Iuliia Mendel on Twitter: "Every subsequent deal for Ukraine will only be worse — because we are losing. We are losing people, territory, and the economy.
— Iuliia Mendel (@IuliiaMendel) November 22, 2025
The EU (which by the way has paid Russia more than €311 billion for energy and goods since February 2022) has no real strategy, no way to stop fueling… pic.twitter.com/zx8lBKQn7X
When retweeting someone you've never previously heard of who is expressing a controversial view that you happen to agree with, it's best to check who they are just in case they're some sort of political extremist, but as far as I can see Iuliia Mendel's credentials are absolutely fine - indeed she's President Zelensky's former Press Secretary.
Her views chime with mine, which is that the Ukraine war has become a sort of Death Factory, comparable to the long stretches of the First World War when hundreds of thousands of men were callously sacrificed by military leaders in pursuit of pitifully tiny gains of territory. In other words, what is being fought for in the real world, rather than in the world of rhetoric, is now too small to justify the loss of life. Russia cannot realistically conquer Ukraine, while Ukraine cannot realistically recapture all - or anything like all - of the territory it has lost. What is actually been fought for is thus the precise location of a post-war border or armistice line or "line of actual control", and the fine details of that question is far better decided by peace talks rather than by industrial-scale slaughter of young people who under the law of the two countries cannot actually choose for themselves whether they wish to fight and die or not. So don't try to tell me that continuing the war is all about "freedom".
Ms Mendel's point about "human life being the highest good" equates in its purest form to pacifism, which is an ideal I've always been very attracted to. In practice I accept that pacifism has some limitations, because it wouldn't have worked against the Nazis, and Ghandian passive resistance would have been a hopeless tool in preventing the Holocaust. Genuinely defensive military campaigns may therefore be morally justified even if they cause substantial loss of life, but that is not what we're talking about here. What can realistically be defended has already been successfully defended.
Of course some political leaders argue that the war has to be continued no matter what the cost because of a wild, wholly unproven theory that Putin is the new Hitler and he will invade the rest of Europe if he is not stopped in Ukraine, just as Hitler conquered much of Europe after Britain and France failed to defend Czechoslovakia. But with all due respect, if Putin was Hitler I think we might just have noticed by now. He's been leader of Russia since 31st December 1999, so if he has Napoleonic ambitions he's been remarkably slow about taking any action on them. The 28 point peace proposal, which has been criticised for being "handwritten by the Russians", almost certainly gives a much truer guide to Putin's war aims, which are seemingly limited to consolidating the territorial gains already made, prevention of further NATO expansion, and a return to the international community (such as membership of the G8) from a position of strength. Indeed the latter point would be completely irreconcilable with invasions of Finland, Poland or the Baltic states.
There's also the small matter here of the fact that Russia has the world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, and if the Ukraine war isn't ended there is always the theoretical chance of an escalation that leads to human civilisation being destroyed by nuclear war. Previous generations understood that morally difficult compromises and concessions sometimes had to be made to preserve nuclear peace - for example NATO made no attempt to defend Hungary in 1956 or Czechoslovakia in 1968. Some principles are not worth risking global destruction for, and that's a truth our political and military leaders seem to have lost sight of somewhere along the line. To put it mildly, those hyping up and agitating for a wider conflict with Russia are deeply irresponsible.
Last but not least, I want to address an accusation that has been levelled at me when I've made points like these in the past, namely that I'm applying different standards to Ukraine and Gaza. That is categorically untrue. What I've called for in Palestine is a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 boundaries. Those boundaries are exceptionally favourable to Israel (much more favourable than the original UN partition plan, for example) and were won at the point of a gun. The international community rewarded Israel's military aggression in 1948 by recognising the territory it invaded as its sovereign land. The State of Palestine has reconciled itself to that profound injustice in the hope of a lasting peace and of self-determination within its reduced territory. It will probably also end up accepting total demilitarisation, even though there's no reason why it should have to, other than the 'might is right' principle.
What may be asked of Ukraine is actually not quite as punitive as that. It's more akin to Austria accepting permanent neutral status in return for Soviet withdrawal in 1955. That neutrality has since developed into a key part of Austrian national identity and a source of tremendous pride. Who knows, something similar may yet happen in Ukraine.
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