Wishful thinking. And at this point it’s a best case scenario for Russia. But Russia already lost when they failed to take Kiev.
Now they are hoping to get a little something for all the Russian lives, money, and reputation they lost. Russia proved their army is garbage. And their Air Force even worse. And their missiles suck.
You living a fantasy world.
Russia is going to be control the entire Black Sea coastline, much of the prime farmland and industry in the areas of Ukraine they have under their control.
The ruble is best performing currency of the year and at four-year high compared to the dollar. Russia has increased the amount of oil revenue during this war and is running a surplus to its Treasury.
Everything is coming up roses for the Russians. That's not surprising given who is running this country.
During my long since past days on active duty, the Soviets had a saying in response to the much discussed superiority of NATO arms:
“Quantity has a quality all its own.”
When you have run out of everything and the enemy hasn’t, the fact that their bullet launchers are now Moisin bolt action rifles taken out of mothballs isn’t going to make their victory any less significant.
Kissinger’s counsel at the WEF in Davos was perhaps a little too much “Real Politik” for the West to stomach.
Ukraine has to fight to retain as much of its territory as possible in the face of Russian aggression. As long as Russia is effectively a dictatorship under Putin (or someone cut from the same cloth once he’s gone), its government is going to mobilize, train, equip, deploy , and expend forces in a war of attrition until it achieves enough to claim vindication - especially in the face of combat losses, continuing sanctions, the expansion of NATO in previously neutral Scandinavia, etc.
So it comes back full circle: there will be war until someone runs out of the means to fight (Ukraine) or the will to fight (Russia).
With NATO and other western countries backing Ukraine, let’s hope it doesn’t follow another old Cold War era saying:
“NATO (Europe) will fight the Warsaw Pact (Soviets) to the very last American.” except it will be:
“NATO will fight the Russians in Ukraine until the very last Ukrainian.”
Possibly there is some narrow set of conditions for a settlement that allows peace to be reestablished without them also being so bitter that they plant the seeds of a new war.