Off-topic / Meta: I think this should go in this week's Ukraine megathread instead. Gopro video of military engagements is unfortunately pretty common nowadays, and there doesn't seems to be...
Off-topic / Meta: I think this should go in this week's Ukraine megathread instead. Gopro video of military engagements is unfortunately pretty common nowadays, and there doesn't seems to be anything out of the ordinary with it (except that this is war and war is ugly).
As per instruction:
This thread is posted weekly on Thursday - please try to post relevant content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Especially significant updates may warrant a separate topic, but most should be posted here.
WARNING: Don't watch the video if you don't want to see people die. It is clearly shown that at least 4 people die to bullets, and it can be assumed the thrown grenades killed a few more. Could...
WARNING: Don't watch the video if you don't want to see people die. It is clearly shown that at least 4 people die to bullets, and it can be assumed the thrown grenades killed a few more.
Could anyone provide some insight as to why we aren't seeing Russian soldiers surrender in this situation? Man after man kept walking into Ukrainian bullets in those trenches, while at the same time the Ukrainian soldiers are begging the Russians to surrender and live.
I wish those in the trenches taking bullets were the rich Russian oligarchs that backed this war, instead of convicts and farmers from poor regions of Russia. My heart goes out to those impoverished, unequipped Russian soldiers fighting a war that isn't theirs to fight. I am glad the Ukrainians are making headway, but it has been at a terrible cost and loss of life.
For the first few Russians being shot, I don't think they knew what was going on until it was too late. There's no way they intentionally just wandered around unarmed towards enemy commandos, and...
For the first few Russians being shot, I don't think they knew what was going on until it was too late. There's no way they intentionally just wandered around unarmed towards enemy commandos, and then by the time they realize they're being shot at and can think to choose between surrender/fight/run, they're already dead.
For the rest, probably a mix of being scared of getting shot while trying to surrender, wanting to avenge any friends they may have watched die, and just panicking and reverting to whatever training they had. All you need is one disciplined soldier to start fighting back and then that becomes the default response.
Additionally voluntary surrender is a crime, and so is running away, so if the Russians thought that they would reclaim that trench then anyone who was caught surrendering would probably be in for a bad day.
Why does anyone fight/kill/die in a combat? I'm not a military expert or anything (and I'm not into watching these videos so I probably won't) but heres a few things starting with the most...
Could anyone provide some insight as to why we aren't seeing Russian soldiers surrender in this situation? Man after man kept walking into Ukrainian bullets in those trenches, while at the same time the Ukrainian soldiers are begging the Russians to surrender and live.
Why does anyone fight/kill/die in a combat?
I'm not a military expert or anything (and I'm not into watching these videos so I probably won't) but heres a few things starting with the most important thing first:
Those soldiers aren't viewing this conflict through the same lens as you.
Surrender isn't a guarantee of survival. So many things can go wrong in that situation.
Russians have been told that they will be tortured or killed if they surrender (this needs a source, I'll see if I can find one)
If you haven't already made the decision to surrender BEFORE someone tries to kill you... you're not going to do it at the drop of a hat.
In a lot of situations if you don't fight then you die or get your buddies killed... and surrender wasn't an option anyways.
Militaries do whatever they can to condition soldiers to fight and to react to being shot at by... shooting back.
This probably isn't their first firefight and this might not be the first time they've been told to surrender.
One thing I learned over the past year is surrendering is much more situational than "just surrender when you're loosing". I learned (though this is through others on the internet) that an enemy...
One thing I learned over the past year is surrendering is much more situational than "just surrender when you're loosing".
I learned (though this is through others on the internet) that an enemy does not have to take a prisoner if the situation does not allow them to do so or would be considered too dangerous. My understanding is it would be near impossible to take a prisoner in a close quarters combat situations unless all other threats have been clearly neutralized and you're in a position to safely receive the hostages. In a trench at the front lines, that's nearly impossible with shelling, drones, tanks, backups, etc, etc, etc.
I do not speak Russian or Ukrainian but my language is Slavic so some things I can understand and the soldiers are saying: "if you come out with your hands up you'll come out of it alive". I would...
I do not speak Russian or Ukrainian but my language is Slavic so some things I can understand and the soldiers are saying: "if you come out with your hands up you'll come out of it alive". I would imagine it would be a war crime to not to keep that promise. So I'm guessing they had intention of taking prisoners.
The video is so intense, it's all over the internet. Twitter posts are saying that the bearded man who dies last is a pro Russian blogger who called for murdering Ukranians, posting his pictures...
The video is so intense, it's all over the internet. Twitter posts are saying that the bearded man who dies last is a pro Russian blogger who called for murdering Ukranians, posting his pictures that do look similar.
I can't say where these men are from but many Russian 'soldiers' are just convicts plucked out of prison and given a chance (or at least the promise of) freedom if they serve in Ukraine. I believe...
I can't say where these men are from but many Russian 'soldiers' are just convicts plucked out of prison and given a chance (or at least the promise of) freedom if they serve in Ukraine. I believe 'Wagner' group 'soldiers' are mostly composed of these men.
Clearly whoever they are they're not entirely prepared for what is going on. The first three appear to be unarmed (while there's very obviously a fight happening, grenades exploding, small arms fire constantly) and the last while armed does appear very young and look at his clothes... looks like casual trousers and a pair of running shoes.
I'm not convinced these are professional soldiers.
There was a post with this video trending on reddits homepage, saw people joking about it and making csgo references, crazy how desensitized people are nowadays. Regardless on your view, and...
There was a post with this video trending on reddits homepage, saw people joking about it and making csgo references, crazy how desensitized people are nowadays. Regardless on your view, and whether you support russia or ukraine, these are people dying.
To think that many years of your life has gone to absolutely nothing within seconds, and i know people who aspire to work in the army as their profession in later life. Wtf? There is nothing heroic or patriotic about wasting your soul for any country, to put it harshly, your single life means nothing to these countries, and thinking otherwise is just ignorance. Even if it were otherwise, and you were remembered, whats the point when you're not alive to see it?
From a very narrow individual point of view, you're right - there is no point in giving up your life for an abstract idea like patriotism if you're not going to be alive to benefit from it...
From a very narrow individual point of view, you're right - there is no point in giving up your life for an abstract idea like patriotism if you're not going to be alive to benefit from it afterwards.
But people are more than just individuals with no consideration for anything outside their own life. A country is not an external entity that is irrelevant to your life, a country is made of your children, your family, your neighbors, your community and culture. Protecting the people you care about and your way of life is a very powerful motivator to fight. Especially in the case of Ukraine, watching towns being reduced to rubble and missiles landing in your city makes patriotism a lot less of an abstract concept.
I feel like often times peope who don't understand this live in countries that have not had to face war, or the threat of war. My grandfather fought in the second world war, my country was...
But people are more than just individuals with no consideration for anything outside their own life. A country is not an external entity that is irrelevant to your life, a country is made of your children, your family, your neighbors, your community and culture. Protecting the people you care about and your way of life is a very powerful motivator to fight.
I feel like often times peope who don't understand this live in countries that have not had to face war, or the threat of war.
My grandfather fought in the second world war, my country was invaded. Lot's of people killed, captured, and dissapeared. People lost their family lands, homes, livelyhoods and lives.
And in cases like Russia, everyone moving away from Ukraine to other European countries wouldn't solve a thing. Russia would then later on invade the next neighbouring country, and so on.
When I was 20 I also thought like the parent comment's author, so I think I understand where they are coming from. I was young and nobody depended on me, wars were something out of the history...
Exemplary
When I was 20 I also thought like the parent comment's author, so I think I understand where they are coming from. I was young and nobody depended on me, wars were something out of the history books that could never happen again, the cold war had ended and we were literally living in the End Of History. I definitely would not have fought for anything at that point.
But the world has changed a lot since then, and I've changed with it. It turned out Fukuyama was wrong, the wheel of history kept turning and and the Western values were far from universally accepted. I'm still saddened that Russia did not follow up on renouncing their past and integrating with the West - there was a brief window of opportunity for that in the 90s, but it passed quickly. Defending our societies and values today is just as challenging as ever, and the Ukrainians are doing it for all of us right now.
Yep, as a finn it is very harrowing to watch combat footage coming out of Ukraine, the terrain at times is a very similar to areas where I received my military training. The weapons they have and...
Yep, as a finn it is very harrowing to watch combat footage coming out of Ukraine, the terrain at times is a very similar to areas where I received my military training. The weapons they have and ask for are weapons we have in stock (and have donated to them). The enemy - the same.
The training I’ve received is for this exact fight, with these weapons, against the same enemy. It is very sobering.
Yeah. It's shocking, it's trench warfare like in a WW2 movie (and this isn't the only video of it, plenty more have been circulating especially this year) but real. It seems to excite a lot of...
Yeah.
It's shocking, it's trench warfare like in a WW2 movie (and this isn't the only video of it, plenty more have been circulating especially this year) but real. It seems to excite a lot of people though.
This video appears to be poorly trained, ill-equipped men being slaughtered in a war that has the capacity to grind on like this for years. It's not exciting, it's really sad.
You can't just feel nonstop sad for hours and hours, days and days, etc, on end. That isn't how being human works, eventually you'll stop being sad and get used to the new reality. If you're...
You can't just feel nonstop sad for hours and hours, days and days, etc, on end. That isn't how being human works, eventually you'll stop being sad and get used to the new reality.
If you're someone who rarely follows the war and only occasionally runs into videos like this, it makes sense to be sad when you see it.
But videos as graphic as this one get produced fairly regularly, and have been since last February. So anyone who does follow the war is going to be very desensitized to them by now.
And it's not like Ukraine itself has any problem with this attitude, the official Ukraine MoD puts out a pretty good stream of content that ranges from "badass action movie trailer, but it's a real war" to shitposts, in addition to more normal stuff. They're certainly aware that the situation is sad, they're in the country that's getting shelled every night, but that doesn't mean that everything they think/do related to the war also has to be sad.
Tl;dr, things can be both exciting and also sad, it isn't necessarily disrespectful to not be sad 24/7 when discussing the war.
This is the translated text from the telegram post: I think it's true this is not a front line trench. It's very well dug and too orderly for something that would be targeted by artillery. Which...
This is the translated text from the telegram post:
Soldiers of the SSO of Ukraine entered the enemy's trenches in the southern direction from the rear and destroyed 10 invaders.
In the south, during the mission, the operators of the special purpose marine center were able to enter the rear of the enemy. A combat group of SSO soldiers caught the enemy by surprise.
Recovering from the surprise, some enemy soldiers tried to resist. But, as you can see from the video shot by one of our soldiers - in vain.
I think it's true this is not a front line trench. It's very well dug and too orderly for something that would be targeted by artillery. Which would explain the surprise and confusion of the first few Russian soldiers.
In all of this I don’t understand Putins end goal. It’s like he enjoys killing off his people. They are even properly fitted for war. Reports of no food and not getting paid. I would immediately...
In all of this I don’t understand Putins end goal. It’s like he enjoys killing off his people. They are even properly fitted for war. Reports of no food and not getting paid. I would immediately surrender.
The problem is trying to surrender gets you shot for treason. And while the Russians are under equipped they're still holding their ground across the majority of the front and even continuing to...
The problem is trying to surrender gets you shot for treason.
And while the Russians are under equipped they're still holding their ground across the majority of the front and even continuing to advance in places. This war is going to drag on for a while, because the Russian military isn't nearly as bad as some people make it out to be
Does surrender come with any sort of protection against being returned to your country? I know rules mean just about nothing in war of course, it's also hard to predict how the future looks and if...
Does surrender come with any sort of protection against being returned to your country?
I know rules mean just about nothing in war of course, it's also hard to predict how the future looks and if any Russian soldier fighting in this war could even be kept safe given all that has happened.
I don't think there's any rules about that, if you take a POW and then decide you want to return him in a prisoner exchange, the POW isn't really in a position to do anything about this if he...
I don't think there's any rules about that, if you take a POW and then decide you want to return him in a prisoner exchange, the POW isn't really in a position to do anything about this if he doesn't want to go back.
However, you frequently see the Ukrainians saying they will honor the request of any Russian POWs who want to remain in Ukraine, since this obviously makes it much more likely that Russians will be willing to surrender. So even if it isn't written into the Geneva conventions anywhere, countries will usually respect these kinds of requests just out of their own self-interest.
Putin's end goal is to remain in power. He fucked up by invading in the first place, by having bad intel/bad sense of judgement and thinking they could just grab the country similarly to how they...
Putin's end goal is to remain in power.
He fucked up by invading in the first place, by having bad intel/bad sense of judgement and thinking they could just grab the country similarly to how they grabbed Crimea in 2014. Because yeah, why not? Why couldn't they? Sure there were sanctions in 2014, but it was well worth it for them to annex and the message was sent that the west (and certainly the rest of the world) didn't care enough to actually make consequences for him and Russia.
Now, it's a case of losing his life/power if he pulls out of the conflict. I don't think there is and actual end goal, as much as there is just "I need to remain in power for as long as possible" as motivation.
And despite what you hear, please remember the news are heavily pro-Ukraine biased. Especially on Reddit. Russia messed up and definitely underperformed, but their lines are more or less being held. It has been announced just now that Ukraine recaptured a dozen villages - but in the whole, that's not very much considering this is their big offensive. But the fact is that the front line is by and large static and moves very, very little, all things considered.
We need a tag stronger than NSFW for gore so we can have it automatically filtered out I can see the most niche and disturbing kink porn and not be scarred by it. The same isn't true for gore.
We need a tag stronger than NSFW for gore so we can have it automatically filtered out
I can see the most niche and disturbing kink porn and not be scarred by it. The same isn't true for gore.
It's my understanding NSFW (porn) isn't allowed on this site at all so I would be wary of anything with the NSFW tag. For what it's worth I don't think NSFL (gore) is supposed to be posted on this...
It's my understanding NSFW (porn) isn't allowed on this site at all so I would be wary of anything with the NSFW tag. For what it's worth I don't think NSFL (gore) is supposed to be posted on this site either.
I always hate this kind of take because it tries to sound like there's the simple answer of not fighting, and that both sides must have a choice. The only way this war can end is if Ukraine...
I always hate this kind of take because it tries to sound like there's the simple answer of not fighting, and that both sides must have a choice.
The only way this war can end is if Ukraine retakes it's 2014 borders, and the only way that can happen is if they do it by force. There is no option where everyone just stops fighting and goes home, not as long as Putin is in power. We've tried appeasement before and it doesn't work, in 1938 or in 2014. Yes, this war is bad, but the people of Ukraine almost universally agree (over 80%, exactly what number depends on the poll and the conditions of the peace deal) that surrender is worse.
Advocating for peace at any price doesn't actually bring peace, it just delays the war and makes everything worse. This whole thing could have been prevented in 2014 if anyone had taken the threat seriously then. Refusing to take the threat seriously now and advocating for Ukraine to surrender any of its territory just further kicks the can down the road. Winning the war will be more painful now but is the only road to lasting peace.
Off-topic / Meta: I think this should go in this week's Ukraine megathread instead. Gopro video of military engagements is unfortunately pretty common nowadays, and there doesn't seems to be anything out of the ordinary with it (except that this is war and war is ugly).
As per instruction:
Agreed, this should be moved. This is not news.
WARNING: Don't watch the video if you don't want to see people die. It is clearly shown that at least 4 people die to bullets, and it can be assumed the thrown grenades killed a few more.
Could anyone provide some insight as to why we aren't seeing Russian soldiers surrender in this situation? Man after man kept walking into Ukrainian bullets in those trenches, while at the same time the Ukrainian soldiers are begging the Russians to surrender and live.
I wish those in the trenches taking bullets were the rich Russian oligarchs that backed this war, instead of convicts and farmers from poor regions of Russia. My heart goes out to those impoverished, unequipped Russian soldiers fighting a war that isn't theirs to fight. I am glad the Ukrainians are making headway, but it has been at a terrible cost and loss of life.
For the first few Russians being shot, I don't think they knew what was going on until it was too late. There's no way they intentionally just wandered around unarmed towards enemy commandos, and then by the time they realize they're being shot at and can think to choose between surrender/fight/run, they're already dead.
For the rest, probably a mix of being scared of getting shot while trying to surrender, wanting to avenge any friends they may have watched die, and just panicking and reverting to whatever training they had. All you need is one disciplined soldier to start fighting back and then that becomes the default response.
Additionally voluntary surrender is a crime, and so is running away, so if the Russians thought that they would reclaim that trench then anyone who was caught surrendering would probably be in for a bad day.
Why does anyone fight/kill/die in a combat?
I'm not a military expert or anything (and I'm not into watching these videos so I probably won't) but heres a few things starting with the most important thing first:
Those soldiers aren't viewing this conflict through the same lens as you.
Surrender isn't a guarantee of survival. So many things can go wrong in that situation.
Russians have been told that they will be tortured or killed if they surrender (this needs a source, I'll see if I can find one)
If you haven't already made the decision to surrender BEFORE someone tries to kill you... you're not going to do it at the drop of a hat.
In a lot of situations if you don't fight then you die or get your buddies killed... and surrender wasn't an option anyways.
Militaries do whatever they can to condition soldiers to fight and to react to being shot at by... shooting back.
This probably isn't their first firefight and this might not be the first time they've been told to surrender.
Combat Fatigue
One thing I learned over the past year is surrendering is much more situational than "just surrender when you're loosing".
I learned (though this is through others on the internet) that an enemy does not have to take a prisoner if the situation does not allow them to do so or would be considered too dangerous. My understanding is it would be near impossible to take a prisoner in a close quarters combat situations unless all other threats have been clearly neutralized and you're in a position to safely receive the hostages. In a trench at the front lines, that's nearly impossible with shelling, drones, tanks, backups, etc, etc, etc.
I do not speak Russian or Ukrainian but my language is Slavic so some things I can understand and the soldiers are saying: "if you come out with your hands up you'll come out of it alive". I would imagine it would be a war crime to not to keep that promise. So I'm guessing they had intention of taking prisoners.
The video is so intense, it's all over the internet. Twitter posts are saying that the bearded man who dies last is a pro Russian blogger who called for murdering Ukranians, posting his pictures that do look similar.
Unfortunately I don't think it was him (I am thinking about WarGonzo and you?). I think he would be equipped better like on other videos.
I can't say where these men are from but many Russian 'soldiers' are just convicts plucked out of prison and given a chance (or at least the promise of) freedom if they serve in Ukraine. I believe 'Wagner' group 'soldiers' are mostly composed of these men.
Clearly whoever they are they're not entirely prepared for what is going on. The first three appear to be unarmed (while there's very obviously a fight happening, grenades exploding, small arms fire constantly) and the last while armed does appear very young and look at his clothes... looks like casual trousers and a pair of running shoes.
I'm not convinced these are professional soldiers.
There was a post with this video trending on reddits homepage, saw people joking about it and making csgo references, crazy how desensitized people are nowadays. Regardless on your view, and whether you support russia or ukraine, these are people dying.
To think that many years of your life has gone to absolutely nothing within seconds, and i know people who aspire to work in the army as their profession in later life. Wtf? There is nothing heroic or patriotic about wasting your soul for any country, to put it harshly, your single life means nothing to these countries, and thinking otherwise is just ignorance. Even if it were otherwise, and you were remembered, whats the point when you're not alive to see it?
From a very narrow individual point of view, you're right - there is no point in giving up your life for an abstract idea like patriotism if you're not going to be alive to benefit from it afterwards.
But people are more than just individuals with no consideration for anything outside their own life. A country is not an external entity that is irrelevant to your life, a country is made of your children, your family, your neighbors, your community and culture. Protecting the people you care about and your way of life is a very powerful motivator to fight. Especially in the case of Ukraine, watching towns being reduced to rubble and missiles landing in your city makes patriotism a lot less of an abstract concept.
I feel like often times peope who don't understand this live in countries that have not had to face war, or the threat of war.
My grandfather fought in the second world war, my country was invaded. Lot's of people killed, captured, and dissapeared. People lost their family lands, homes, livelyhoods and lives.
And in cases like Russia, everyone moving away from Ukraine to other European countries wouldn't solve a thing. Russia would then later on invade the next neighbouring country, and so on.
When I was 20 I also thought like the parent comment's author, so I think I understand where they are coming from. I was young and nobody depended on me, wars were something out of the history books that could never happen again, the cold war had ended and we were literally living in the End Of History. I definitely would not have fought for anything at that point.
But the world has changed a lot since then, and I've changed with it. It turned out Fukuyama was wrong, the wheel of history kept turning and and the Western values were far from universally accepted. I'm still saddened that Russia did not follow up on renouncing their past and integrating with the West - there was a brief window of opportunity for that in the 90s, but it passed quickly. Defending our societies and values today is just as challenging as ever, and the Ukrainians are doing it for all of us right now.
Yep, as a finn it is very harrowing to watch combat footage coming out of Ukraine, the terrain at times is a very similar to areas where I received my military training. The weapons they have and ask for are weapons we have in stock (and have donated to them). The enemy - the same.
The training I’ve received is for this exact fight, with these weapons, against the same enemy. It is very sobering.
Yeah.
It's shocking, it's trench warfare like in a WW2 movie (and this isn't the only video of it, plenty more have been circulating especially this year) but real. It seems to excite a lot of people though.
This video appears to be poorly trained, ill-equipped men being slaughtered in a war that has the capacity to grind on like this for years. It's not exciting, it's really sad.
You can't just feel nonstop sad for hours and hours, days and days, etc, on end. That isn't how being human works, eventually you'll stop being sad and get used to the new reality.
If you're someone who rarely follows the war and only occasionally runs into videos like this, it makes sense to be sad when you see it.
But videos as graphic as this one get produced fairly regularly, and have been since last February. So anyone who does follow the war is going to be very desensitized to them by now.
And it's not like Ukraine itself has any problem with this attitude, the official Ukraine MoD puts out a pretty good stream of content that ranges from "badass action movie trailer, but it's a real war" to shitposts, in addition to more normal stuff. They're certainly aware that the situation is sad, they're in the country that's getting shelled every night, but that doesn't mean that everything they think/do related to the war also has to be sad.
Tl;dr, things can be both exciting and also sad, it isn't necessarily disrespectful to not be sad 24/7 when discussing the war.
This is the translated text from the telegram post:
I think it's true this is not a front line trench. It's very well dug and too orderly for something that would be targeted by artillery. Which would explain the surprise and confusion of the first few Russian soldiers.
War is Hell, especially for those russians.
I hope this vid goes viral amongst russian troops.
In all of this I don’t understand Putins end goal. It’s like he enjoys killing off his people. They are even properly fitted for war. Reports of no food and not getting paid. I would immediately surrender.
The problem is trying to surrender gets you shot for treason.
And while the Russians are under equipped they're still holding their ground across the majority of the front and even continuing to advance in places. This war is going to drag on for a while, because the Russian military isn't nearly as bad as some people make it out to be
Does surrender come with any sort of protection against being returned to your country?
I know rules mean just about nothing in war of course, it's also hard to predict how the future looks and if any Russian soldier fighting in this war could even be kept safe given all that has happened.
I don't think there's any rules about that, if you take a POW and then decide you want to return him in a prisoner exchange, the POW isn't really in a position to do anything about this if he doesn't want to go back.
However, you frequently see the Ukrainians saying they will honor the request of any Russian POWs who want to remain in Ukraine, since this obviously makes it much more likely that Russians will be willing to surrender. So even if it isn't written into the Geneva conventions anywhere, countries will usually respect these kinds of requests just out of their own self-interest.
Putin's end goal is to remain in power.
He fucked up by invading in the first place, by having bad intel/bad sense of judgement and thinking they could just grab the country similarly to how they grabbed Crimea in 2014. Because yeah, why not? Why couldn't they? Sure there were sanctions in 2014, but it was well worth it for them to annex and the message was sent that the west (and certainly the rest of the world) didn't care enough to actually make consequences for him and Russia.
Now, it's a case of losing his life/power if he pulls out of the conflict. I don't think there is and actual end goal, as much as there is just "I need to remain in power for as long as possible" as motivation.
And despite what you hear, please remember the news are heavily pro-Ukraine biased. Especially on Reddit. Russia messed up and definitely underperformed, but their lines are more or less being held. It has been announced just now that Ukraine recaptured a dozen villages - but in the whole, that's not very much considering this is their big offensive. But the fact is that the front line is by and large static and moves very, very little, all things considered.
We need a tag stronger than NSFW for gore so we can have it automatically filtered out
I can see the most niche and disturbing kink porn and not be scarred by it. The same isn't true for gore.
It's my understanding NSFW (porn) isn't allowed on this site at all so I would be wary of anything with the NSFW tag. For what it's worth I don't think NSFL (gore) is supposed to be posted on this site either.
That's so sad. I just want the war to end so the killing can stop and everyone can go back to their families.
I always hate this kind of take because it tries to sound like there's the simple answer of not fighting, and that both sides must have a choice.
The only way this war can end is if Ukraine retakes it's 2014 borders, and the only way that can happen is if they do it by force. There is no option where everyone just stops fighting and goes home, not as long as Putin is in power. We've tried appeasement before and it doesn't work, in 1938 or in 2014. Yes, this war is bad, but the people of Ukraine almost universally agree (over 80%, exactly what number depends on the poll and the conditions of the peace deal) that surrender is worse.
Advocating for peace at any price doesn't actually bring peace, it just delays the war and makes everything worse. This whole thing could have been prevented in 2014 if anyone had taken the threat seriously then. Refusing to take the threat seriously now and advocating for Ukraine to surrender any of its territory just further kicks the can down the road. Winning the war will be more painful now but is the only road to lasting peace.