I don’t see better options. What would you suggest?
It’s pretty hard to disincentivise anyone to fight. Ukrainian population wouldn’t accept defeat. Putin can’t either. Both will fight regardless of whether they see themselves prevailing eventually. It’s worth noting that Putin probably cornered himself by formally annexing more territories on purpose.
One would think that maybe we can make some kind of a peace deal. Maybe Ukraine recognizes Crimea as Russian in exchange for stopping hostilities? The problem is it’s not the first time. The first time was in 2014. No one responded to the annexation of Crimea. Just a couple of months later Russian agents start a war in Donbass. Then in 2015 there was a peace deal freezing the conflict. Everyone in the West was afraid of supporting Ukraine in retaking Donbass. They thought it might provoke Putin. Which gave him time to prepare for a full scale invasion. If there’s another peace deal now Russian army would most likely use the next few years to recruit and train more soldiers and produce more weapons. And boom, a bigger invasion.
It may sound counterintuitive but my intuition says that the best we can hope for is this war never ending without any side having a decisive victory.
One of the underlying assumptions here of course is that letting Russia to just grab land is bad. It’s hard to estimate probability of WW3 through the same mechanism as WW2. But probably not low enough to just let Russia do what it wants.
I’ve talked to a number of people living in Crimea over the years. Some were pro-Russian, some were pro-Ukrainian, some undecided. Here are some observations.
People weren’t particularly afraid of Ukraine. But since 2014 literally everyone is afraid to say openly anything that’s not supportive of Russia. Fear is everywhere. So much for accurate polling data. Since February 2022 people became much more afraid of Russia. I talked to people who fled Crimea after the announcement of mobilization. They were in panic.
Since 2014 a lot of people left Crimea. Instead a lot of Russians moved to Crimea. People living in Crimea now and Crimean people in 2014 are two completely different sets of people. It feels like one third of people in Crimea are from Russia now.
I know people who were born in Crimea and still were forced to go through a lengthy, complicated and humiliating procedure of proving they are Crimean enough to be allowed to live in Crimea. I know a person who went through an unnecessarily humiliating questioning by Russian FSB for no other reason than going from Crimea to Kyiv.
Now more general thoughts.
One doesn’t have to be an expert to see which side caused more death. Mariupol. All war crimes allegedly perpetrated by Ukraine pale in comparison to an entire city leveled to the ground. While people were still there.
All that said nothing I said above or you said in your post matters. Nuclear risk and global security matter. I understand why in politics you have to first prove someone’s not a good guy before suggesting to stop helping. I did not expect to hear something like this here. I just don’t see how the conclusion you’re making follows from the statements you make in the post even if all of them are true.
For some reason public discourse in the Western countries gravitates towards either “let’s stop helping Ukraine” with weak justifications like “will of the Crimean people” and “Ukrainians aren’t saints too” or going all in up to directly fighting Russian army on the ground. I think policy of helping Ukraine but not engaging Russian army directly (basically just sticking to what’s already being done) is superior to either extreme.