After four months, the war does not seem to be close to coming to an end. The troops of Moscow are prevailing, but Kiev is determined to keep fighting. Here is one way that we may get out of this mess.
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| [5 ways the war in Ukraine could end-EUROPEANS24] |
Everyone is wondering how they might put a stop to the fighting in Ukraine, since the battle has been going on for what seems like an unending amount of time. Since the 24th of February, when Vladimir Putin initiated what he dubbed a "special operation" in order to safeguard Russian-speaking residents and "deNazify" the nation, 140 days have already gone, and we still do not see the light at the bottom of the tunnel. Although Western nations continue to give weaponry to Volodymyr Zelensky's forces, Kiev is unable to oppose the invader despite its dramatic proclamations. At the same time, though, Kiev does not seem to be eager to surrender.
The Atlantic Council and other Washington think tanks (which are extremely connected to the US administration) have come up with roughly four different plausible scenarios that might lead to the conclusion of the conflict. The first scenario, which the think tank predictably refers to as "Miracle in Dnipro," is without a doubt the least likely of the three. As a result of Western sanctions against Russia and the provision of increasingly lethal military equipment, Ukraine is able to resist the offensive in the east. Furthermore, with higher troop morale and superior leadership and tactics, Ukraine is able to launch powerful counter-offensives and expel troops from Moscow from the Donbass and the occupied cities of the self-proclaimed People's Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk as well as from southern Ukraine. At that time, the two nations come to an understanding with Kiev, wherein Ukraine pledges to remain outside of NATO, and Russia pledges to maintain the boundaries as they were before to 2014, while retaining just Crimea.
The name of the second potential outcome is "Quagmire." In spite of these challenges, Moscow has been able to consolidate its position along the new front lines, keep a land bridge open to Crimea in the south, and ensure the safety of the separatist territories of Donetsk and Luhansk in the east. Although Ukrainian forces have secured their capital and protected the sovereignty of their country, they are unable to expel Russian forces to their positions prior to February 24. However, Russian forces do not want to surrender, so the war settles into a conflict that is mostly frozen and continues for an indefinitely long period of time with heavy artillery attacks on both sides to hit the enemy in the heart of their territories. This would come at a very significant cost for Putin due to the fact that the sanctions, the diplomatic pressure, and the international isolation would not be lifted.
The third scenario is referred to as "The new Iron Curtain," and it envisions a situation in which Russia maintains control over the seized territory while both parties agree to a cessation of hostilities but do not declare the war to be finished. This would result in the creation of a new border for Moscow and its allies (or satellite nations), such as Belarus. Behind this new boundary, Putin would begin to accumulate forces for the purpose of deterrence, and NATO, on the other side, would begin to do the same thing. It would be like going back in time to the height of the cold war. The final possibility, which is now described as having a lower probability due to the passage of time, is the entrance into the war of NATO, and therefore the outbreak of a global battle, both of which are seen by the think tank as having a decreasing likelihood as more time passes.
In place of that, the German historian Michael Wolffsohn lays out a fifth possibility for us in an intervention that was published in Die Welt. In point of fact, it would be a variation of the "Quagmire" and would require a change in strategy on the part of Kiev. Kiev's strategy would increasingly shift from a traditional war to a guerrilla war, following the example of wars fought by Mao Tse-China tung's against Japan during the Second World War, Ho Chi Minh's Vietnam against the United States of America during the 1970s, or the Taliban in Afghanistan first against the Soviet Union from 1979 to 1989 Because the Russians would be forced to deal with non-uniformed fighters, they would inevitably end up hitting the population more and more often, which would result in an increase in the number of civilian casualties. The conflict would turn into an attrition war. Despite this, the number of civilian casualties would continue to rise.