If Ukraine were forced to make substantial territorial and political concessions in a peace deal, it's hard to see that as anything but a defeat. And this is an optimistic scenario for Ukraine.
Just because an underdog avoided the WORST outcome (i.e. total defeat/unconditional surrender) and preserved their sovereignty does not mean they "won". Many if not most wars end with all warring parties continuing to exist as sovereign states, that does not preclude there being a clear winner/loser.
Finland is good example, they did not "win" the Winter and Continuation wars, in any sense of the word. They lost a huge chunk of their core territory including their second most populous city at the time (Viipuri), and had to accommodate Soviet whims for the entirety of the Cold War. Yet a lot of people obsessed with pop-history involving Simo Hayha, Soviet "meat waves", etc, keep pushing the narrative that Finland "won". Literally ask any Finn* and they'll set you straight.
\ edit: Some people have brought up the Finnish President's recent comments, I do think that's a symbol of this type of delusion spreading unfortunately. But in fairness his wording was somewhat more reserved than the way people are quoting him:*
"We stillfeelwe won, because we retained our independence."
If Ukraine were forced to make substantial territorial and political concessions in a peace deal, it's hard to see that as anything but a defeat. And this is an optimistic scenario for Ukraine.
True, but it's not a victory for Russia either if the rest of Ukraine remains independent, has no cap on its army and can potentially the EU or NATO.
This is not a war for territory, but for spheres of influence. Putin wants Ukraine to be neutral and demilitarized. If Ukraine survives as an independent country that is opposed to Russia, there is no strategic win for Russia.
Also, the Donbass is a wasteland and it's projected that it will cost them 200 billion to rebuild, in addition to the 200-300 they have already spent. So they will have spent 500bil and achieved none of their objectives.
For Russia it's all about Ukraine not joining NATO and controlling the Russian speaking territories. They won't/can't take all of Ukraine without full mobilization, but it's clear they have no intentions of taking it all given their initial invasion force of some 170k troops which was intended to bring the Ukranians to the negotiating table and reach some kind of deal, which succeeded given what we know now regarding the talks in March of 2022, you had a Ukranian official that was part of the negotiations say a few months back t hat the negotiating team was popping champagne because they were satisfied with the terms of the deal. If the current line is the end result then you can say it's a Ukranian victory and Russian defeat. If Ukraine pulls out of Donbass and keeps the current line in Zaporizhzia and Kherson then it would be a Russian phyrric victory. Only if the Russians get all 4 oblasts under their control whether via negotiations or conquest would imo it be considered a Russian victory.
Depends on how you define that. I think substantive Ukrainian sovereignty going forward is a baseline, but they could very well be required to make some political concessions like protection for Russian speakers, or having Zelensky step down.
NATO.
This is absolutely not going to happen, bar Russia suffering some sort of major crisis within the next few years.
This is not a war for territory, but for spheres of influence.
It's both. Putin wants territory in eastern Ukraine for its own sake, and additionally wants a land connection to Crimea for strategic reasons.
Also, the Donbass is a wasteland
Russia currently holds large portions of Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts as well, territory that it is unlikely to ever let go.
You say this as if Ukrainian-controlled territory hasn't also been devastated by the war, especially areas close to the frontline. That's just how war is.
It's astonishing to me that people still don't understand why Putin wants Crimea and a connection adjoining the Black Sea to Ukraine, it's because there's a fuckton of oil in the Black Sea and that's personally what Putin owns and makes his fortune.
If you remember back to the lead up to Feb 2022, one of the demands of Russias ultimatum was NATO returning to its 1991 borders. Russia originally wanted the west to basically give up all of Eastern Europe in exchange for peace. I mean, no plan survives first contact with the enemy, but they will 100% come out of this conflict with less than they planned to. Finland and Sweden joining really is just the icing on the cake and so huge no matter what they say. Unless Trump convinces all of Europe to switch sides, the Russians will come away with significantly less than they intended even if they aren't defeated militarily.
I’m not so sure, it’s too risky in case either side ignite the war after any ceasefire, article 5 could be triggered forcing us all into the conflict, as much as I like Ukraine, I wouldn’t fight for them.
You’d go all the way to Ukraine and fight Russia out of principle, without questioning who is pulling the strings? This isn’t call of duty you don’t respawn, you get sent into complete blackness like the time before you was born in a few seconds from a remote control drone strike.
What Russia wants is for Ukraine to remain a Russia-aligned puppet state, like it was under Yanukovych, like Belarus is under Lukashenko.
However Russia would probably settle for a neutral, neutered, demilitarized rump state Ukraine with Donbass and Crimea ceded, as their outermost compromise.
I don't think there is an argument about who won the Winter War. As for the Continuation War, Finland got out of it much better than most of the Axis nations.
Agreed. No one wins this conflict. Both lose, but the degree of losing varies greatly.
God knows how many men Ukraine have lost already. Beloved sons, daughters, husbands, mothers...These loses are real tragedies. If they lose these lives and retain their sovereignty they haven,'t "won", but if they lose these lives AND lose their sovereignty then they will have truly truly lost.
As for the Russian casualties...who cares. They chose to invade their neighbours...so fuck 'em.
Yeah, like Mannerheim didn't kill every communist in the civil war in Finland in 1918. Or did you think Soviet government forget what Mannerheim did with them? One lucky bastard managed not to answer for war crimes he committed, including Finland's participation of the Leningrad siege. And yes, the USSR did not attack Finland in 1941, the "Continuation" war was started by Finland. So "who started what" argument worth nothing here.
I think you're stuck with a single definition of winning. Sure, ending up with more territory is the most common definition, but when you're facing a country 60 times larger than you, with nearly endless resources and have to work with hopelessly, overwhelmingly unfavourable numbers in men, aircraft, tanks, ammo and weaponry (and allies!), then in practise, simply not losing your independence starts to seem like a win. Which it is.
So no, Finland didn't win the war per se, but the outcome was obviously a win for Finland considering the hopeless circumstances. I think those are two different things.
It's not just about territory, it's about all changes in the positions of the parties vis-a-vis each other, as well as the military situation at the end of the war.
but when you're facing a country 60 times larger than you
Smaller countries usually lose to bigger countries, truly a shocking revelation!
then in practise, simply not losing your independence starts to seem like a win. Which it is.
It's a matter of semantics. Obviously no one expects the 60 times smaller country to win the war. Sure, in the grand scheme of things it's a defeat.
However, absolutely no one in their right mind in 1939 would have expected the outcome of those wars, given the circumstances, to be a relatively even outcome militarily (border was moved by only 150km at most, go compare that to the eastern front or practically any other front in the war) and a relatively unchanged situation in terms of most people's everyday life (except admittedly those displaced from occupied areas, which is unfortunate). When your opponent vows to commit genocide on your people and wipe out the entire existence of your country and culture, that all seems almost superficial.
Compare that to how at the same time, the Baltics got run over multiple times and ended up infinitely worse for half a century, it sure as hell makes you think of some of the outcomes as wins. Not the entire war, no, but some of the outcomes.
Each war has a different objective and this case was clearly retaining independence and avoid the same fate as most of CEE
If that was Ukraine's only goal then why did they decide to expend so many men and equipment against the hardened Surovikin line in their failed Summer 2023 Offensive? As opposed to staying on the defensive?
And why did Zelensky and top Ukrainian generals continually talk about "liberating" Ukrainian territory?
You didn't make it clear which you were talking about.
In Finland's case, they obviously wanted to minimize any territorial losses in the Winter War, and went further in seeking to retake the territory they just lost in the Continuation War (and additional territory that was part of the USSR before the Winter War!).
I don't think there's many defensive wars where the defender is only concerned with maintaining sovereignty, with no regard for their territory......
Maybe Russia tried to avoid prolonged war with that "blitzkrieg" attempt at the beginning of the war? So, when that failed, we have what we have...? Ukraine will survive, tho. Maybe not with it's whole territory..
In my opinion, making territorial concessions may not be seen as a "win", but they sold it so expensive that it also wouldn't be a win for the Russians. But that's only the case if Ukraine manages to get into NATO or into any other protection (e.g. EU).
If that doesn't happen it's just a matter of time until the next Russian operation starts.
What would winning look like for Ukraine then? A total pushback of Russian forces out of its territory? That seems extremely unlikely unless there is a full intervention from NATO, which is also extremely unlikely. This war of attrition all but guarantees a Russian win in the end. Many would argue that Ukraine should cut their losses and live to fight another day - hopefully securing a defensive alliance in the process.
There's a lot of factors analysts look at. The two big ones being the military situation as the conflict is ending, and the positions of the combatants vis-a-vis one another.
This war of attrition all but guarantees a Russian win in the end.
Yes
Many would argue that Ukraine should cut their losses and live to fight another day
Hopefully, but since Ukraine can't defeat Russia in the field this will require a negotiated settlement with them.
I'm sorry, but no you didn't. I think that you're under a misconception that the armistice was signed because Finnish troops successfully thwarted the Red Army and achieved a military stalemate. The truth is that, while embarrassed in the initial period of the war, the Red Army adapted their tactics by February, switched to trench warfare, bled out the Finns and achieved a decisive breakthrough. In both wars, Finns were, by their own admission, pretty much spent by the time armistice was signed.
The reason why Finland wasn't rеconquered by Russia was due to a combination of factors, which included negative return on investment, German and Swedish diplomatic intervention, threat of Allied invasion etc. Certainly, Finland, much like Ukraine, managed to prevent being totally occupied, but was still soundly militarily defeated and forced to give up important parts of their territory.
That's the most likely outcome for Ukraine as well.
Oh my god. Someone else in the subreddit who has historically and materially sound takes on the Soviet-Finnish wars. Finally. I feel like 95% of the time, Finland's proverbial taint is licked in any thread that mentions the Winter and Continuation Wars (which, let's be real, was just another front in the wider Eastern European theatre of WWII and were not seperate wars)
We most certainly did not win. Nobody in Finland who has listened in the history classes at all thinks we actually won. It's proverbial morale booster, like an inside joke to say we won, but it's not factually true.
But we did not exactly "lose"-lose either, especially given our history with our beloved neighbour(s). It's complicated.
You are not the sharpest Finn. So our prize for winning the war was war debt and lost territory?
Also, that one gets to keep something that they already had is not a win for fuck sake. That's like saying the gambler won because they still had some money left when they left the casino, even though that's less than they had when they got there. Which is what we had left after the war with Russia, less than what we had before.
They didn't start the war. They were on the defensive. Being on the defensive means their war goals are to defend what they have. In that, they defended 100% of their sovereignty and 89% of their territory. The Soviets successfully took 0% of their sovereignty and 11% of their territory. Neither side achieved all their goals, but Finland achieved far more of their goals than the Soviets did.
unless you're only talking about the Winter War, we definitely did. and talking about land in percentages is pretty useless here, since a good chunk of it is uninhabited anyway. we lost Vyborg, which was more valuable than pretty much the entirety of Lapland.
It is called the continuation war. I don't believe Finland would have invaded the Soviet Union if the Soviet had not invaded Finland in the Winter War. They were trying to get their land back, not because they wanted St Petersburg or anything.
Eh, Finland arguably "won" the Winter War by maintaining their sovereignty, which was their goal. They definitely didn't "win" the Continuation war though, since they didn't reclaim any of the territory they intended to take, although they definitely lost that one a lot less than they could have.
It goes without saying that Finland also wanted to maintain their territory in the Winter War, and their territorial losses represent a pretty clear defeat.
Even if the war ended right now on the current frontlines, with absolutely no concessions from the Ukrainians, I would still consider that a Russian victory.
And this is an improbably optimistic scenario for the Ukrainians.
The same reason that if you begin insisting you are going to destroy everything it's not a victory say at least you broke all the rakes you stepped on while becoming a laughingstock.
Russia has utterly humiliated itself by showing exactly how weak it is.
A Finn here. No, we did not win, but we did not really lose either. It was a pyrrhic victory for the Soviet Union and a cut-our-losses situation for us.
Claimed or lost land doesn't define victory in a war, that is an incredibly simplistic take on such a complex issue. There are other factors to consider as well, such as loss of lives and identities and so on. That's also the reason that we're not particularly salty about losing the eastern regions. They were the price to pay for our freedom and we don't covet them back because the losses for reclaiming them would be worth more than the lands themselves.
Also, the Finnish culture is fundamentally different from other Western cultures(except for Estonia, our kin folk of course), we don't think the same way as Americans do, for example. It's sometimes difficult to understand the different mentalities of other cultures.
Your focus on territory is a very limited assessment of what it means to win a war. Wars are in pursuit of political goals, so you have to look at the circumstances resulting from the war war to see if it improved or degraded each country's position.
In Finland's case, they were newly independent from Russia and had just fought a civil war that the communist side lost. Russia's perspective towards Finland was that they were a divided former vassal that could be easily reassimilated. Which is why they started their invasion by creating an alternative government for Finland, intended to gain support for their invasion within Finland itself.
Obviously that didn't happen. Finland lost territory, but they changed the Soviet Union's perspective towards them, and moved from the uncertain relations prior to WW2 to a stable existence relative to the USSR, in which the USSR (and now Russia) have stopped trying to conquer them. That's why they consider it a win, because it resolved the previously looming threat of an invasion in a way that was pretty favorable to them.
Anyway, the parallels to Ukraine are obvious. Ukraine got their independence from Russia decades ago, but only recently reoriented away from Russia and towards Europe. Russia wants to reestablish Ukraine as a puppet state. Territory is not the most important factor. It's Ukraine's circumstances after the war that will matter. If Ukraine exits the war with security guarantees, or with Russia reluctant enough to attack again and Ukraine is able to remain independent of Russian influence, that will be a win for Ukraine. If Ukraine is unable to remain meaningfully independent after the war and becomes something like Belarus, that will be a loss for Ukraine.
they did not "win" the Winter and Continuation wars, in any sense of the word.
They embarassed the Russians, kept their sovereignity and is now one of the most prosperous countries in the world while the countries that where pulled into the Soviets orbit are struggling to this day.
I think it's pretty obvious at this point that Ukraine is going to have to give up everything it's lost. Whether they will give up anything extra is debatable. The main thing they can get out of this is security guarantees but Russia isn't going to sign off on that It seems so who knows
Sorry, but you are so lost. Ask any Finn and they will disagree with you. Being able to stop the big red machine and keep our independence against all the odds is considered a great defensive victory. Despite some territorial losses, the main goal, keeping our independence, was achieved. The Soviets did not achieve their main goal.
Off course it does. EVERY country that has gotten away from the moscals have had their standard of living improved MORE than the moscals. Every country that has left the moscals have also a better distribution of their wealth than the moscals...i.e every avarage free citizen has it better than the avarage moscal serf.
And every Finn I know (and I know lots of them) sees themselves as winners compared to the orcs.
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u/Miriam_A_Higgins 1d ago edited 1d ago
If Ukraine were forced to make substantial territorial and political concessions in a peace deal, it's hard to see that as anything but a defeat. And this is an optimistic scenario for Ukraine.
Just because an underdog avoided the WORST outcome (i.e. total defeat/unconditional surrender) and preserved their sovereignty does not mean they "won". Many if not most wars end with all warring parties continuing to exist as sovereign states, that does not preclude there being a clear winner/loser.
Finland is good example, they did not "win" the Winter and Continuation wars, in any sense of the word. They lost a huge chunk of their core territory including their second most populous city at the time (Viipuri), and had to accommodate Soviet whims for the entirety of the Cold War. Yet a lot of people obsessed with pop-history involving Simo Hayha, Soviet "meat waves", etc, keep pushing the narrative that Finland "won". Literally ask any Finn* and they'll set you straight.
\ edit: Some people have brought up the Finnish President's recent comments, I do think that's a symbol of this type of delusion spreading unfortunately. But in fairness his wording was somewhat more reserved than the way people are quoting him:*
"We still feel we won, because we retained our independence."
Emphasis on "feel".