I think a prerequisite for having a discussion is recognizing exactly what this is: it's an illegal war of aggression, per the determinations of Nuremberg trial

I think a prerequisite for having a discussion is recognizing exactly what this is: it's an illegal war of aggression, per the determinations of Nuremberg trials, it is a war of conquest to expand borders. That's what Putin has done, and it's consistent with his revanchist speeches since 2008 in which he pines for the glory days of the USSR, and apparently he wants to be viewed as one of The Great Tsars. The invasion is a violation of the U.N. Charter, the Geneva Convention, and Budapest Memorandum, all of which Russia is a party to, but Putin tore all that up two weeks ago. What reason is there to think he'd honor any agreement at all? But if you don't agree with any of that, then there needs to be a pre-discussion to decide what we're even talking about, before there could be a discussion on de-escalation. Assuming you do agree, then I think it's clear having NATO combatants in Ukraine is untenable. NATO is strictly a defensive organization, and in order to maintain any credibility that it's not a threat to Russia, unless Russia attacks a NATO country first, NATO can't get involved directly. I also think the language has improved, blaming Putin rather than Russia. There's a strong inclination in nation-state systems to blame countries more than heads of state, to indicate the responsibility of the nationals and their stake in the decisions of their leaders. I don't think that's effective this time. We should continue pinning the blame on Putin. The problem and risk is, how to communicate there is no way back for him without it sounding like regime change, even though that's what's necessary? Putin and his stooges want Cold War 2.0, and that is not in the interest of literally anyone else. The first stage of getting there? Ukraine has to win this war. It's increasingly looking like there's only one way for Putin to win, and that's to do a Chechnya+Allepo style obliteration - hundreds of thousands of dead per day. He absolutely will do it. Question is how to stop it. You can't really say wars of conquest are wrong, and then say to the bully, "well here's 1/4 of our country you can have if you stop obliterating the rest." Because the war monger has already reneged on past agreements of utmost international importance. If you give him 1/4 now to save 3/4's, he just comes back for more later, and you tacitly said that this is the on-going deal. This is how we avoid nuclear war? Bullies get what they're asking for, in the end? Really? That's the end of the U.N. Charter and puts us right on the path to WW3. We cannot have countries using threat of nuclear bombs in order to commit atrocities with conventional weapons, and wage wars of expansion.