No. of Recommendations: 2
Neither side can continue this type of fighting forever - eventually one side or the other runs into the practical limit of guns, manpower, or money and has to agree to wind it down. You're wrong in assuming that it would be Ukraine who runs into that first. Fighting a war is expensive, and Russia isn't getting enough money from other sources to keep this going much longer. Nor do they have a reserve of manpower - they've raided the prisons and now have to get troops from North Korea, which is not costless in terms of political commitments from Russia and China.
Russia is a lot bigger of a country than the Ukraine is and their economy hasn't been blown to bits like the Ukraine's has.
Big difference.
Getting the Russians to the bargaining table only helps if there's something Ukraine can get.
Um. A cease-fire.
Time.
A breather.
A chance to re-arm.
A chance to de-mine their farmlands.
A chance to reconstruct their water plants and energy grid.
A chance to heal up the limited number of soldiers they have.
Trump doesn't seem to care about that, for a number of reasons - he's interested only in the war ending, not what the outcome of the war is. Ukraine obviously cares a great deal about the outcome of the war, and if the only proposal on offer is Russia getting everything they want, they'd prefer to keep fighting until Russia is willing to come to the table with something they can accept.
Again with the hypotheticals.
One more time: The Ukraine lacks the dudes, the guns and the money to throw Ivan off their land.
So Zelensky's notion of "victory" is already a non-starter unless he gets NATO troops - and by "NATO" I mean American troops - to do it for him.
Are you ready to jump in the war tomorrow? Ready to commit US troops, tanks and planes?
