So How Does the War End?

Dmitri Alperovich lays out what he thinks are the four possible outcomes of the war in Ukraine, in order of likelihood:

1. Long term occupation and insurgency with destruction of Ukrainian cities
2. Putin declares victory and pulls out
3.   Zelensky compromises on NATO and Crimea and Donetsk
4. Putin overthrown

He adds that these outcomes are not mutually exclusive.  My own guess is that it ends somewhere between 1 and 2, call it 1.5, Putin declares victory and digs in.

I don’t see the Russians conquering all of Ukraine over even large portions of it.  Their advances are largely stalled out.  Yes, granted, three weeks is a very short war, and eventually the mud will dry out so they can move.  So maybe I am being optimistic here, but it seems unlikely that they will capture much more territory.  And even if they did, I have heard the estimate that it will take 500,000 troops or more to occupy all of Ukraine.  That is more than enough to tie down the Russian forces and keep the Russian Army from doing anything else.  At some point even Putin has to recognize that the costs of “winning” such a war exceed the costs of – well, not winning.

Furthermore, the war appears to be headed toward stalemate, with Russian troops unable to advance and Ukrainians unable to remove them. And it seems unlikely that the Russians will give up territory they have seized.  The logic of the situation seems to suggest, dig in.  

Yet so long as the Russians have rockets, they can keep destroying much of the country.  There is my real confusion.  In destroying much of Ukraine, is Putin acting out of pure spite, or is he trying to force the Ukrainians to accept his terms?  And if the senseless bombardment of civilian targets is being done out of pure spite, how much ammunition do the Russians have?  How long can it be sustained? 

So it seems to me that the only way for the war to end is for the Russians to stop trying to take any more territory, start focusing on consolidating what they have, and then “graciously” declare a unilateral cease-fire after having achieved their objectives.  Ukrainians will decide the costs of renewing the war exceed the benefits and start fortifying their borders.  Both countries dissolve into anger and recriminations over the outcome.  But at this point any end to the war seems better than none.