9/15/2023 check-in: How do you think the Ukrainian invasion ends up?

[oldtimer]

Last time I checked Ukraine was gaining territory back but at such a slow pace that it will take like 70 years to regain everything if they don't speed up.

Remember the maxim "gradually, then suddenly" though - lots of examples of it in wartime.

Not saying that you are wrong, simply that it is still too early to say.

Can you mention those examples? I am sure they will all be from two sides fully committed to war, war economics and general mobilization. The point is that in this conflict, only Ukraine has those characteristics. The Russian economy is still mostly civilian and they have had only partial mobilization in over a year of war.

Like with America in the War on Terror, Russia not going into war economy footing or enacting mass mobilization is a deliberate policy choice. Anything which affects the daily lives of Russians, and for something that unlike the Great Patriotic War is absolutely not an existential conflict, is likely to spur greater opposition.

Anyway, I think the medium-term outcome is #6, though less Iran-Iraq and more of another post-Soviet frozen conflict.

No country has ever won a war that it didn't fully commit.