I think Putin knows he is fucked.

[fightforfreedom]

He is stuck, he is looking for a way out. He can't find one so he is just lashing out, trying to get Ukraine to surrender by brute force.

I guess the question is, how do we let Putin win, save face, without him really winning? That is a really tough question.

[COL Mustard]

1. We don't.

If we allow him to win, we will have to face him again in a few years, after he's rebuilt, rearmed and remanned his army. He has to be taken out and replaced with someone who would be more open to working with the West to get sanctions repealed. I don't know who in Russia that would be, but Gorbachev and Yeltsin came from the ranks of the Party faithful, so I imagine there's someone in Russia to fill that need.

[redstatebluegirl]

3. Someone who was not trained by the KGB.

[Bev54]

17. His name is Alex Navalny

[lunatica]

38. Yes!

[PatSeg]

39. And I love that meme!

[lunatica]

40. I "borrowed" it from someone here on DU

Couldn’t resist!

[PatSeg]

41. And now I've "borrowed" it from you!

It's a keeper.

[smirkymonkey]

42. So do I!

Hilarious!

[PatSeg]

43. Nothing like a good meme to make your day!

[Stuart G]

45. Who is this, and where or What movie is it from. Thanks for telling me/us..Please Explain..

Please...................................Pretty Please.............................

[Bev54]

46. Great meme!!

[Beachnutt]

2. Tell him if he surrenders himself

his life will be spared and will be held in confinement and well fed to live out his life.
Thats a win.

[OLDMDDEM]

4. I agree with you

Prison is a good place for him. It sets an example for those who wish to do the same in our country.

[Gore1FL]

31. We can call him "Tsar" in prison, too, if it will make him happy. nt

[Wicked Blue]

50. He should share a cell with TFG nt

[brush]

5. I agree he's fucked. Even if he eventually wins by...

sheer brutality, he loses as he's already seen as a war criminal.

And others in the Kremlin are aware. They will move on him. He may just be deposed. He may be shot, but he won't survive in charge.

I hope it happens sooner than later.

[dalton99a]

6. Trying to placate a bully will only lead to more bullying

The only language they understand is power

[WheelWalker]

7. He can choose...

Death with dignity; or, death with indignity. With either choice, it is without honor.

[unblock]

8. I don't think this is true at all.

I agree that taking over the whole of Ukraine is proving much harder than he expected. He may yet succeed, though the sanctions would stay if he did that.

However, all his pre-invasion propaganda was only about the two eastern regions of Ukraine. So he really doesn't lose much face at all if he gives up on the rest of Ukraine (for the time being) as long as he gets "something" regarding those two eastern regions.

One possibility is that once he has solid control of those regions (much easier to achieve than the whole of Ukraine), he agrees to withdraw from the rest of Ukraine in exchange for those two regions, or did making those two regions independent from both Russia and Ukraine, an arrangement where he could easily enough control thing anyway.

Hopefully Ukraine and its allies don't agree to this, but when peace and normal business is back on the table, Ukraine might not have enough support to keep fighting for just those two regions.

Point is, he doesn't have to conquer all of Ukraine to still have a face-saving path out of this.

[anarch]

47. if all he actually wants is the Donbas region (and maybe down to the coast)

and he's just destroying the rest of Ukraine to prove a point (and intimidate NATO), he could end this misadventure and declare victory if they could come to terms on this. I don't see Ukraine agreeing to this, but you never know 'til you see it I guess. The optics are really not good for him one way or the other, and he'll go down in history as a total asshole, but that kind of resolution to me would be preferable to escalating this to the point of global nuclear annihilation. Just my opinion though.

[bottrott]

9. Nope, no way, no how

does he walk away from this with any sort of win. Doing so won't save lives, it just pushes problems down the road and we'll be at this again once he purges and reconstitutes his forces which may be far more effective the next go. Allowing him a win, even one that is simply saving face, would also serve to further embolden China's own adventurism with respects to Taiwan. Western liberal democracies can either set the conditions for Putin's removal or just start preparing for a wider, more destructive multi-theater war in the next few years should he be allowed to remain. Narcissists do not admit or accept defeat, they only plot revenge.

[Emile]

10. We give him a dirt nap is what we do! That

way there's no chance he',ll ever do this shit again!

[Meadowoak]

14. +1

[Enoki33]

11. Suspect he has a retirement mansion

hidden away somewhere. For someone so obsessed with power and material wealth it may be a decision he is incapable of making. May have to be escorted to a fifth, not third , floor open window.

[lagomorph777]

20. 3rd floor is good enough.

You might have to repeat a few times but that's ok.

[roamer65]

12. We are a couple of months away from major food riots in the ME and Africa.

Lebanon received its last shipment of Ukrainian wheat the other day.

This is going to get MUCH worse for Putler the longer the war lasts.

[Wingus Dingus]

13. Will have to offer rollback of SOME sanctions and restoration of some

trade/banking/tech business to restore some of Russia's economy, to get him to back down. But not all, of course. And they will probably negotiate some territory as well, and NATO membership.

[lagomorph777]

21. Fuck that; any reduction of sanctions has to be matched by reparations.

dollar for dollar

[dalton99a]

22. +1. And American taxpayers should not have to pay for damages caused by Putin in Ukraine.

Make Russia pay for his crimes.

[Wingus Dingus]

23. Not sure what will ultimately be negotiated, but

Ukraine and Zelensky will have to decide what they can live with. They have suffered a tremendous toll.

[Hekate]

53. I was minding my own business when a thug attacked me & put me in the hospital....

Kicked my dog and killed it. Shoved my grandma’s wheelchair into the traffic.

What reparations is the thug owed? What part of my house should he be given in compensation for his bruised fists and his loss of friends in the neighborhood?

[Wingus Dingus]

56. People don't want to hear it, but I doubt Putin will walk away with nothing.

He will either get a concession of Ukraine not joining NATO, or a referendum in the disputed territories, a land passage to Crimea, some other kind of deal. It's not up to us to say when Ukraine has had enough. Hopefully they can negotiate very favorable terms, but I think I'm being realistic.

[lpbk2713]

15. And I think he has health issues as well.

From what I have read Putin could have some serious health concerns.
If that is so, he may hear the clock ticking and would want to get what
he would regard as positive news from his invasion as soon as possible.

[Mariana]

25. Is there any evidence that he has health problems? nt.

[lpbk2713]

27. Only speculation, not based on info from his own personal physicians.

Various people in the medical field have offered the educated guesswork.

[Mariana]

29. Thank you. nt.

[BGBD]

16. A lot of posts in this thread

Denying the reality of the situation.

Russia cant win in Ukraine longterm....but they can absolutely crush cities and leave kyiv and others like they did Raqqa. Take a minute and google those pictures, I'll wait....


Now, it's easy to say give him nothing when that's not your city. But, ending this war sooner is much better than later. If that means giving some concession that he can use to save face, it's probably worth it.

And there is very few realities where Putin ends up dead or in Prison. There isn't anyone able to do that too him, the ones close enough are tied to his fate. Some of you need to put down the spy novels.

[maxsolomon]

34. Thanks for injecting reality into this thread.

Putin isn't "fucked". He's battering Ukraine into submission, committing War Crime after War Crime that he'll never be held accountable for.

Russia has plenty of tanks, plenty of missiles, plenty of planes - their forces just need a resupply. Eventually, he carves off whatever pieces of Ukraine he has his eyes on - the entire steppe including Odesa is my prediction.

He has no realistic chance of being overthrown. He rules until he's too elderly to hang on, probably 15 years from now, min.

At least this has ended the West's love affair with Russian money laundering. For now.

[BGBD]

36. Bingo

They could drive every last Russian from Ukraine and he could sit back in his own territory and lob missiles all day for spite.

My prewar prediction was that Ukraine would turn into an asymmetrical war where Ukraine could make it just too costly to keep fighting, and Putin would have to find a way to declare victory short of regime change.

I had a post hidden for saying the terms that were advertised last week should be considered. Russia isn't going to leave without something in return...atleast not soon. And even if they lose in the end, they will do so much damage in the meantime that it will be hard to ever recover.

[Celerity]

37. indeed, the magical thinking is strong in this one

[lagomorph777]

18. No, we don't save his face or his ass.

Squeeze him until he is crushed.

[dalton99a]

19. Russians don't give a shit about saving face, which is an Asian concept

[Scrivener7]

24. He's not going to stop until he's dead or the rest of us are.

This was not a rational move. He is trying to prove something about his manhood. And that's an empty place that can never be filled.

[Dan]

26. Simple...Let Putin announce he's won on Russian TV and he's withdrawing his troops now.

And don’t dispute it.

[sarcasmo]

28. The only way this ends is with Putin gone, saving face is Not an option.

[Cracklin Charlie]

30. There may be only one way out for him, at this point.

I’m open to suggestions.

[hamsterjill]

32. May I disagree respectfully?

Putin, like Trump, has too big an ego to ever believe that he might be fucked. He will continue to blame someone else for any failure and increase the fear factor that he uses to keep his minions in line.

Until he’s dead and gone, he won’t admit failure.

[relayerbob]

33. I want him to lose his face.

Literally

[Lettuce Be]

35. His only options are death or exile.

[Initech]

44. Putin deserves the same fate we gave bin Laden.

He needs to be shot, rolled in a carpet and thrown into the ocean and forgotten about. Fuck that POS.

[Hekate]

48. I guess my question is, why do you even think like that? You want him to save face?

You want him to strut away thinking he’s won? WHY?

“I guess the question is, how do we let Putin win, save face, without him really winning?”

That is a really weird question, is what that is.

[Crunchy Frog]

49. Offer him a rubber room and someone to play Risk with him and always let him win.

[SMC22307]

51. I don't think he knows that at all. (n/t)

[Hekate]

52. I don't understand some of these comments at all. "We" give him "pieces of Ukraine"? How about...

…. if Osama bin Ladin brings down the Twin Towers and the world “lets” him have New York City?

There are days when I don’t understand this place at all.

[Hekate]

54. Pretend for a moment his name is Adolf Hitler and apply that question

[AntiFascist]

55. Why? Fuck Putin...as you pointed out he seems to know it n/t