[izend]

What is the end game for the war?

I personally don’t believe the millions of Ukrainians who have left are going to return.

Secondly how does the Ukraine military recruit new young troops when the prospects of victory are so slim and Ukraine is slowly being ground down and losing territory.

[verdverm]

Two points of consideration for the end game

1. Do the Ukrainian get to be a self determining people? Are the free to join any alliance or economic group that will have them? Are they the ones who get to decide how much land they will trade for this?

2. What does the outcome tell other would be invaders? Does the Western alliance defend their ideals or cave to using force to take what you want?

One cannot evaluate the end game of Ukraine independent of the other global hot points in the Middle East and Asia. The autocrats have formed an alliance and seek to undermine democracy wherever and whenever they can.

[mads_ravn]

I think number 1 is the essential point for anyone supporting democracy. Ukrainians, not Russians, decided who they elect as their leaders (1) and which organizations they want to join. It is depressing to hear people in democracies arguing otherwise.

As for point two: Yes it is also massively in the interest of democracies, that Ukraine wins and Europe is strengthened.

I think Stoltenberg summed up it up nicely in (2)

>So supporting Ukraine is not only the morally right thing to do. It is also in our own security interest.

(1) Queue Russian non-sense about Maidan being a western coup.

(2) https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_212041.htm

[alephnerd]

At this point, it looks like outside countries are pushing for Ukraine and Russia to at best return to pre-2022 borders, or at worst current borders with Ukraine as part of NATO.

That said, either option is political suicide in both Ukraine and Russia.

> Secondly how does the Ukraine military recruit new young troops when the prospects of victory are so slim and Ukraine is slowly being ground down and losing territory

Big picture, borders have remained consistent and there aren't going to be significant changes one way or the other.

It's become a stalemate.

Russia or Ukraine can mobilize and mobilize, but both sides are too dug in to have a significant impact one way or the other.

This is how an A2AD war will be fought.

[falcor84]

> A2AD war

I wasn't familiar with this acronym, so just putting this here for others like me - A2/AD(Anti-access/area_denial) is the strategy of preventing your opponent from entering an operational area and maneuvering within it[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-access/area_denial

[aguaviva]

No one is pushing too hard for any change to the status quo at present, unfortunately.

But you're ignoring a 3rd option: a working cease fire with no change in positions of forces on the ground -- but no recognition of Russia's sovereignty claims either. A classic frozen conflict, in other words. The latter option is getting some discussion among Ukrainians. It is a minority position, but it's perfectly possible discuss it as an option.

It also doesn't have to be a permanent arrangement: Sooner or later Putin will expire or become enfeebled, and the RF will likely enter a period of stagnation and instability. Which will open the door for a possible resolution to the question of final borders and positions of forces.

Perhaps something along the lines of what Croatia did to Serbia in 1995 (but at a much larger scale -- perhaps not retaking all of the occupied territories at once, but it may suffice to reclaim a large enough chunk to persuade whoever is running the RF by the point see that the writing is on the wall, and that the time is up on their optional colonial project):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Storm

Assuming it isn't resolved by diplomatic means somehow (possible, but unlikely).

[d0mine]

If you believe http://www.nato.int then "NATO does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia."

If you live in a real world then a country with 10-100 times less military/economic power has no chance of not being dismantled with 10s of millions dead in the aftermath, and a few individuals become even richer exploiting the remains.