[Goose]

At this point, no matter what the West does, I do not think Putin can agree to any sort of peace that doesn't give him a large part of Ukraine.  This little expedition has cost Russian brobdingnagian amounts of money, hundred's of thousands of casualties, loss of prestige, and billions of dollars in frozen assets around the world.  Politically, if he agrees to anything short of outright victory, it will have to give him a near victory with everyone assuming a few years down the road he will seize the rest of it.

Or the remaining Ukraine will "freely of its own will" join the Russian federation. Putin also has no reason to settle for less. Once "the west" has made it clear we don't intend to support continued Ukrainian resistance, it becomes a question of time. Probably not much time. Putin can manage that easily. Even if "the west" agrees to continue supporting Ukraine indefinitely at the current level, Ukraine can't "win". They are running out of troops and morale. They are also suffering grievous damage to infrastructure and thus the economy. The war might continue for awhile, maybe a year, but probably less. It depends a lot on how long Putin can keep up the pressure on all fronts. Eventually he will obtain a breakthrough that Ukraine can't plug and that even his ponderously slow army can exploit.

The West might have stopped the whole thing if they had gone all in for the Ukraine at the beginning. Dribbles and drabs, bids and pieces at a time simply was the wrong approach.

For sure the bits and pieces approach was always doomed to fail. If "the west" had gone "all in" early on, Ukraine had a chance to win simply because Russia was way overstretched and incompetent. Russia wasn't really ready for a real war. Neither was Ukraine. If the west could have got Ukraine ready to fight by fall of 2022 the offensives Ukraine did mount could have been decisive. They were somewhat "successful" as it was. The Kherson one had promise. Ukraine couldn't/didn't pull it off. More "help" from the west might have changed that. It would still have been a tall order, but it was a "once in a lifetime" chance. Given time, Russia could fortify, regroup, fix some of their organizational problems, and get "serious". That is what happened. As Napoleon said, "Ask anything of me but time".

Even if the west had gone "all in", that could have been the outcome. If the west was actually serious, it would have in parallel prepared Ukraine to win the war in 2023 or 2024. This would mean training pilots, having Ukraine update their conscription and training efforts, and giving Ukraine enough long-range firepower to disrupt the fortification of the southern part of occupied Ukraine. It couldn't be "stopped", but it could be made too expensive. Laying all those mines was done in the open.  The fortifications were installed under "civilian" conditions. That could  have been curtailed at least and Russia forced to fortify further back from the front lines as well as paying a high price to do it. Ukraine would have a path to victory.

If Ukraine had an air force and adequate mine breaching equipment in 2023 their counteroffensive could have succeeded, especially if the Russian fortifications were less well protected due to previous Ukrainian actions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Ukrai...roffensive is a good reference. The important sentence is

Ukrainian forces did not reach the city of Tokmak, described as a "minimum goal" by Ukrainian general Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, and the probable initial objective of reaching the Sea of Azov to split the Russian forces in southern Ukraine remained unfulfilled.[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Ukrainian_counteroffensive#cite_note-out_of_schedule-59][/url]

At that point Ukraine lost the initiative, and due to the failure of the west to resource them to develop an adequate military, they really had no way ahead. Even if the west had finally decided to do this in 2023, it might well have been too late. At this point, it is unclear how Ukraine can win without some direct involvement of NATO assets, such as a "flying tiger" type operation (at a minimum). That isn't politically possible in Europe or the US. So here we are. Ukraine can only hope the Tsar dies. Worked for Frederic the Great :-(.

[Goose]

At this point, no matter what the West does, I do not think Putin can agree to any sort of peace that doesn't give him a large part of Ukraine.  This little expedition has cost Russian brobdingnagian amounts of money, hundred's of thousands of casualties, loss of prestige, and billions of dollars in frozen assets around the world.  Politically, if he agrees to anything short of outright victory, it will have to give him a near victory with everyone assuming a few years down the road he will seize the rest of it.

Or the remaining Ukraine will "freely of its own will" join the Russian federation. Putin also has no reason to settle for less. Once "the west" has made it clear we don't intend to support continued Ukrainian resistance, it becomes a question of time. Probably not much time. Putin can manage that easily. Even if "the west" agrees to continue supporting Ukraine indefinitely at the current level, Ukraine can't "win". They are running out of troops and morale. They are also suffering grievous damage to infrastructure and thus the economy. The war might continue for awhile, maybe a year, but probably less. It depends a lot on how long Putin can keep up the pressure on all fronts. Eventually he will obtain a breakthrough that Ukraine can't plug and that even his ponderously slow army can exploit.

The West might have stopped the whole thing if they had gone all in for the Ukraine at the beginning. Dribbles and drabs, bids and pieces at a time simply was the wrong approach.

For sure the bits and pieces approach was always doomed to fail. If "the west" had gone "all in" early on, Ukraine had a chance to win simply because Russia was way overstretched and incompetent. Russia wasn't really ready for a real war. Neither was Ukraine. If the west could have got Ukraine ready to fight by fall of 2022 the offensives Ukraine did mount could have been decisive. They were somewhat "successful" as it was. The Kherson one had promise. Ukraine couldn't/didn't pull it off. More "help" from the west might have changed that. It would still have been a tall order, but it was a "once in a lifetime" chance. Given time, Russia could fortify, regroup, fix some of their organizational problems, and get "serious". That is what happened. As Napoleon said, "Ask anything of me but time".

Even if the west had gone "all in", that could have been the outcome. If the west was actually serious, it would have in parallel prepared Ukraine to win the war in 2023 or 2024. This would mean training pilots, having Ukraine update their conscription and training efforts, and giving Ukraine enough long-range firepower to disrupt the fortification of the southern part of occupied Ukraine. It couldn't be "stopped", but it could be made too expensive. Laying all those mines was done in the open.  The fortifications were installed under "civilian" conditions. That could  have been curtailed at least and Russia forced to fortify further back from the front lines as well as paying a high price to do it. Ukraine would have a path to victory.

If Ukraine had an air force and adequate mine breaching equipment in 2023 their counteroffensive could have succeeded, especially if the Russian fortifications were less well protected due to previous Ukrainian actions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Ukrai...roffensive is a good reference. The important sentence is

Ukrainian forces did not reach the city of Tokmak, described as a "minimum goal" by Ukrainian general Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, and the probable initial objective of reaching the Sea of Azov to split the Russian forces in southern Ukraine remained unfulfilled.[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Ukrainian_counteroffensive#cite_note-out_of_schedule-59][/url]

At that point Ukraine lost the initiative, and due to the failure of the west to resource them to develop an adequate military, they really had no way ahead. Even if the west had finally decided to do this in 2023, it might well have been too late. At this point, it is unclear how Ukraine can win without some direct involvement of NATO assets, such as a "flying tiger" type operation (at a minimum). That isn't politically possible in Europe or the US. So here we are. Ukraine can only hope the Tsar dies. Worked for Frederic the Great :-(.