John Mearsheimer

None of that.

It has to be completely severed.

Ukraine has to be on its own.

And number two, Ukraine has to accept the fact that the Russians are going to keep the four oblasts that they've now annexed and Crimea.

The Russians are not going to give them back.

And what you really want to do if you're Zelensky or who's ever running Ukraine in this scenario that we're positing is you want to make sure the Russians don't take another four oblasts to include Kharkiv and Odessa, right?

If I'm playing Putin's hand and this war goes on, I'm thinking about taking four more oblasts.

I want to take about 43% of Ukraine and annex it to Russia, right?

And I certainly want Odessa.

And I certainly want Kharkiv.

And I want the two oblasts in between as well.

I want them literally.

I want to conquer them literally.

But my point to you is if we can begin to talk about cutting a deal now,

you may be able to head that kind of aggression off at the pass.

In other words, you may be able to limit Putin and Russia to annexing the four oblasts that they've now annexed plus Crimea.

That's the best I think you can hope for.

But the point is you have to get the Ukrainians to accept that.

You have to get the Ukrainians to accept becoming a truly neutral state and conceding that the Russians keep a big chunk of territory.

It's about 23% of Ukrainian territory that they've annexed.