What is the West doing wrong? Should they stay out of it and have a nation obliterated from the face of the Earth.
They at first provided sanctions to stymie the war machine and tyranny of Russia. They have provided Ukraine with defensive weapons for protection and have stated many times for use only to gain back territory forcibly taken by the aggressor and not to attack mainland Russia.
You cannot reason with the upper echelon of Russia. They only know force and even then, they lead their own to slaughter. They will have to be soundly defeated to not have aspirations of attacking NATO and its alliance. Watch what they do not what they say. Time will tell if Ukraine even survives if they don't you need to be on edge.
Well:
i) for a start, once the war started there should have been immediate efforts in the West (and especially here) to boost defence production for everything we might need, and might be able to offer Ukraine. This didn't happen for months and is only starting to happen now.
ii) we should also have strongly considered looking at whether sanctions should have been employed once the war actually started, and whether alternate means (refusal to buy Russian products, refusal to provide Russia with products) would have been more effective at preventing damage here;
iii) we should have understood our actual strengths and weaknesses vs Russia - the biggest advantage we have is cultural; Russians even now see themselves as European, they consume Western entertainment products and brands, listen to Western music, play Western games etc etc. One of the big reasons why the Soviet Union crashed is because people were exposed to an alternate type of living that was more appealing to them (indeed the threat of that is what drove Putin to this, I think)
iv) in terms of actually supplying Ukraine, we should have worked out in advance better logistical pathways - as in, rather than supplying them with dribs of this sort of artillery piece and drabs of this sort of artillery piece and this other country is supplying tiny amounts of this sort of artillery piece, sufficient quantities of one sort of item should have been supplied. This works with standardized ammo but needs to be expanded to everything else.
v) we need to understand how this war is being perceived outside of the West - nearly everyone wants it to end, but they see Ukraine refusing to negotiate. I agree that Russian proposals probably aren't serious, but when Ukraine refuses to talk it removes the opportunity to expose that to the world, and especially to the Russia-friendly states like the BRICS. The mooted peace format that Lula was proposing should be welcomed and encouraged, if only because Putin is likely to make fools of them.
