Canton Rep: Is peaceful resolution over Ukraine possible? Take look at Vladimir Putin's viewpoint [View all]

[ok_cpu]

Hard to figure out why the USA Today owned papers in Stark / Summit would run this today (or at all), after Russia's declaration of war and invasion.

Over 150,000 heavily armed Russian troops are stationed near the Ukraine border. Two regions, Donetsk and Luhansk, have declared independence from Ukraine. Violence has broken out, with separatists and government forces blaming one another. Russia has recognized the breakaway regions as independent states and deployed so-called peacekeepers. The U.S., European Union and others have imposed financial sanctions upon Russia, with more on the way. And plans are in the offing to fend off Russian attacks, perhaps militarily. All of this invites the question: Is a peaceful resolution possible?


Each day, odds of agreement grow increasingly remote. Still, should we wish to minimize bloodshed, a useful exercise might be to imagine how the world appears through our adversary’s eyes.

Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, may be an autocratic nationalist who aspires to restore his country as a global power. However, with respect to Ukraine, he arguably is less an imperialist aggressor than a typical politician engaging in “realpolitik.” As such, he shares more than we’d like to think with our own leaders, past and even present.

https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/opinion/columns/guest/2022/02/25/opinion-consider-how-russian-president-putin-views-world/6915032001/