Why would they want to? If this does escalate enough, it would make more sense for them to redouble the efforts for their offensive - they still have plenty of reserves that haven't entered the fray yet.

And then, if the plan to cut off Crimea succeeds, they could try to negotiate with Russia - on much stronger terms.

And Ukraine has the convenient position of just telling Wagner forces something along the lines of "you're a bunch of war criminals, but anyone observed retreating into Russia isn't going to be pursued" if they want to let the infighting do the maximum amount of damage.

> Why would they want to?

I don't know, when the board changes you look for openings. On the military side, I would use the distraction to extract battlefield gains. On the diplomatic side, maybe Putin is willing to give up more, now, than he (or his successor) will later.

I think any peace deal would necessarily involve ceded territory.

I imagine that territory could be the Bryansk, Kursk, Bilhorod, Rostov, and Krasnodar oblasts.

Ukraine struggles with ideas what to do with unloyal population on ukranian occupied territories. Main ideas are "we just mass deport locals to Russia" (FTR that's a genocide and not because of destination) and "we just forbid russian propaganda there and everyone would magically start love us and accept ukrainization". And you are talking about russian territories that combined have size of half of Ukraine and which population is extremely unloyal to ukranian government.

That is utter bullshit.

Keep your russian propaganda off this website.

If you are talking about what to do with unloyal locals in Donetsk and Luhansk, I took it from ukranian propaganda, not russian.

Russian government and it's mass-media has no trust in any questions (especially in Ukraine-related), no sane person trusts them, even ultra-Z-pro-war-vatniks (if we can call them sane).

Just get out of here.

Many of my close friends are from the temporarily occupied territories. They speak russian, but they hate russia.

They all fucking hate russia.

For your claim to be so wildly inaccurate shows you haven't even a shred of credibility. And to accuse the Ukrainian government of genocide is disgusting.

Go and take a long hard look in the mirror.

Nobody knows you. Whatever you want to argue, you're going to have to rely on references and coherence, because nobody cares about being shamed by anonymous commenter #1,234,567,890.

I didn't say that they love Russia. Heck, even many russians hate Russia the way it is now. What I am saying is that even reintegration of population of occupied territories is not an easy task. That's why in ukranian public space there's no easy plan of doing this because they know would be a hard work (mass deporations wouldn't be accepted by EU and US for reason I stated and "we just turn off russian propaganda" is necessary but not sufficient by itself).

And you are talking about integration of 13+ mil population of your direct enemy that is even harder work. What for?

All of these regions except Belgorod cannot fully supply own budgets and they recieve dotations from federal budget (even Belgorod barely does this and tearing established economic connections with other russian regions would severe it's ecomonic abilities). So it's not an economic reason like "we would tax them to get money".

Next what about integration in ukranian society. Ukraine nation was indeed forged in this war, but russians never were part of it (ukranian society). So this means that Ukraine would have to federalise (which it clearly avoided) or it will try to ukrainise russian population (that would create additional tensions). So for the point of internal politics this would only bring additional problems too.

Now maybe this will help in internations politics somehow? Ukraine is clearly directing itself towards eurointegration. One of the reasons why EU was uncertain about Ukraine joining it was size of the country. Now after ukranian martyrship that's unlikely to be an issue but it definitely would be if Ukraine somehow gets 50% bigger. At least it won't help with direction towards EU.

I don't know ukranian politics wery well and I don't see any viable reasons for Ukraine to join these russian regions.

But maybe you being more familiar with what happens inside Ukraine can enlighten me because I may be missing something or see some aspects in wrong light.

"Get out!"?

Moscow striking a deal with the comedian? Seriously?

> Moscow striking a deal with the comedian

The head of state who's besting them in a war? Yes, that guy.

Sounds better than sabblerattling with nuclear warheads.

Ukraine is still receiving weapons. Agaisnt all odds, the west has recognized they had better at least keep the war in Ukraine, not allow Russia to extend their frontiers.

The terrorist regime in russia is collapsing. Ideally, the terrorist state of russia will be completely formatted, with all those loyal to putin arrested or killed.

This is the best prospect for peace on this planet. Are you not happy about this?