'the most likely endgame... (when there are many possible outcomes)'

'the most likely endgame is, of course, a negotiated settlement...

ukraine can’t win, NATO won’t directly intervene, and russia can only triumph at great cost...'

but, to quote a friend of horsemouth's, there are many possible outcomes.

horsemouth has argued previously that  ukraine can't win - but at the moment it looks like (or we are being told that) it could. horsemouth doesn't think the russian army should be there anyway but having had a modern war fought on your territory would leave the ukrainians the victorious owners of smoking ruins. 

getting the war stopped is horsemouth's priority. just to save lives. 

NATO won’t directly intervene - again, horsemouth confidently asserts this (like he is privy to the thought processes of the powerful) but really he thinks it is too insanely risky for NATO to confront russia directly. it may be that the russian economy is only marginally bigger than italy's but they have a fuck of a lot of troops and and a fuck of a lot of nukes. 

russia can only triumph at great cost - alternatively the endgame may not be a negotiated settlement at all,  it may be trench warfare and an ugly syrian stalemate. both leaders get to look like heroes fighting fascism but putin is weakened because he can't get a quick win.

there is the war (ugly, brutal and somewhere else) and there is the global political order that will form in its wake. 

'to this extent, the culture war over russia and ukraine is more about the moral rearmament of ‘the west’ after iraq and afghanistan under the ensign of a new cold war which declares putin a legatee of stalin, the resuscitation of a dying atlanticism, the revitalisation of a moralistic europeanism...'

of course neither putin, atlanticism or europeanism were doing particularly well before the war and it is unlikely they can be resuscitated or revitalised in any lasting fashion. (imagine what the re-election of trump would do to all this for example). 

ultimately though the fate of the world is in the balance between china and the US.  

there's a war on and so there's probably more important things than punk bands and benefit records (say it isn't so). 

anyone wanting to help the ukrainians could probably find better ways to do it than discussing the beton record and their wearing of t-shirts honouring stepan bandera (and their subsequent statement about that). 

but horsemouth still thinks people are still not taking the time to carefully read the wikipedia entry on bandera - collaborating with the nazis (not once but twice), pogromming out the poles from western ukraine, it's not pretty. 

that lots of ukrainians (especially in the west of ukraine round lviv) like him and think he's a patriot (rather than a nazi) is more than a little worrying and does not bode well for the future of  the country. 

beton's statement sounds like it says all the right things but it's carefully worded apology for causing offence -e.g true the nazis sent stepan bandera  to a concentration camp (as beton mention), but to VIP quarters in a concentration camp, he was being warehoused in case he would be useful to them again, and when they were on the retreat they sent him in again (to help disrupt the russian advance).

getting the war stopped is horsemouth's priority. just to save lives. 

-------------------------

another beautiful morning, horsemouth will go for a wander.