Elections are barred under Ukraine’s martial law but its next expiration is before the March 2024 presidential vote
Peacetime elections in Ukraine cost around 135 million euros and Zelensky wants Western election observers on the frontlines
https://www.rte.ie/news/ukraine/2023/0827/1401976-ukraine-elections/
Other sources: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/zelenskiy-says-elections-could-happen-under-fire-if-west-helps-2023-08-27/
But Russia can’t win… at least not against the US. Not unless something crazy like China joined in.
But I feel this is exactly what the US wants. It wants to keep Ukraine just barely strong enough to not outright lose, and for Russia to keep losing people. And the war machine in Western Europe and the US will get richer and richer. Another Iraq, a decades long conflict.
I don’t support Ukraine winning, cause that would likely be the end of Russia and as Ukraine currently shows an extinction of all the left in Europe pretty much.
But I really doubt Putin and the current Russian government have any socialist or leftist goals. That they would ever be possible allies if there wasn’t a common GIGANTIC enemy.
And I also believe that’s on purpose. The current state of affairs in Russia is a consequence of basically the CIA destroying the USSR and trying to shape the future of Russia.
All in all, I’m not very hopeful to be honest. I want to believe there is socialism out there. That the other side of the coin is right. But I always have this fear we’re being double played and it’s all the Empire y’know? It’s all theatre. Nothing is real anymore.
I know what you mean, but we have to assess the world in a historical materialist way and not in an idealist way.
NATO is losing credibility and is fraying. The petrodollar is collapsing. US/UK/European hegemony is retreating. That’s what matters here for me. A stronger Russia, whether it is capitalist or socialist, is a good thing, because multipolarity makes the US less inclined to mess up other countries. The uprisings in Africa against neocolonialism at this point in time are not accidental or coincidental. They very much have to do with the US having its eyes elsewhere.