The war in Ukraine may end in one of two ways.

The first possibility is a ceasefire while Russian president Vladimir Putin is still in power.  That would be followed by an agreement to make currently held or annexed Ukrainian territory in the east part of Russia as is. 

If so, it would normalize pretty much what is going on now.  The current state of affairs in Ukraine is almost a stalemate, with troop clashes along the Ukraine-Russia frontier and Russia making some minor advances into the eastern Ukraine Donbas region with a scorched earth policy of bombing each village or small town into rubble and occupying it with troops and military hardware.

Ukraine may not last very long economically and militarily without substantial Western economic support, so Ukraine may soon be in a crisis state, unable to continue to do much fighting, and thus may make such an agreement with Russia.

You may be wondering why this is essentially the status quo — a World War I style of trench warfare along the front lines of eastern and southeastern Ukraine with no major aggressive breakthroughs.  One reason is that both sides are running out of troop strength and military hardware to do an aggressive attack.  The ratio of such an attack is usually more than three times the troop strength for the aggressive side, with high casualty rates dealt by the defenders from their foxholes or defensive positions.  Also, the terrain is mostly flat open fields, and any major aggressive action means many bloody troop losses which neither side can now afford.

Poorly trained and poorly commanded troops make morale lousy on the Russian side, but after more than three months of fighting, the Ukrainians are also quite tired and in no mood to fight aggressively and endure a high casualty rate.  Troop replacements on both sides are a big problem because the replacements for both sides are poorly trained and often ineffectual fighters.

The Russian side has still not run out of artillery shells, but the arms flowing in from the west for Ukrainian forces need specially trained soldiers to operate them, which is inadequate for aggressive assault movements.  There is currently an inadequate amount of military hardware and not a flood of small arms entering Ukraine from the west.

So the reason for the present stalemate is that neither side has enough well-trained troops to spare in aggressive actions, and neither side was initially prepared for a war that has lasted as long as it has.  What this means is ongoing suffering for the Russian and Ukrainian peoples and troops as long as the war lasts.

An agreement to give Russia Ukrainian territory would be only a temporary halt in the war since both nations would then start preparing for the next Ukraine-Russia war starting at some undefined future date.

The other way the war may end is with a dubious Ukraine victory at some indeterminate point in the future if Ukraine can last that long economically and spiritually with a desire to win and sacrifice enough lives on the part of the soldiers.  Western military aid may also wane with time as the will to fight will subside on the Ukrainian side and the West may become impatient with no decisive military action by the Ukrainians.

A biased man who has been wrong historically about Russian military prowess, Atul Mishra of Tfiglobal, an Indian YouTube website, claims that Russia will win in one of three ways — with Ukraine's surrender on Russia's terms, with Russia annexing eastern and southern Ukraine, or with the war continuing indefinitely, but I frankly don't see these scenarios happening unless Russia reduces Ukrainian cities to rubble with nuclear weapons, which is an unlikely possibility.  What will Russia do with a nuclear wasteland?  I also don't see a scorched earth policy succeeding, which is pounding each city and village with thousands of artillery shells and some rockets, which is the modus operandi currently being used by the Russians.  There probably just aren't that many artillery shells and rockets in the Russian stockpile to date, and the Russian troops are just too incompetent.

So there is his remote third possibility of a never-ending war with ceasefires along the way as long as Putin is still alive and unwilling to be humiliated with total defeat.  If there is a coup d'état against Putin, and he is replaced, or if he dies for some other reason, then I foresee other possibilities for an end to the war.

It is possible that both sides are so maxed out militarily that some kind of negotiations will start between Ukraine and Russia in the near future.  If the war drags on, Ukraine will become a failed economic basket case since Ukraine's corrupt oligarchs are probably calling most of the shots and Ukrainian troop morale can't last forever, nor will the patience and support of the West last forever.  Both warring sides will probably be forced to negotiate at some point in the near future.  The results of the negotiations can't really be predicted, given the current largely stalemate situation.

Image: Pixabay, Pixabay License.