Obviously you have not been involved in high level negations where compromises are required on both sides in order to reach an agreement?
The strategy is that both sides always ask for more than they will eventually settle for with "red lines" on both sides; the rest being negotiable.
The tragic thing about this war is that both sides have lost so much that it will make a negotiated settlement all the more difficult because both sides will eventually have justify to their respective citizens that their respective catastrophic loss of lives was worth the outcome..
IMO the proper time to have negotiated was prior to Feb 2022 and IMO had both sides foreseen the current stalemate/war of attrition, they would have been more inclined to compromise .
