What really happens when Ukraine “wins?”

The majority of people looking at the Russo-Ukrainian War are making well-meaning but unrealistic assumptions based on short-term predictions. Or they’re so far into the future they’re already talking about coups, a revolution, or civil wars across the Russian Federation. Let’s consider some possible scenarios. As we do so, let’s remember this war did not began with the Russian invasion of February 2022 but with the Russian invasion of February 2014 in the wake of the Euromaiden Revolution of November 2013 – February 2014 in Ukraine. Their war has been going for over eight years now.

First: Ukraine liberates ALL of its territory occupied by Russia, including Crimea, and pushes Russian forced back to the pre-2014 borders. Those borders, by the way, were formally recognized as official and legitimate by the Russia in 1991 and again in 1994. Then what? Yes, what happens next? The war is not going to suddenly end. Russia has the power to wait out its enemies, except for the Mongols and the Japanese of 1905, among others. Russia can rebuild and regroup, yes, and it’s economy seems more broken now than it was at the height of Hitler’s invasion in the Second World War. Today’s version of Allied Lend-Lease programs to help Stalin’s USSR fight the Axis is now going to Ukraine to help fight the real Fascists, the Putin siloviki ultranationalist dictatorship in control of Russia.

Does Ukraine invade Russia in return? For Ukraine to invade would be a horrible mistake. Unless it’s to create a buffer zone from which the Russians can’t easily lob artillery shells, drones, and rockets any longer. Ukraine would most likely lob the same back at Putin’s forces, unless their allies stop supplying such weapons at this point. The war risks being bogged down into a frozen border conflict, which would help no one except the Russians rebuild. Another possibility is Russia collapses into civil wars, and Ukraine feels compelled to intervene on the side of anti-Putin rebel factions. Would Ukrainian military assistance be welcomed even if the Ukrainians were not conquering and annexing Russian territory but helping Russian rebels overthrow the Putin siloviki regime?

Also, if the Ukrainians push out all the Russian invaders back behind the internationally recognized 2013 borders before the war started in 2014, will the Russians resort to Putin’s threat to detonate nuclear weapons? What will NATO do then? After all, Russia now claims much of eastern and southern Ukraine as Russian territory simply because it annexed them in the wake of corrupt, coerced, and fake referendums.

Second: Let’s say Putin’s forces grind down the Ukrainians and bomb them into utter ruin and destitution. The Western allies run out of ammo and weapons and are paralyzed by their terror of Russian nuclear weapons. A weary, demoralized Ukraine, unrecognizable from Ukrainians today 9-10 months into Putin’s invasion, surrender. Then what? The Ukrainian people would be difficult to pacify. The Russian treasury doesn’t have the funds to rebuild Ukraine as Putin once dreamed Russia wouldn’t have to after rolling into people showering them with flowers. Which did not happen. Russian occupation would have to deal with sabotage, protests, partisan warfare, and endless rebellions while also struggling to keep an overstretched, multi-ethnic federation together. At the same time, however, Putin’s forces would roll up to the borders of other countries once part of the old Russian Tsarist and Soviet Empires. Those nations would feel threatened.

Third: Putin somehow manages to assassinate Volodymyr Zelenskyy and decapitate the Kyiv regime. Will the Ukrainian government collapse? Will new leaders step forward and up? Will NATO forces rush in to support Kyviv after all? Then will Putin finally use a few nukes? Continue reading →