From the Washington Post a few days ago:

Privately, U.S. officials say neither Russia nor Ukraine is capable of winning the war outright, but they have ruled out the idea of pushing or even nudging Ukraine to the negotiating table. They say they do not know what the end of the war looks like, or how it might end or when, insisting that is up to Kyiv.

“That’s a decision for the Ukrainians to make,” a senior State Department official said. “Our job now is to help them be in absolutely the best position militarily on the battlefield … for that day when they do choose to go to the diplomatic table.”

And Ukrainian officials now say they have less appetite to negotiate than ever before, given their recent battlefield successes and Russia’s illegal annexation attempt.

How the war ends “is up to Kyiv” seems pretty nuts for the White House to say. It’s reminiscent of Biden’s statements before the war about how Ukraine had some sort of civil right to join NATO if it felt like it.

“President Biden said very clearly that the decision on Ukraine’s accession to NATO is the decision of the Ukrainian people only, this is a sovereign and independent Ukrainian state,” he said.

The Biden Administration has to decide what is in the U.S. interest, not the government of Ukraine.

It seems like there are multiple levels that the U.S. needs to choose among:

1. Probably the minimum is that Ukraine kick Russia back east across the Dnieper River. If Russia maintains a foothold in Kherson west of the big river, there’s too much of a chance that at some number of years down the road it once again restarts its drive for Odessa.
2. Ukraine drives Russia back to its 2015 borders, where Russia holds onto Crimea and chunks of Donetsk and Luhansk, to punish Russia for its 2022 War of Annexation
3. Ukraine retakes its 2013 border to punish Russia for its 2014 actions.
4. Ukraine and Poland drive into Belarus and Russia because that’s what Eastern Europeans do (see war of 1919-1920).

War aims should be publicly discussed.

[Comment at Unz.com]