Ukraine will give up the land that has been lost in the war to Russia, willingly or not. That was always how this would end. The Telegraph reports that Ukraine has “softened” and is now willing to give the land up willingly. President Trump said he would try to get back some “oceanfront property.” Key word: Try. The contested region of Eastern Ukraine has been asking Russia to invade and rescue them from Ukrainian control since at least 2014. They voted overwhelmingly to join Russia in a 2022 referendum vote, largely because the Ukrainian extremist army had been attacking this region for nearly a decade. When Russia finally did take this land over with a Special Military Operation, Ukraine had no hope of ever winning it back. Its military is decimated and it never had the fortitude to begin with. No amount of American hand-me-downs or European sanctions would ever change that. Ukraine was never going to reclaim the land — or the loyalty — of the people there. Any serious student of the war understands that the war will only end once Ukraine accepts this. U.S. politicians have signaled that this is acceptable but that means President Zelensky would need to stop the social media grandstanding. According to The Telegraph, he may be willing to — if offered “robust security guarantees in the form of weapons deliveries and a path to NATO membership.” He probably won’t get that either. More likely, he’ll get a kids’ table version of NATO membership — the political equivalent of the plastic pilot wings they give to “Junior Pilots” on airplanes. Like Crimea in 2014 or Kosovo in 2008, once the territory is gone in practice, the “dispute” lingers only on paper. The post Ukraine Signals Willingness to Cede Territory Now Effectively Controlled by Russia appeared first on Redacted.