On February 24th 2022, Russia brought war back to Europe after almost eight decades of peace. Its
invasion of Ukraine has shattered all expectations of modern European powers resolving their problems
peacefully, and brought NATO itself to the brink of full-blown war against Russia. But
this is only one of four possible ways that this war ends- and the other three may surprise you.
To date, Russia has lost an estimated 30,000 men either killed, captured, or wounded in
action- that amounts to roughly 25% of the initial invasion force’s ground combat troops
in just over two months of fighting. By comparison, the United States lost 58,220
killed in action over the course of the entire Vietnam War. To put it simply,
such incredible casualty rates are not only unprecedented, but completely unsustainable.
Already Russian losses are severe enough that it's estimated it will take roughly 2 years to
replace its tank losses alone- and only if international sanctions are lifted from the
nation so that it once again has access to the high tech electronic components
it does not produce at home. If not, Russia will be back to building Cold War era tanks,
which as we've already seen, can't stand up to even just man-portable NATO firepower, let alone
a fully equipped NATO armored brigade. While there is currently a lot of talk about mobilization,
Russian military insiders admit that mobilization will do little to help Russia win the war.
It would take 90 days to fully mobilize a replacement tank regiment, and even
then they would only be equipped with Cold War leftover tanks from Russia's vast reserves of
very obsolete equipment. These tanks and their completely green conscript crews would perform
even worse in Ukraine than Russia's current tank forces. Replenishing Russia's dwindling air power
assets is simply untenable until sanctions are lifted, or Russia takes the years necessary
to retool its economy to produce high tech electronics at home and build new aircraft.
That's why the first possible way that the war in Ukraine ends is with a whimper,
rather than a bang. At some point the flow of equipment reaching Ukraine from the west will
simply outweigh the flow of obsolete equipment flowing into the nation from Russia. NATO
military tech overpowers Russia's obsolete Cold War-era equipment and Russian losses
continue to mount trying to break stiff Ukrainian defenses. To offset combat losses in personnel,
Russia enacts mobilization and floods the conflict with additional conscripts.
These conscripts are under trained and poorly equipped, as well as suffering from extremely poor
morale. They've been thrown into a war against a brother nation that none of them wanted to fight,
while the professional, volunteer soldiers- who's morale is also starting to slip-
force them into combat under threats of punishment. In some cases under threat of death,
as it's been reported that Chechen Kadyrovites have shot Russian soldiers who refused to fight.
The influx of manpower has the reverse effect in the fighting that Russia is hoping for.
The tens of thousands of conscripts set loose across the front require intense resupply at a
time when Russia is already struggling to resupply the forces it already had in-country. The weak
morale and poor training work against Russia by leading to massive casualties and surrenders in
engagements across Ukraine. Eventually the bad morale becomes extremely infectious,
leading to very serious breakdowns in discipline- we have already seen how one Russian tank
commander had his legs crushed by a subordinate in anger at the extreme losses the unit took.
Inevitably a further Russian advance into Ukraine simply becomes impossible,
and the offensive stops. Putin declares victory by saying that he has taken the Donbas region
and secured the vital sea port of Mariupol and the all-important waterways leading into Crimea
that Ukraine had previously dammed off after Russia seized the peninsula illegally in 2014.
This falls way short of Putin's original goals of toppling the Ukrainian government and installing
a puppet government, but it still leaves Russia in control of very strategically and economically
important areas of Ukraine, while choking off about half of Ukraine's ability to export goods.
The situation is not great for Russia, but it's not awful either, and if one overlooks
the staggering casualties it took to get here, one might even consider it a win. However,
the Ukrainians would have to accept this situation and it's unlikely that they're willing to simply
give a quarter of their country over to the Russians. Especially if they are winning,
and while currently Ukraine isn't winning, it is definitely not losing either.
There's every sign that despite Putin's earlier assurances that he wasn't interested in physically
occupying Ukraine that this is no longer the case- though given Putin's laundry list of lies to date
it's likely that this too was a preplaned act of deception. In Russian occupied areas
the Russian government is now guaranteeing pensions for Ukrainian citizens living there,
as well as introducing the Ruble as an official currency and even
replacing street signs with those written in the Russian language.
A massive effort to 'Russify' the occupied territories is underway with frightening speed,
and perhaps most worryingly of all is the fact that one of the first things being brought into
occupied territories is Russian television. This means that for citizens in occupied Ukraine,
their only news source is now Russian state-run news and its nonstop blitzkrieg of propaganda.
Putin is clearly not planning on ceding occupied territories back to Ukraine,
but what if Ukraine fights back?
Across the modern eastern front in Ukraine, Ukrainian forces are pushing back against Russian
positions and liberating villages. However, they are also losing ground in the south. The entire
front has become a back-and-forth more reminiscent of 20th century wars- but the important part here
is that Ukraine was not supposed to be able to push back Russian forces at all.
Ukrainian forces were supposed to be completely overwhelmed by superior Russian firepower,
and yet we've discovered that Russia is almost as big a threat to itself due to incompetence,
bad morale, bad equipment, and worse training, as it is to Ukraine.
Ukraine could simply refuse to accept Russian occupation and continue fighting.
The United States of America has already pledged to continue supporting Ukraine militarily until,
as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it, “the fighting is done”. Europe may not be so eager
to support an ongoing war in Ukraine, but they don't have to be. In terms of
overall contributions to Ukraine, Europe's contributions are a little above symbolic,
with the lion's share of support coming from the United States. In recent meetings with
American defense industry leaders, President Joe Biden worked to create
a strategy for the on-going resupply of Ukraine, even if the war lasts for years.
As long as Ukraine is willing to fight, the US looks willing to continue supporting it.
And the longer Ukraine wants to fight, the worse it might get for the Russians. Already
the initial US stance on not supporting Ukraine with heavy equipment has shifted- this was due
to the stunning performance of Ukrainian troops and the equally stunning incompetence of Russian
troops. Western analysts predicted Ukraine would fall within three days, and nobody believed that
Ukraine's military could survive, let alone beat back the Russian assault into Kyiv and beyond.
Now that the US believes Ukraine can fight for months, even for years, it opens up the door for
providing Ukraine with heavier equipment. Already the US has provided Soviet-built helicopters it
has sourced from other nations, as well as other equipment that Ukrainians are already familiar
with. However, if Ukraine is committed to fighting for years, and the stalemate in the east holds,
there's reason to believe that the United States would begin arming Ukraine with modern,
American equipment. This would require months of training for its crews,
but after which Ukraine would be fielding capabilities far superior to Russia's own.
This is only possible if Ukraine continues this fight for years,
as it would take that long to train Ukrainian troops and create the logistical networks required
for repairing and replenishing sophisticated equipment such as M1 Abrams. Yet if Ukraine has
to date held against the Russian onslaught, there's little reason to believe the nation
couldn't hold a status-quo for the necessary time to rearm itself with western equipment.
Under assault from a western-armed Ukraine, Russia would lose badly in
the east and be forced to retreat. At this point there's only two ways this war ends.
The first is with a humiliating admission of defeat by Russia, and a general withdrawal.
This is extremely unlikely, but as the war costs continue to add up for Russia,
Ukraine may be able to force this defeat condition even with current equipment. However,
this would be an admission of catastrophic failure to be remembered for all Russian history,
and is an unlikely move to be made by any Russian public official.
The second way that this could end is with the use of weapons of mass destruction against Ukrainian
forces. This includes nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. Currently, Russia has nothing
to fear from a Ukrainian retaliation over the use of WMDs, as the nation has none in its arsenal.
Most worryingly, Russia has already planted the seeds for the justification of WMD use by
creating propaganda that claims Ukraine itself has been working on chemical and biological weapons,
under the supervision of Russia's favorite bogeyman: the United States. This is of
course a blatant lie, as Ukraine has no WMDs- and if it did, surely it would have used them
in the initial, desperate hours of the war when it seemed as if Russian troops would take Kyiv.
Even without Ukraine overpowering Russian troops after years of armament by the west,
Putin may still turn to the use of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. President
Joe Biden has declared this a line in the sand, that would be met with “appropriate” responses.
What this means is anyone's guess, but it's feared this would mean a retaliation by the United States
itself proportional to the attack carried out by Russia. If Russia uses chemical weapons,
the US may launch a chemical attack against Russian troops inside Ukraine. The US would be
unlikely to use such weapons inside Russia itself for fear of escalating the situation, and the only
type of attack it may not respond tit-for-tat for may be a nuclear one. The only thing Ukraine
needs less than one nuclear attack on its own soil, is two nuclear attacks on its territory.
This brings us to yet another way that the war in Ukraine could end. If Russia were to
turn to the use of WMDs, and the United States responded in kind, it could lead
to that which the world has been most fearing: a full-blown confrontation between NATO and Russia.
And yet this is a nightmare scenario for Russia, given how extremely poorly its
troops have performed against Ukraine's military, which is largely armed with cold-war weapons.
Taking on NATO's professionally trained and well equipped militaries would be a catastrophe of the
highest order for Russian forces, and while before the west feared Russia's growing military might,
the war in Ukraine has proven that Russia was a paper tiger all along.
This is why despite Putin's tough rhetoric against the west, the very last thing he wants is to see
NATO tanks gathering outside Kaliningrad. Putin may speak tough,
but he really has to ask himself just how many wars he wants to be losing at once.
Our final way that the war in Ukraine might end is one that seems unlikely at first glance,
but is frighteningly possible if several key facts about the conflict change.
Currently, Russia is bombing civilians in their homes, and even going to great lenghts
to specifically target civilian shelters. Russia is also destroying civilian infrastructure not
just in the east where the heaviest fighting is taking place, but all the way as far west as Lyiv,
which had its power plant bombed by Russia. Despite having no military value, these random,
civilian targets are in fact far from random, because they have great terror value.
Putin's strategy is simple, and follows the same strategy that Russia used in Syria. By targeting
civilians he hopes to create mass panic and fear across the country, eventually prodding the people
to sue for peace. In Syria, terrorized civilians refused to support rebel forces, in Ukraine a
terrorized population could demand that its military stop fighting. With no political will to
fight, Ukraine could surrender to Russia without Russia ever needing to completely dominate it.
It's likely this campaign of terror would backfire against Russia
seeing as how the nation doesn't enjoy the military superiority it enjoyed in Syria. However,
should it work, Russia would end up installing a pro-Kremlin leader into power in Ukraine.
Given the fact that today Russia seems to have no intention of returning occupied territories,
and is even going so far as to Russify them, a puppet leader could call for
a referendum on Ukraine rejoining Russia in the style of a former Soviet republic.
It's even possible that Russia would actually rebrand itself as the Soviet Union again-
something that is likely extremely appealing to a Cold War die-hard like Vladimir Putin.
A new iron curtain would fall across Europe, and the Cold War 2.0 would begin anew.
With Ukraine pacified, Putin would inevitably invade Moldova- recently a Russian general
accidentally let slip what seemed to be Putin's real goals in Ukraine. His efforts focused on
creating a land corridor across southern Ukraine that would not only cut Ukraine off from the sea
and choke its economy, but also allow access to the Moldovan breakaway region of Transnistria.
From there, Russian forces could pour into Moldova as well, all under the guise of “protecting native
Russian speakers”. Putin would be two steps closer to restoring the former Soviet Union in
its full glory, with eyes indubitably turning west towards Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovakia.
Those three nations are currently NATO members, which makes it doubtful Putin would seriously try
and invade them- specially after President Biden's declaration that the United States would fight for
“every inch” of NATO territory. The wording of this proclamation wasn't an accident either,
as the United States has been aware of internal Russian brainstorming that involved launching
a tiny incursion into a Baltic State- just enough to take a single village, or a few
miles of border territory- and then digging in defensively. This would force NATO to go to war
against an entrenched Russian defense force over an insignificant border incursion. Seeing as some
current NATO members didn't even want the Baltic states to join the alliance in the first place,
due to their vulnerability to Russia, it's possible that NATO would splinter
internally over the invocation of Article 5. This would destroy confidence in the alliance,
especially from its most vulnerable members in the east, and could lead to a collapse of NATO
on the whole. This would leave the United States and perhaps a few other European
countries fighting an extremely unpopular war that a significant portion of Europe doesn't even want.
In such a scenario, it's possible Russia wins this confrontation with the west,
and is allowed to take as much of the Baltics as it really wants.
Vladimir Putin would have finally succeeded in restoring the Soviet Union in whole,
and greatly escalating the potential for a devastating nuclear conflict.
Now go watch What Is Wrong With The Russian Military, or click this other link instead!