Three exit scenarios for Russia in the Ukraine war

Russia seeks exit: 200,000 casualties according to debate estimates

Russia will not lose this war, but it will not win it as it started. That is the conclusion when seriously asking how the Kremlin will exit Ukraine, clashing with two circulating versions: the chain collapse of Russia and an unstoppable Russian industry. The number repeated in the debate is the figure of around 200,000 Russian casualties since February 2022, an estimate handled by participants without confirmation from any independent body. In return, and according to estimates repeated in the thread, Moscow maintains control over approximately one-fifth of Ukrainian territory. Neither one nor the other aligns with cross-propaganda.

How much land and economy can Russia sustain

There is an uncomfortable calculation worth putting on the table: with recruited prisoners and second-hand equipment, Russia has taken one-fifth of Ukraine, and its revenue is today higher than a year ago. That is what supports the least dramatic reading of the conflict. The fine print is no less important: much of that boost is pure military spending, which does not create new wealth, and the workforce comes from prisons, not engineers.

Against that, the opposing argument is pure attrition. In the debate itself, some calculate those 200,000 casualties and speak of an enormous economic and social breakdown that no country sustains for a decade. Between these two narratives, there is a certainty almost no one disputes: returning to the starting point is impossible. Once a country is invaded, the previous situation does not return simply by signing a paper.

The case of Crimea is illustrative. Russia was without it between 1991 and 2014, and it did not die. That does not miccionan it will let it go now, but it dismantles the argument that Moscow cannot live without every inch of land it occupies. It can. What it cannot do is absorb a humiliating defeat without paying a huge internal price.

Three scenarios for the end of the war

If one must order the exits, the first is the complete Russian withdrawal: a peace acceptable to Ukraine and not catastrophic for Moscow, which could sell it as a ceasefire and not as a defeat.

The second is that Russia keeps what it conquered. This is the scenario with the most weight on paper and the one that fits least with reality: Ukraine will never sign that, and as long as it does not sign, it will continue receiving weapons, so the Russian cost will keep rising. The third, that Russia reaches Kyiv, is ruled out in almost any analysis that is not propaganda. And beware of haste: whoever set a date for the end of the war has yet to get it right.

The Trump factor and the clock Russia does not control

According to one of the readings repeated in the debate, the Kremlin's hope has a name and a calendar: that Trump returns to the White House and cuts military aid to Ukraine. The problem is arithmetic. There are more than a year and a half left until those elections, and Russia must stand until then, adding casualties and burning reserves.

And not even that is written. An alternative Republican candidate could block that card; and even if Trump returns, it is not certain that aid will be cut, with several European countries willing to cover the gap, according to participants. The Russian strategy depends on decisions it does not control. That, in a war, is playing with someone else's deck.

The block supporting Moscow and why it is not enough

There is a current that takes for granted a survival axis between Russia, China, Iran, India, and half a dozen other countries that see Washington as a shared threat. The logic is simple: if Russia falls, the next ones are them, and this is the last window to stop the empire. From South Africa to Iran, through Hungary or several South American countries, two-thirds of the planet, says this reading, no longer buy the Western narrative.

The problem with that block is that it is not a military alliance. China builds infrastructure in Africa and sells where it pays most, without imposing values or regimes: that wins it partners, not soldiers. No one will send troops for Russia, as pointed out in the thread. The support is economic and diplomatic, and the war is won or lost on the front.

Can China sustain Russia alone?

Here is where the Russian narrative cracks. The idea that Moscow will sell all its gas to China and not mind losing European clients is, in the words of a debate participant, an fallacy of sideral proportions. What reason does Beijing have to depend on a single supplier that has already shown it uses gas as a weapon and blackmail, as seen with Germany?

China negotiates hard and gives nothing away. What unites Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran is not friendship, but the realization that if Russia falls, the next on the list are them. It is shared survival, and that holds only as long as Russia survives.

Europe as the last buffer

Even taking Washington out of the equation, the tap does not close. The United Kingdom, Poland, the Netherlands, and Germany sustain the military effort, convinced that their long-term security depends on Russia not winning. Ukraine, meanwhile, borrows with investment funds to finance the war and mortgages its reconstruction more each month.

No one knows how long each side can hold out. The longer it drags on, the more expensive it will be for everyone and the less room there will be for peace that is not just a truce.

With these threads, the exit that emerges is not a victory, but a frozen conflict: Russia clinging to a strip of land, Ukraine supported by Europe, and both sides waiting for an American electoral result that does not depend on them. It can be predicted, with reservations, that this does not end with a clean surrender nor with a closed calendar. Each month that passes, the bill is paid by others.