what hit them. When the Russians are being honest they admit Ukrainians hit hard. Get lazy for a minute, sit on top of a trench and smoke a cig and a Ukrainian sniper will give you a lobotomy. Launch mortars from the same spot for too long and they will hit you with artillery rounds. Use whatsapp to say Hi Mom and himars soon to follow. In a real war the US would face a huge learning curve.