Ukraine war Part 12. How the war might end

 I was prompted to write this after news of the first call between President’s Trump and Putin and a declaration at the NATO conference in Munich, where, in my opinion, the US leadership for the first time took a realistic view of the Ukraine war. It was most likely a view that has prevailed in some sections of the US and NATO national security establishment, but was suppressed in favour of the mainstream view that Ukraine, given enough weapons and support from NATO can prevail. Until the election of president Trump, most NATO countries had committed far too much to the Ukraine project and had burnt all bridges with Russia, for any alternate view to be considered.

There is now a lot of talk about what shape a settlement of this conflict might take. A lot has been covered in the media. I’d like to talk about my proposed solution, looking at points not widely covered in the mainstream media. My plan takes into account the following:

The battlefield reality:

The mainstream media narrative has varied from (in 2022) the `Ukraine is winning / Russia will collapse in six months/ is out of ammunition and manpower' etc to the current - Ukraine can win if given enough weapons. My own view, which has been consistent from the beginning of this blog, 
is now the position of the Trump administration, when it says Ukraine can't retain its pre war borders.
My view of the current position is: 

1.         1. Ukraine has more irreplaceable losses than Russia. This has to be seen in the context of:

-         The loss ratio has been moving steadily in Russia’s favor for the last two years and particularly
in the last six months. This is happening although Russia has been on the offensive since Nov of
2023, in all parts of the front (barring Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk, where the advance lasted a week). The attacking side normally takes more casualties. I have analysed casualties in some detail in my previous blog posts.
Casualty calculations (1st part of article)

-         Russia’s manpower reserve is not thrice that of Ukraine (based on pre 2014 population), but close to six to one, after considering the movement of Ukrainians into Europe and the incorporation of Crimea and the Donbass into Russia. (152 million vs 26 million).

-         Russia’s annual intake of conscripts (250,000, of which 150,000 go into the army) is significantly
higher than current losses. Volunteers are also higher than losses, though some volunteers will
replace those wanting to end their service. Ukraine’s intake of fresh manpower by any means (conscription, volunteering and coercion) has been less than losses for the past year.

 Russia can sustain this rate of casualties; Ukraine will run out of manpower after a year.

2  Russian armaments production is now higher than current losses. I have analyzed this in an earlier blog citing the Kiel institute, a leading European think tank. Stocks of older equipment have been used to not only replace earlier losses but also equip new formations. The size of the Russian armed forces has grown from 980,000 pre-war to the newly authorized strength of 1.5 million by June2025. Almost all the increased strength is for the army, which has more than doubled the number of brigade sized units in its order of battle.
Kiel institute report

I have summarised some key data from the report:  Armament production trends in Russia

Prodn Per month	Pre war	Q4 2022	Q2 2024	Excess production per month to equip new units (from Mid 23)
Tanks	20	41	130	30
APC/ IFV	100	195	470	80
Artillery guns	15	15	37	10
SAM systems	10	15	39	5
Loitering drones	0	31	178

Taking Tanks as an example. Production comprises both completely new tanks (T-90) and the refurbishment and modernization of told T-72 & T-80 tanks to T-90 standards.
The calculation of excess production (over losses) is based on historical losses, which have been reducing. Russia had 11000 operational T-72 & T-80 tanks before the war (most in storage). As per Orxy, Russia has lost 2750 T-72 & T-80 tanks. Another approx. 3600 tanks are part of Russian formations as of Jan 24. Equipping new formations will require 1700 additional tanks, of which 540 will be new T-90’s and another 1200 from old stocks of T-80s and T-72s.  That leaves approx. 3500 tanks available from old stocks – though projected losses will not exceed production. It would also mean the gradual replacement of older T-72s with T-90’s, or refurbished T-72T/80s.  

NATO armament production was estimated to match Russia’s from 2026, but it assumed that a large portion would come from the US and that Europe would make significant investments in increasing capacity in 2024. The US has indicated that it would not supply weapons at the same level (if at all it does) and those supplies that will be made would probably have to be paid for by the rest of NATO and will be made in volumes that don’t deplete US stocks to below acceptable levels – which I have argued in a previous post, is the case with ATACMS missiles. 

 3.  The Russian economy, far from collapsing under sanctions in 2022, has been the best performing economy in Europe, in 2023 & 2024, in terms of GDP growth. That said, the growth has been because of a surge in armaments production and masks serious problem with the economy. The implication of Russia’s better than expected economic performance in the last two years is that they can sustain the war a year beyond what I had earlier projected (into 2026 instead of 2025) before feeling real economic pressure. 

4. Across NATO, every party that either saw a significant increase in vote share, or won an election, is against continued support to Ukraine. While the most significant of these was the Trump win in the US, they also include:
The Reform party in the UK, the AfD in Germany, National Rally in France and Austria's freedom party, who are all against continuing the war, are, or would be the single largest party in their
countries, if an election were held tomorrow. Among countries bordering Ukraine, Romania (whose elections were cancelled after a Russia friendly candidate unexpectedly won and the Czech republic look like electing Russia friendly candidates for PM in elections scheduled this year – with both leaders in top position and increasing projected vote shares in recent opinion polls. Moldovia would probably have done the same if the election was really fair (the now discredited USAID made a large contribution to the winning incumbent, to strengthen democracy. Her winning margin was 1% which a large contribution of absentee votes).
Countries with the most anti Russian sentiment are those least able to make a contribution to the conflict. 2025 is also likely to see a recession across the EU and UK, which will further erode voter support for financing the Ukraine war.

The war will be lost by the side that runs out of resources first. These resources are:
- Ukrainian manpower.
- Russian armaments
- NATO armaments
- The will to fight (for Russia, Ukraine and NATO).

As I have opined from the beginning of this series, Ukrainian manpower is likely to run out before
Russian or NATO weapon supplies. The political situation in Europe is eroding support for the war – which comes at the expense of the EU economy. Opinion polls in Ukraine and Russia indicate falling support for the Govt (and continuing the war) in Ukraine, while support for Putin and the war among Russians remains high – both trends will be amplified by the withdrawal of US support for project Ukraine and divisions within Europe.

The areas for negotiation in a possible Russia-Ukraine peace agreement, would be influenced by the reality on the battlefield. These negotiating points are: 

1. NATO admission for Ukraine. While the US secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s remarks that there is no path to NATO membership for Ukraine caused a furore, this was also the position of the Biden administration and several members of NATO, including Germany and France, any of whom could veto the membership proposal, as Russia is aware. There is no NATO country willing to go to war with Russia, for Ukraine. This is probably the easiest point to concede and admitting this before the negotiation is hardly giving up leverage to Russia. It can be conceded if there was another way to guarantee Ukraine’s security.

2.  Retaining territory occupied by Russia. There are several definitions of what this might mean
 - Retain Crimea with the Donbass being part of Ukraine governed by the Minsk agreement.

 - The Pre Feb 22 border with the parts of Donetsk /Luhansk de facto occupied by Russia, going to Russia. This was the Istanbul agreement, which is unlikely to now be accepted by Russia, after it was turned down by Ukraine, since Russia has taken more territory with a significant loss of life.

 -  The current front line. It incorporates most of the four districts of Ukraine claimed by Russia, and parts of the Kharkiv district, while Ukraine occupies about 460 sq km of Russia’s Kursk district. 

-         - Putin’s proposed border: This incorporates four districts of Ukraine in their entirety – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporozhe. While Russia occupies most of the land in these four districts, most of the population of Zaporozhe have lived under Ukraine throughout the war, while Ukraine liberated the city of Kherson, 6 months after its occupation (along with half of the district west of the Dnieper River).

 3.       Security guarantees for Ukraine and an agreement on its army.

 4.      Rights of minorities in Ukraine (with De-Nazification of militia groups and ideologies). This is
actually as per EU law, where for e.g. linguistic minorities have rights and Neo Nazi groups are banned.

5.       Lifting of sanctions on Russia. This has been imposed separately by the US and EU (and Uk which is not part of the EU) and comprises 15,000 different sanctions. The most significant and one that will be non-negotiable 

    The proposal:
I believe a proposal along these lines will take several months to finalize. Ukraine and Europe will 
hope for a better deal than what is first proposed, but will fall in line after Ukraine faces further setbacks in 2025. The deal I have in mind is: 

1.No NATO membership for Ukraine and no further expansion.

2. The war stops at the front line on the day the agreement is signed (with minor exchanges mutually
    agreed). The Ukrainian occupation of a part of Russia's Kursk district, is irrelevant for Russia.
    Ukraine has the highest casualties per brigade (and density of troops) in Kursk and it is in Russia's
    interest to keep Ukraine bottled up there, rather than elsewhere in the front where they would be
    more useful. 

3. The peace is enforced in the following way:
- A de-militarized zone on either side of the contact line. This can be the responsibility of a UN peacekeeping force (as envisaged by Pete Hegseth, rather than a NATO force proposed by UK/France).
Their responsibilities would include ensuring no armed force in the zone and facilitating demining and
ordnance disposal.

- The Ukrainian army will man the rest of Ukraine. Its size will be limited to X soldiers. The same number X, will be the maximum number of soldiers Russia can station, within the same distance to the demilitarized zone, as Ukraine. If for e.g. the Ukrainian border extends 500km west of the DMZ, the
Russian army will have a limited presence (equal to the Ukrainian army size) 500km to the east of the
DMZ.

- A NATO force, from among those countries prepared to guarantee Ukraine’s security, can be stationed outside Ukraine’s border. This can comprise multiple brigades, from participating countries, based in Poland, Hungary and Romania.

4. Referendum in the four occupied districts and Crimea, to decide if the population chooses to live under Russian or Ukrainian control. Where a significant part of the population of the district lives in the area not occupied by Russia, the referendum will consider separately the choice of each part of the district.

5. Exchange of population. Ukrainians choosing not to live under Russian occupation have the right to leave for Ukraine. Similarly for ethnic Russians who prefer to live in Russia. This can be done through the UN, which is best placed to handle refugees and ensure no persecution of those ho want to leave.

6. If people of a district have voted to be part of Russia, that land should be recognized as Russian. If they opt for Ukraine, it should be returned to Ukraine.

7. Ukrainian refugees in Europe return. There is a time bound path for Ukraine’s membership of the EU. Elections are held in Ukraine. This would mean following EU law on banning Neo Nazi groups, respect for minority religions, languages etc.

8. Removal of sanctions is upto individual countries. However, the freezing of Russian foreign currency assets, which is against International law, has resulted in Russian freezing of European assets (stakes in Russian companies) and can disrupt the global financial system can go. Countries imposing sanctions can stop sanctioning countries deciding not to sanction, or take steps that might escalate into war – i.e. seizing of ships in Russia’s ghost fleet carrying oil. Some of the sanctions which achieve nothing except for ill will and are egregious, such as banning religious heads, sports bans, overflights etc can go.

On energy, I have argued in a previous article that the best way to reduce Russian export revenues is to increase supply of oil and gas, not reduce it by sanctioning major exporters including Iran and Venezuela.

Conditions precedent to a deal (to be agreed at the start of talks)
- Exchange of prisoners in a 1:1 ratio, until one side has none.
- No attacks on civilian infrastructure or civilians on either side.
- Toning down talk of destroying the other side, `breaking up’ either country etc.
- US weapons continue to be made available to Ukraine, based on what the US can spare, but have to
  be paid for (by the EU or friendly countries).

Why this is different:

There is a point view in Europe that Ukraine can regain lost territories, given time and weapons and therefore any settlement will be premature. This theory can be tested by allowing them to buy US weapons – meeting a key US requirement of the rest of NATO spending more on weapons, while reducing US spends, without abandoning Ukraine – a key concern of US lawmakers.

If Ukraine can take back some territory given time, they can ask Ukraine to delay agreeing to a deal. If on the other hand, Russia is gaining more territory and, more importantly, inflicting disproportionately more casualties, it will backfire on Ukraine and Europe, enabling Trump to say `I told you so’. This puts Europe on the spot. If they believe Ukraine can win, they have the opportunity to postpone a settlement and show that the US position was wrong. If Europe’s assessment is wrong, they would have to be responsible for the consequences.  

The idea of having a three-tier system enforcing the peace agreement, satisfies the concerns of both sides. A UN led force at the buffer (demilitarized) zone meets the Russian condition of no NATO troops in Ukraine (though a UN force can include a NATO country) at the same time, violating a ceasefire line endangering a UN force and in violation of a UN resolution, by Russia, would be taken a lot more seriously by the global south who have been largely neutral in this conflict. The UN force will also be a tripwire, giving both sides time to prepare for a possible ceasefire violation. This force can also monitor drone operations or firing across the ceasefire line – the Europe led OSCE force monitoring the 2015
ceasefire, under the Minsk agreement did not do the latter.  

The second tier of security – Similar (reduced) numbers of Ukrainian and Russian forces positioned equidistant from the border, will ensure neither side can attack the other.   

Ukraine can be reassured about security guarantees given to it by individual NATO states, by the presence of their mechanized forces located just outside Ukraine’s borders. It would mean that countries who proclaim in the media their readiness to defend Ukraine, will have to deploy forces for it. If they cannot do so, outside of Ukraine’s borders (and within NATO) then any talk of Europe handling security guarantees on their own will be shown to be hollow. If they do handle this, it will satisfy a key US concern of Europe being the first responders in a war in Europe involving NATO.   

A criticism of Russia’s annexation of four provinces in Ukraine, was that it conducted a sham referendum. If the referendum is conducted under UN auspices, it will legitimize the result.  If Russia does not agree, the basis for their invasion will be publicly shown to be a lie and support will fall in the global south. If the referendum is held and result honored, it will be the best advertisement for democracy in both Russia and Ukraine. If these regions choose to be part of Russia, it will soften criticism that Zelensky gave away territory, since the people wanted it.

An exchange of population has precedents (India’s partition, the Ottoman-Greece partition, or former Yugoslavia) and will make both countries more cohesive. Ukraine will be more Ukrainian and Russia more Russia.

How this can be sold:

The Trump administration: Trump would not like to be seen as the President who lost Ukraine. 
Therefore the deal can be justified as follows:

We inherited an unwinnable war, where the narrative in the mainstream media was spun to justify continued funding for a Ukraine win. We see no path to a Ukraine win, but were made to spend more on Ukraine than the rest of NATO. A lot of that money cannot be accounted for. We have made what we think is a fair deal for both sides, preserving Ukraine's sovereignty, ensuring the return of those who do not want to live in Russian controlled territory, while getting Ukraine EU membership. There are countries among our NATO partners who believe that Ukraine can win given more time and weapons. We are prepared to provide those weapons for the rest of the year, if they are paid for and Europe will have to take the responsibility for the consequences of a delayed peace deal. We have also reduced dangerous escalation with the risks of WW3, by restoring dialogue and reduced energy prices through energy sanctions relief.   

Russia: If Russia's accepts this deal, Ukraine and the EU will probably not. It will give Putin the moral high ground, by saying he was ready to accept an imperfect peace  order to avoid deaths and a fall in the economy. My sense is Russia will reach the territory they need in a summer offensive last this year (I had earlier estimated this might happen after a winter offensive, but Russia has slower the pace of their advance since November albeit with a continued capture of territory an fewer casualties). If Russia goes on the defensive once they have reached their objectives, it will reduce both casualties and weapon consumption - conversely requiring Ukraine to expend more men and armaments to go on the offensive, neither of which they will have. For Russian hardliners, who would like to see Kharkov and Odessa returned to Russia, Putin can show that those people from these two regions who wanted to move to Russia have the option to do so. The hardliners are less concerned with territory (outside the Donbass)
than the incorporation of ethnic Russians into Russia - which, under this plan will happen bloodlessly. 

Ukraine; Zelensky cannot agree to this deal and survive politically. There will be opposition from hawks in his govt. Right wing militia groups and a considerable portion of the Ukrainian people who are against a deal which allows Russia to retain Ukrainian territory (though that number is steadily falling). I believe Zelensky should let his people know that his opponents want to continue the fight and since NATO has assured him weapons for The rest of this year the war will continue unless the people and army tell him otherwise. The incentive to sign would be EU membership and a more cohesive country - with a return of ethnic Ukrainians and exit of ethnic Russians of doubtful loyalty. The continuation of fighting may be an opportunity for the Ukrainian leadership to purge the Neo Nazi militia - possibly with tacit encouragement from Germany or Poland (who fears the revival of the
anti Polish, Stephen Bandera cult of the Ukrainian neo Nazis). 

Europe: Since Europe has avoided any form of diplomatic contact with Russia for three years, they will hardy be able to insist on a role in negotiations that President Trump has initiated. In this context, Europe (EU & the UK) will lose in almost any situation. The unity of NATO (apart from the US) will be tested by their willingness to buy US weapons for the rest of this year - their own armaments industry will be inadequate for at least another year and guarantee Ukraine's post war security. The EU's statements will be tested by their willingness to admit Ukraine into the EU and pay for Ukraine's reconstruction.   

  

Personal reflections on a ceasefire. Since the start of my blog series, I have been banned across Western internet forums for suggesting (though my data has not been disproven) that perhaps Russia has not lost a Zillion men and a billion tanks and did not run out of missiles two years ago. I have also reiterated that Russia's actions in invading Ukraine were wrong under International law and morally. That said, my blog comments on the military and geopolitical aspects of this conflict without taking sides. I find that the most pro Ukrainian internet commentators are either Ukrainians who have moved to the West and make money selling hope to their countrymen, or those in the West who have no exposure to Russian media. 

A question that the reader is likely to raise is weather my proposed plan would not reward the aggressor.

My view is that Ukraine had a chance to avoid the war by implementing the Minsk-2 agreement of 2015 (which was also ratified by Germany, France and the UNSC), or reach a deal in Istanbul in April 2022, just a month into the war. Once those were rejected and the war became a conflict with NATO, whose goal was the defeat to Russia (not just the recovery of territory), the war became existentialist for Russia. One does not have to agree with that view, but it is one prevailing in Russia. A proposed settlement will therefore have to be `Istanbul Plus'. This was also the solution NATO implemented when it made Serbia give up Kosovo.