The thread on thoughts over time as to how and when the Ukraine war will end

[Red Velvet]

For Russia to voluntarily stop, they probably need a partial victory to save face at home. Crimea they already had before the war, so I would imagine their minimal acceptable goals is keeping the area they already conquered in the Donbass region and the land connection to Crimea. Otherwise they would just keep on regardless of casualties as there’s no way to spin a defeat for less.

So I guess:

- War becomes unsustainable for both sides (economic or militarily) and they sign this peace deal with the help of third party actors where Ukraine gives up the area the Russian already occupy while the rest immediately enters NATO/EU and Russia begrudgingly accept.

- War becomes unsustainable for Ukraine and West isn’t willing to enter the war directly, which will push Ukrainians to find a more flexible deal instead of the current one (where it’s all or nothing), like the one I described in previous scenario. Russia can keep going on though, so they push it until they get all Ukraine and probably Moldova as well.

- War becomes unsustainable for Ukraine and West is willing to enter the war by sending people to fight, prolonging the war beyond its natural end and cementing this as the new WWIII. Global divides between Western world and non-Western grow as places like China and others sees the West getting involved even in a non-NATO country as a direct attack on Russia instead of defense since they aren’t being attacked. Nationalism grows everywhere and the conflict becomes even more undefined, but I suppose the West wins if no one directly joins the conflict to fight alongside Russia. However, if China invades Taiwan, that makes things way more complicated as the US (the main finance/military support of Ukraine) would divide attentions and complicate stuff much more since Taiwan is more important to US economy than Ukraine.

- War becomes unsustainable for Russia without Western direct entrance (Honestly, least likely scenario IMO because of the numbers). Ukraine reclaims Occupied Areas + Crimea and joins NATO, humiliating Russia and stimulating a domestic backlash on Putin. But instead of becoming more liberal, Russia gets a much more nationalist guy as resentment from defeat is strong, alongside economic consequences being for nothing. Russia stays isolated by the West but to a lesser extent and plans to eventually get their revenge after getting back on their feet.

[Red Velvet]

I take it your 4 possible endings are in order of likelihood. How about the when bit? If long enough out, then one of yours might come close to matching the endless war scenario that I listed as one of the two most likely "endings," at the moment.

In years. Whatever the final outcome is, I don’t think this ends in this year or in the next one. Possibly between 2025-2030 but maybe more likely between 2030-2040.