Thread by @bctallis

While #Russia slaughters civilians in #Ukraine I hear that some in #Germany including advisors to Chancellor #Scholz are looking for a quick way back to business as usual.
This is totally unacceptable - & needs to be changed ASAP or many more will die 🧵

https://twitter.com/InnaSovsun/status/1541429316382236672

Ignoring intelligence reports, advisors are apparently briefing that the war will be effectively over by October. That would be convenient for them as it offers a way to go back to business as usual with #Russia & avoids unpopular high fuel costs in winter but it’s dangerous BS

that will sell #Ukraine short & leave us all at risk of #Putin’s next vicious attack. After Plotner’s indication last week that he prioritises relations with #Russia over clear support to #Ukraine, this week advisors are trying to sell a dodgy prognosis on the war.

This prognosis conflates the likely battlefield stalemate (barring the delivery of game changing heavy weapons to #Ukraine by the #West) -as neither UA or RU mil are strong enough to win or weak enough to lose- with the end of the war.

In some versions it also seems to confuse the likely pause in high intensity offensive hostility - that the autumn mud will dictate - with the onset of a frozen conflict.

This is all both wrong and dangerous for several reasons.

It’s wrong because, as most western (Intel) analyses concur, Putin’s ambition will not be satisfied with limited territorial gains in Eastern Ukraine. It would just be a pause that allows RU to regroup & plan their next assault - right when sanctions would really start to bite

It’s dangerous because it is being used as an excuse not to support #Ukraine more strongly for the long term - it’s not hard to read #Zelenskiy’s statement about ending the War this year through this lens - he’s worried - or been warned - that some western support may not endure

It puts the pressure on #Ukraine to accept a worse negotiated settlement than they otherwise would. It puts us all at risk because #Putin’s #Russia is an aggressive revanchist menace that needs to be isolated & contained - not indulged & coddled.

This wishful thinking/these willfully ignorant assessments that would let #Russia off the hook, sell #Ukraine down the river & leave us all in danger need to be challenged. We should challenge #Germany to prove this wrong, step up the speed & intensity of its

#heavyweapons delivery to #Ukraine - and step up it’s pressure on the Putin regime. #Ukraine should decide when it’s ready to negotiate a peace - but that won’t be the end of our trouble with #Russia as long as it remains an aggressive authoritarian power under #Putin. We have to

- back #Ukraine to the hilt LT & give it what it needs to win on its own terms

- isolate & pressure the #Putin regime until it changes

- reassure allies with proper deterrence

-reinvigorate our own societies - we can do so much better than the old business as usual.

/END.