Putins Zaporizhzhia card

Here's an example of how concern about Putin's threats against the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant get spun into a demand to give Putin a victorious conquest.

Putin has frequently used his capture of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine for psychplogical warfare. There is a real danger that it will lose external power and melt down. Putin has chosen to magnify the danger by creating avoidable risk — by brinksmanship.

In response to this brinksmanship, the article calls on the US to impose a cease fire fast. The only way to get Putin to agree to that is to make Ukraine cede to him all the territory that the Putin forces now hold. (Maybe even that isn't enough to satisfy him.)

Is this what the author aims for? He does not admit it outright, but I can't believe that he is not aware of it. It has been pointed out many times. According to the author, the US should tell Ukraine, "Surrender fast, so you can have peace!"

Putin says he demands the whole territory of the provinces of Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk, in exchange for peace. If the US were to take the desperate "Surrender, Ukraine" position that the article recommends, Putin would take advantage of that.

If we want to avoid a nuclear disaster in the Zaporizhzhia plant, it is easy to see how a local agreement could do this. If both sides are willing, they can easily do it. Since Putin has refused, it can only mean he does not want the plant to be made properly safe. But he doesn't want a nuclear disaster either. He wants a threat to make to set fools scurrying to demand giving him whatever he wants.