When will the war end? Three real scenarios

The illusion of peace is fading

The topic of ending the war in Ukraine is again in the background. After some hopes for some kind of agreement, it has become clear that there will be no ceasefire in the foreseeable future. And when will there be one? In my subjective opinion, based on what is seen, constantly observing the Russian agenda, there are three decisive factors that will influence the end of the war.

- The death or removal of Vladimir Putin from power.

- The exhaustion of Russia's resources for waging war.

- The general fatigue of Russian society and the disillusionment of Russians with the very idea of taking over Ukraine.

Let's analyze each of these factors separately.
We are convinced that Vladimir Putin is paranoidly obsessed with the idea of destroying Ukrainian statehood in one form or another. This is evident from many signs that can be analyzed in a separate post. Putin has a special attitude towards Ukraine, no other country forces him to quote some 400-year-old treaties and mention the Polovtsy. The war with Ukraine is, first of all, his personal whim. He will drag it out for as long as he can. If Putin does not come, the war will end with a 99 percent probability. But no one knows how long he will stay in power. He may explode tomorrow, or he may sit in a bunker for another 15 years, over documents. It is impossible to predict. Putin's "guests" are resting on the resources to continue the war. Before Trump's attack on Iran, there was a certain glimmer of hope here - at the beginning of 2026, Russian resources were on the verge of exhaustion. Statistics for January and February showed a financial disaster. Due to the huge budget deficit, it had to be reduced by 10 percent already in early March. Almost all sectors of the Russian economy experienced a sharp decline. There was no longer enough money even for military orders, and some defense plants reduced production. Everything indicated that Putin would soon have to put the war on hold, and this gave hope for a ceasefire this year. But here the US president came to the rescue, who lifted sanctions on Russian oil. Now Russia is likely to correct its situation and crawl out of the financial abyss. What effect this will have depends on the duration of the war in Iran and whether Donald Trump will return sanctions on Russian oil. And of course, Putin could not have gone to war with Ukraine if this idea was completely unpopular in Russian society. That is why they tried here - for many years propaganda dehumanized Ukrainians, promoted the idea that neither Ukrainian culture nor the Ukrainian language actually exists, that we were all invented by a German spy Lenin to harm Russia, and that it is a matter of honor for Russia to destroy us all or force us to be Russian. As a result, in 2022, the "fraternal people" overwhelmingly supported the invasion of Ukraine.
However, four years later, the idea of continuing the war and occupying Ukraine has much less support among Russians. Now, even on pro-war Z-channels, mass fatigue from the positional meat grinder is obvious. Many directly write that the war has lost its meaning and has exhausted itself. That a positional stalemate has occurred on the front because of drones, Russia is suffering huge losses. It is impossible to attack, and it is pointless to fill the landing sites with corpses for the fifth year. Even pro-government Z-bloggers admit that the goals of the "SVO" declared by Putin are unattainable and that it is time to stop the war. We have analyzed and quoted many such posts and statements on our YouTube.
No dictator will be able to wage war when the overwhelming majority of the population opposes him, if he cares at least a little about the stability of his power. No dictatorship is successful without the support of a significant part of society. Therefore, Putin will be forced to stop the war if "his" become completely unpopular (ideally, it is necessary to achieve such an effect that the population of the Russian Federation is horrified by the very mention of war with Ukraine, so that no one even looks in that direction).
When the limit for the second and third points is reached, then real steps towards peace can be expected from Putin. For now, we see some enlightenment. There are tendencies towards resource depletion and increased war fatigue, but not so significant as to stop the war-obsessed Russian president.
As for the surrender of Donbass or any concessions in reducing the Ukrainian army, discussing these as real steps towards peace is simply ridiculous. A madman who dreams of Polovtsy and 15th-century maps on which "there is no Ukraine" will never be satisfied with any Krmatorsk. And he will come up with 10 new reasons for the further continuation of the war. Only a complete ignoramus who knows and understands nothing about modern Russia can believe that Putin can be appeased by Kramatorsk or Druzhivka, and that he is fighting to occupy only a few districts of the Donetsk region and separate from us.