When the war started, I predicted that Russia would win militarily. That was an easy, obvious prediction based on the fact that Russia is larger and has more industry and that China would not allow sanctions to take out Russia, knowing it would be next, but would keep the Russian economy running.
This prediction is a little more risky because the war could end due to a peace deal. There’s no question that Ukraine is losing, and that the battlefield is getting worse and worse for them.
Russian forced are back within 300 kilometers of Kiev. While advances are slow, they are speeding up. The Ukrainians are running out of manpower, considering mobilizing women for infantry, and have huge problems with desertion and recruitment. Russia has ramped up weapon production far more than the West.
So I’m going to keep this one simple: the war will end next year with the Ukrainian army collapsing. Ukraine will be forced into an unconditional surrender and Russia will take what it wants.
There’s lots of ways this could go wrong: the Euros could rush in “peacekeeping forces.” Putin could agree to peace before then. The “Ukrainians” could provoke Russia into using tac nukes with their strikes of strategic nuclear infrastructure. Putin might die, and if he does he’ll be replaced by someone far more aggressive. So this isn’t a “sure thing” prediction, just a best uess.
But basically, that guess is the Ukrainian army collapses next year and we see huge “big arrow” movement.
Putin is likely to remember the lessons of Syria’ frozen conflict and of Russia and Ukraine’s fake peace of 2014/2015. No frozen conflicts, no fanatical enemies still able to fight. Russia has paid dearly to crush Ukraine and it would be foolish to throw away what is being won on the battlefield at a fake peace conference with Europeans and Americans who have no intention of keeping any deal.
So, most likely, he will win the war and impose the peace. If he’s really smart, he’ll take Odessa and turn Ukraine into a landlocked state, even if that means some extra casualties and time.
Russia was always going to win the war. The questions are simply when, by how much and what Ukraine is left with afterwards.
***
If you’ve read this far, and you read a lot of my articles, you might wish to donate or subscribe. I’ve written over 3,500 posts, and the site, and Ian, take money to run.
Like & Subscribe
I wouldn’t even attempt a prediction so I won’t, but I certainly don’t see a win here for Russia. If Putin managed to attain an unconditional surrender from Ukraine, imposing the peace would be an insurmountable challenge because most assuredly like Russia’s adventure in Afghanistan and then America’s and also America’s adventure in Iraq, there will be a formidable counter-insurgency that will suck Russia dry and Russia can ill afford that considering its proclaimed “enemy” in the east.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/world/europe/china-russia-spies-documents-putin-war.html
I know, I know, Tulsi Gabbard, while taking a break from producing Russian nuclear scare porn propaganda films, will claim this leaked document is fake and this is fake news. But is it? Really?
I have always contended China will ultimately have to take Russia’s resources come crunch time and we are approaching crunch time in that regard unless, of course, AI is what the hype claims and the current geopolitical landscape is altered entirely and irrevocably.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSqOOzJr4lg
Feral Finster
The plan ever always only was for NATO to intervene, once Ukrainian troops had soaked up enough Russian munitions, and then for the United States to ride to the rescue, rather than leave its european buttbois hanging out to dry.
This plan is proceeding apace. I vounteer Tallifer for the front lines.
Oakchair
Taking all of the Dnieper river and surrounding areas and the coast up past Transnistria has solid economic, strategic and military reasoning. Likewise, annexing all of Ukraine has similar though weaker reasoning. There aren’t many fighting age men left for a guerilla insurgency (25% of the population in the areas still controlled by Ukraine has either died or fled the country). The primary reason I could see for leaving a failed State of Ukraine is a hope that doing so would stop the Euro’s from taking another step into war lunacy.
Will the war whore parties lose support as the masses realize the destroyed industry and hundreds of billions of dollars was for nothing? Ruling governments have already fallen apart in France, UK, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Romania, and Slovakia. Who is next?
Paul Damascene
Agree with this overall, but, this being a Russia v. NATO war, the real questions revolve around what happens as and after UKR collapses–
* UKR blows its own nuclear power plants?
* dirty bombs and other maximal provocations of the NATO-orchestrated dirty war?
* UKR Kamikaze attack on Transnistria, to bring NATO into Moldova as a reassurance force?
* France/UK sprint for Odessa?
* To restore deterrent, Russia strikes UK (prime candidate), as a co-belligerent–for instance, RF strikes, 5 UK bases outside NATO territory–once NATO’s 800k politically expendable army is wiped out.
Jan Wiklund
A strange chart.
Does the figures tell “per day” or “per month” or some other time unit?
Ian Welsh
There is no bodies per day. Each exchange is one exchange of bodies.
Like & Subscribe
I found this article after the fact. It validates my thoughts about what a “win” would look like.
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/russia-ukraine-war/
It’s clear to me at this juncture there will be no peace deal. Putin will have to take Kyiv and that will mean another half a million to a million casualties although it’s also clear all those casualties don’t sway Russia like they would in the West. The West is fine with Ukrainian casualties on behalf of its endeavor but not Western casualties.
I agree with this article that the so-called fears that Putin will march on Europe are an unfounded joke. Russia does not and will not have the capacity. The implications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are being felt in other spheres of Russian influence. Look at Armenia and Azerbaijan.
You can never go back. It’s a maxim as far as I’m concerned. There is no reclaiming those glory days. Too much has changed and too much is going to change.
Oakchair
The population decline in non-Russian Ukraine is at 25%, with larger declines among fighting age males. Over the next year this decline will only grow.
That’s the reason Ukraine is drafting old men, disabled men, and women. They’re running out of people to fight. An insurgency foremost needs people to fight.
Unlike in previous successful insurgencies the occupied and the occupied would be similar in religious make up, ethnicity, culture, history, and language.
Afghanistan and Iraq were economically undeveloped and violent countries before their insurgencies. Ukraine had a developed economy with electricity, industry, widespread media, health care and relatively less violence.
Would there actually be a guerilla insurgency if Russia decided to annex all of Ukraine? I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t. Someone was comparing the Spanish civil war to the current war. Franco could have easily won the war quickly but instead let his opponents fight and die. When Franco finally won there was no one left to resist his rule.
j
I have always found the idea that there will be an insurgency in occupied/annexed (parts of) Ukraine a bit… armchairy. I guess it works as hopium/copium.
There’s basically two issues with the insurgency argument. First, the idea that people who are unwilling to die on the frontline, will be willing to do so in the insurgency. There will be some, for sure, but…
Second, we should remember that Russia managed to pacify Chechnya. About the toughest nut to crack, if there ever was one. All it took was years of indiscriminate violence.
The US lost their wars because they were unwilling to lose a lot of soldiers, were unwilling to do the hard and the dirty, and didn’t really know why they were doing any of it. None of this will apply to Russia.
Curt Kastens
I agree that Russia can not end this war on its own. But I disagree that Russia needs to fear an insurgency. Russia can avoid an insurgency by ethnicly cleansing Ukraine of all non Russian speakers except those non Russian speakers that have proven themselves loyal to truth and justice.
None the less taking all of Ukraine let alone all of Ukraine east of the Dniper will not end the war. The war will only end when Russian Tanks enter Lisbon. And mosts importantly that will not be as hard as it seems. In the last election in Germany the largest block of voters under the age of 25 went to the Left Party. These are the people that would be the first that would need to be drafted. There are also huge numbers of AFD young people in Germany. In short Germany if Germany were to try to implement a draft it would be bringing in huge numbers of politically unreliable people in to its own military. I suspect that the same would be true in France and the UK. How many drafted soldiers will be waiting for a chance to join the Russians to be able to dish out DEATH to current puppet leadership of many EU and NATO countries rather than risk their lives for the shit heads that currently occupy important positions throughout Europe. Yes the head of the BND is speaking the truth when he says that the Russians are going to attack Europe because the European Traitors that control the levers of Government in Europe are going to make sure that his words are a self fullfilling prophecy.
Curt Kastens
Darn it. I left something important out. And that is environmental collapse could bring an end to this war before Russian tanks enter Lisbon because no nation will be able to sustain a standing army any longer.
War will essentially be superceeded by the Zombie Apocolypse in that case.
And if Russia tanks enter Llsbon the Zombie Apocolpse happens a few years after that anyways.
Like & Subscribe
An insurgency does not require gobs of manpower. It requires will and strategic and tactical intelligence and resources. The former allows the latter to be used more effectively and efficiently. The drone strikes deep into Russian territory is something you will see in an insurgency. Quite a bit of it, in fact. You don’t need a lot of manpower for that. It’s a big bang for your buck, so to speak.
It’s debatable America lost those wars. They served their ultimate purpose — to perpetuate the war economy America had become since WWII. The military budget soared then and thereafter. Defense contractors raked it in and are raking it in.
DMC
To anyone really paying attention, it was obvious Russia eas goimg to win. No amount “hopium and copium” was going to change that. Russia, was able to imcrease defemse production seven fold and the collective West was not able to imcrease theirs 7%. Not to mention the massive flight of Ukrainians, both east and west. Consequently the VSU is down to old women and 3 legged dogs. They can’t maintain the manpower of their units and such material as they can obtain is rapidly proving inferior to the Russian equipment. Besides, as others have noted, the US does not have a very good record in the last few decades of adhering to the treaties that we’ve signed. So why would Russia bother with anything less than outright victory?
Curt Kastens
I suspect that the KIA ratio is not as lop sided as it appears as the Russians will be more likely to recover thier dead as they are usually left in possesion of the terrian after the battles are over.
Another factor that would make the KIA ratio slightly more in the Russians favor is the number of bodies that are never recovered because there are no pieces left large enough to find.
Soredemos
@Like & Subscribe
How about the little fact that Russia has no desire to ‘march on Europe’. This war happened because NATO wanted to put nuclear armed missiles in Ukraine with short flight times to Moscow, which is something Russian can’t tolerate. That’s the root, fundamental cause.
Also Russia has no need to take Kiev (and never attempted to take it either).
Mark Level
Paul Damascene is correct, Alexander Mercouris pointed out that the CIA-connected David Ignatius just wrote that “a dirty war is coming” for Russia– as if the Russian Crocus Hall massacre never happened, or the U.S. ginning up of a jihadi war by the Chechens some time past. The Russians defeated the Jihadis and reconciled with Chechnya. When the Russians took the key city of Bakhmut after many months of war (key transport hub) the Chechens took a leading role in the victory.
I’m with Feral Finster, I hope that Tallifer is signed up to fight his/her own jihad. I’ll also nominate Like & Subscribe, one of the most deranged Russia-phobes I have ever seen on this site, based on recent posts. In today’s post there is the false L&S claim that Russia has suffered “half a million to a million casualties” though no respected source would claim such inflated numbers. When I had a dialogue with L&S about the Chicago Boys’ destruction of Russia and the deaths of 5 million Russians soon after 1991 (due to looted pensions, poverty, starvation and alcohol deaths, Russian life expectancy dropped 7 years within 5 years) my point was not responded to, even with denial of the actual facts. So I suspect the claim that Russians are okay with a million or more additional (sic) casualties is based entirely on projection. But I guess the US government killing 5 million Russian civilians is yawn-worthy to LS, it’s only bad when they die defending their country from an Imperial proxy with a neo-Nazi ideology.
I will try to post something substantial tomorrow; the Ukrainians never stood a chance and are a sacrificial lamb for a failed Empire. The entire Deep State including esp. Lindsey Graham are screeching that the Precious War cannot be abandoned. Lindsey may be the Senator who received $23 million in “donations” from Ukraine per one expert. In any case, as Dick Cheney did in Iraq, he is directly profiting from the death of soldiers and civilians on both sides so his implacable refusal is understandable.
Feral Finster
An insurgency requires more than manpower – if you look at successful insurgencies in recent decades (Vietnam, Yemen, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe), the one thing all of them had in common was young manpower. You need young and motivated troops to carry out an insurgency.
Ukrainian tactics of stopping a buss and dragging all military aged men off that bus and press ganging them into the army (happened to people I know and their sons) is not going to get you that motivated manpower. The recent attempt to pay young people to joint he army was a flop. So was the idea of recruiting Ukrainian refugees to go back and fight.
The median age in Yemen is something like 19. The median age in Ukraine was over 40, and that from before the war. The idea that Russia had to fight a war of attrition because insurgency was just another cope, intended to excuse Russian indecisiveness.
Anyway, if Russia was actually going to march on europe (*why* they would want to do this is always left unsaid), they’d need a lot more air to air refueling platforms, unless Russia plans to do this without close air support.
Russia has something like 12 such aircraft, as the RuAF is designed for defense. The United States alone has hundreds, as it is purposed for wars of aggression.
GrimJim
I still stand by my map.
Putin will hand Europe rump, land-locked western Ukraine as a way to shut them up about his potential “Drang nach Vesten.”
He will require that it remain demilitarized, and also that it be occupied by a third force — say, China — to ensure that it remains so, and that there are forces to quash any sort of drone-based insurgency against Novorossiya.
That will be his one and only offer. If Europe demurs, he will occupy it all, and when he’s done with ethnic cleansing, Europe will be overrun with Ukrainian refugees dwarfing anything they have dealt with so far.
bruce wilder
It is entirely my personal speculation, but I have long imagined that Russian strategic planners have been reluctant to tackle any large city while still relying on Bahkmut-tactics. It is inconceivable to me that Russia would want to visit that kind of massive destruction on cities of the historical importance of Kiev or Odessa. Not to mention not wanting to impose those kinds of reconstruction costs on themselves.
My decidedly non-expert sense is that the Russian military is close to having worked out an effective tactical package for flanking out Ukrainian fortifications and cutting off logistics routes. They appear to have adapted rather well to drone warfare, finally catching up to their Ukrainian adversaries. They show up in assault teams of 6 — formations so small that they can escape the drones or at least minimize the losses that occur — and in the steady grinding cycle, they are able to advance, capturing fortifications, treelines and thus territory with infantry assault teams of 6 flanking the Ukrainians out of their more formidable positions. It is an offensive of a daily dozen cuts, as Russian fingers advance in pairs across the long line of contact again and again in a now familiar pattern.
They have a formula it seems. The most likely strategy is to use their larger combat army to apply the tactical solution simultaneously along a front of maximum length. So, advances across the Kursk border and opposite Sumy and in the direction of Kharkiv. The big challenge for the Russians will be to find ways to cross the lower Dneiper — that would extend the line of contact way beyond what I guess the AFU could defend.
The Russians were highlighting their advance to the zaporizhzhia land border last week — Russia already occupies the bulk of the province south of the river. When Russia finds ways to advance north of the lower river, into the unoccupied portions of zaporizhzhia and Kherson, that is when I would expect the AFU to break.
Failed Scholar
I don’t really buy the Afghanistan or Iraq comparison re: insurgency, although it is often made. The demographics and social structures are so completely different they aren’t really comparable. Iraq/Afghanistan are both tribal societies with very young populations, and hence lots and lots of young men around. Insurgencies require a young population, and Ukraine (or whatever is left of it after this is all over) is OLD. Worn out oldsters aren’t the demographic that fights insurgencies.
If Putin is smart, the first thing he should do is double everyone’s pension cheques, and make sure they arrive on time every month.
mago
What’s a win? Russia will win the battle and lose the peace as Yves Smith is fond of saying.
The aftermath of this will entail constant vigilance while fending off the above mentioned insurgences and acts of terrorism. There’s a lot of hate going on and that’s trans generational even though there’s not much left of youth and reproduction in Ukraine. As an aside I’m always amazed at the hatred so many have for the Russians. Sick stuff to carry around with a lot of mental and emotional suffering attached.
Another aspect of post ‘victory’ is the administrative burden, the bureaucracy and policing and enforcement. The perfidy and resentments. And on and on and on.
Who takes over when Putin passes, and what ideologies will reign? Too many unknowns and wild cards all the way around.
One thing we can all agree upon and that is it’s an effing mess with no benign outcomes for anyone.
War? What is it good for?
Alex
This thread has comments on the potential insurgency that ignore the evidence that we’ve had for 10 years already. Both “Russia will struggle with huge insurgency” and “Russia will win by ethnic cleansing non-Russian speakers” takes are not consistent with what’s been happening in the occupied Ukraine in the last 10/3 years.
There is very little guerrilla activity, nothing comparable to Chechnya, Palestine or Iraq. Yes, some people would spy on Russian forces, but very few would actually engage in armed organised insurgency. This applies also to predominantly Ukrainian-speaking areas which have been occupied like rural Kherson and Zaporizhzhya.
There is no bright line separating Russian and Ukrainian speakers. In the Central and Eastern Ukraine everyone speaks both languages, depending on the context, regime they live under and other cosniderations. Probably one out of four have relatives in Russia.
This does NOT apply to Western Ukraine though. Ideologically it’s very different and it actually has a history of insurgency against USSR and Poland in the 1930s-1940s. But probably Russia would be wise enough not to repeat that mistake and leave them alone.
Curt Kastens
There might be a pause in the fighting. But the war will not end until either NATO or Russia or both is destroyed. Unless of course the global physical environment makes nation states implode.
bruce wilder
In my earlier comment, I confused Zaporizhzhia Oblast and Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Both administrative regions straddle the Dneiper. The former has been annexed but not completely occupied by Russia. The latter has only very recently seen the arrival of advance units of the Russian Army. Dnipropetrovsk Oblast is above the lower Dneiper and the river narrows considerably as it passes through the region. Conceivably, military possession could become strategically important to eventually occupying portions of the annexed oblasts on the right bank of the Dneiper. That was observation was behind my brain’s short circuit.
Like & Subscribe
DMC, hardly anyone if anyone predicted this war, and it has been a war versus a euphemistic “special military operation”, would still be raging in 2025 and beyond. Ukraine, with foreseeable limited aid from the West, betrayed the odds and has flummoxed and embarrassed the prognosticators and how Ukraine has done this is precisely what will fuel a pesky, effective insurgency that will further bleed Russia. Russia will be bogged down in Ukraine for years to come whether they “win” the war or not. This is the price of trying to reclaim past glory. You can never go back. America can’t go back. Russia can’t go back. China can’t go back. Turkey can’t go back. Ukraine can’t go back. And yet there seems to be no forward either considering AI and resource constraints.
Armenia is a prime example. It threatened to leave the Russian sphere of influence when Russia failed to honor its protection guarantee. It made entreaties with the West but ultimately the West was not overly interested. Yes, NATO wasn’t interested nor was the European Union so Armenia must put its tail between its legs and prostrate before Putin once again lest it freeze to death and starve. Armenia would never have considered such a thing, courting the West, when it was part of the Soviet Union umbrella. Armenia was a stanch SU loyalist. Russia today is more like the autocratic Tsarist Russia than it is like the former glorious Soviet Union. A People’s Tragedy. It’s come full circle.
LIke & Subscribe
mago, what hate for the Russians? I see a lot of hate for Putin and rightfully so but not so much hate for the Russians as for Putin. How about the Russian hate for Westerners and Americans? Have you watched any Russian television. Everyone should it’s a blast. It’s even more entertaining propagadna than CNN and MSNBC and NBC and ABC and CBS. It’s nightly and daily filled with nonsensical propaganda brainwashing its audience that the West and America want to destroy Russia in a nuclear war but Russia will prevail because Russia is ordained by God.
Like & Subscribe
Mark, I acknowledge the Chicago Boys and their part in Russia’s post-Soviet misery but it was only a part and not the predominant reason for Russia’s misery. The former KGB and the former Gulag gangs played a substantial part. in the endemic lawless corruption. The failure of the Soviet system and Soviet governance is predominantly to blame. There was always going to be misery one way or another and not just because Russian culture embraces it and honors it. The Western finance vultures took advantage of the vulnerabilities and exacerbated the calamity and that is disgusting and tragic.
I stand by the maxim you can never go back but if it were possible to reclaim glory, there must first be a reconciliation with what led to the fall from glory. There must be accountability. Blaming post-collapse immiseration on outside forces is contrary to that and it’s been Russia’s narrative excuse ever since.
Soredemos
@Like & Subscribe
‘Wide spread Russophobia isn’t a thing in the West’ is a beyond wild take.
Which Air Force base are you paid to post from? Eglin?
Like & Subscribe
Soredemos, I don’t hang with the Inside the Beltway crowd. I’m sure many of them are so-called “Russophobes”. I live among ordinary Americans and I do not see or hear the hate of which you speak. Some, not many, may have a negative opinion of Putin and consider him a bully dictator, which he is, but no more than that. Most don’t give a shit and have limited to no knowledge of Russia let alone the Russian war on Ukraine.
Warvigilent
real tired of the delusional people commenting here. magically the russian war was anti nazi but lets ignore russias numerous oligarchs and extreme conservative social policies. If you actually believe that then you believe putin is planning on attacking europe who have been electing actual nazi parties when not not just being oligarch loving “centrists”. Love the calls that ukraine is desperate in recruiting and are terrorist because some civilians have been killed in their attacks as though russia hasn’t been shaghai ing thousands to keep those superior numbers or that the civian death toll in ukraine isn’t massively higher. .
really love the calls to join the front lines as though you are signing up for russia to fight nazis .
yeah people dont like russia, its almost like they have been promoting right wing extremist parties and politicians like trump , yeah they so aren’t fucking nazis. There might be no good actors but stop pretending russia is one, you dont need to add in all the shit russia is doing( kidnapping children, bombing monuments/graveyards/ civian homes) because of nato.
Purple Library Guy
Russia is going to win the war and dictate terms. It seems to me that Like&Subscribe is assuming that the terms Russia will choose to dictate would involve complete annexation. But that strikes me as very unlikely, precisely because it would probably result in an insurgency.
Most of Russia’s objectives are not territorial. The terms will involve Russia taking the Donbass and maybe the Odessa region. More importantly to Russia, the remaining terms will be about the rest of Ukraine having a small army, remaining geopolitically neutral, and not joining or accepting military aid from NATO. A sidebar will involve a political purge of Banderist factions in Ukraine.
The thing is that there won’t be an insurgency in the Donbass, they’re totally on Russia’s side. Odessa is a question mark–there are a lot of ethnically and linguistically Russian types in the Odessa region, but a lot also who speak Ukrainian with not-as-Russian ethnicity, many of whom really don’t like Russia. If Russia takes the Odessa region, how things work out depend on a lot of variables: How many non-ethnic-Russians flee the area, how many ethnic Russians from the Kiev-portion move to the area, how well the Russians do reconstruction, how heavy-handed they are politically. But overall it may well be manageable. But if Russia takes the rest of Ukraine, I think that would be a mistake. I don’t expect them to make that mistake, although they might.
Purple Library Guy
I think Curt Kastens’ talk about Russian tanks in Lisbon is insane. Putin certainly has no interest in pushing past Ukraine militarily. I would predict that as soon as the war is over he will to the contrary be taking pains to talk trade and security arrangements.
Imagining Russia had the motivation and the conventional military means to try pushing into Europe, it would cause a nuclear war and we would all die. That’s what makes the idea insane, not just stupid.
I do think that Europe + USA is in some broad sense going to lose their current confrontation with Russia, China and some of the BRICS+. It is not going to involve a huge continental conventional war. Rather, what’s going to happen is that the US will continue to be politically erratic and will more and more clearly lose their economic primacy and then their military primacy. At some point maybe they will pick a fight with China on China’s turf, like maybe over Taiwan, feeling they have no choice but to use their military muscle before they definitively lose it. But it will be too late because it already pretty much is, and they will lose decisively. If it escalates, we are all dead, but if it does not, it will be a punctuation mark showing the end of US military supremacy.
Somewhere in there Europe will realize that there is no point aligning with the US any more. Heck, with Trump acting like he does, there are already signs, although so far the plan seems to be “do US foreign policy without the US”. But after a while of trying to pretend everything is normal and they can substitute the ghost of Big Daddy for the real thing, they will pretty quickly find that this is not viable and they have no choice but to come to terms with China . . . and in the end, by extension Russia. It won’t happen by force of arms, it will largely be accomplished by Belts and Roads.
mago
Give it a break L&S. The Slavic hate from the euros and other westies is centuries old and well documented.
No fan of human tendencies toward hate and divisions I stand on no one’s side. Neither the ruskies, nor their detractors.
Get over yourself and your dualistic bs. Have a nice day.
Forecasting Intelligence
Hi Ian,
I agree with your analysis here (I also add that your record on the Ukraine war has been consistently superb). Congrats.
I had thought the collapse of the Ukie army would happen this year, but the drone revolution has given the Ukrainians a year’s advantage, I would say, in slowing down Russian advances.
The Ukrainians deserve immense credit with how they have utilised technology to strike the Russians and mitigate their weaknesses against a far bigger Russian army and material, but, ultimately they can’t prevent the inevitable.
So, to conclude, I agree, 2026 is when the Ukrainian army collapses, and Russia imposes a tough deal on what remains of the Ukrainian government and military. I wouldn’t be surprised that the Trump team forces whoever is in charge to agree a peace deal, Trump declares victory and starts the process of withdrawing US military assets out of Europe and leaves Europe to deal with the financial and miliary mess of what remains.