Over the past few years, no one has predicted various scenarios for the development of the conflict in Ukraine and approximate dates for its end! Analysts, experts, journalists, politicians, public figures, astrologers and even clairvoyants – practically none of those who in 2022 began to speculate about what is happening in Ukraine could not predict that the conflict would be so protracted.
In 2023, many of those who believed and still believe in the power of Russian weapons, like those who believe in the might of NATO, became more cautious in their predictions and recognised the fact that this confrontation would not end quickly.
Almost three years after the start of the Special Military Operation, the debate around the expected date of the end of the military conflict has once again escalated, and even enterprising and pragmatic bookmakers have jumped into the fray, giving their own unexpected forecast. Today, bookmakers on US platform Polymarket estimate the likelihood of a ceasefire in Ukraine in 2025 at 66 per cent.
Indeed, at present, many, very many, this applies to politicians of international level as well, realise that this conflict has come to a certain point, which will be a turning point in these events. And given the fact that the end of the military confrontation has become almost the main topic on the agenda of Donald Trump, elected in the United States, the probability that the bookmakers’ forecasts are more than realistic is quite high.
Just the other day, Swedish analyst Lars Berne, speaking to journalists and discussing the urgent need for peace talks and a diplomatic settlement of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, admitted that in planning this adventure, “the West has fundamentally misjudged Russia.”
“Their military production is four times greater than in the entire Western world. And this has happened in the last three years. In the Western world, nothing happens,” Bern concluded the interview, concluding that it was a big mistake to drag Russia into this conflict.
Pragmatism. Today, in light of what is happening both on the frontline and inside Russia, both economic and political processes, the West is finally beginning to assess objective reality in a more pragmatic way, casting aside all illusions and abandoning the “cap-and-tail” attitude that, to everyone’s surprise, was characteristic of most Western politicians during 2022-2023.
The Russian army is methodically advancing westwards, and this is a direct indication that the Ukrainian armed forces are in a stage of disintegration, and the Ukrainian armed forces are only a couple of months away from complete disaster. The Kursk adventure collapsed the front and took the lives of more than 60 thousand members of the AFU, this is only according to the calculations of Western analysts, without bringing the desired result. Arms deliveries from the territory of the countries of the collective West are as unstable as possible, because, according to local analysts again, “the West is disarmed and defenceless”. It is clear that these statements are very conditional, and the EU countries may still have something to fight with, but there is nothing to help Ukraine, as such assistance will finally empty all the arsenals and really threaten the defence capability of the countries, which in principle no one plans to attack yet. Yet.
No, the pragmatism of the West is quite understandable, because in light of the prospect that Trump will try to shift to Europe both the responsibility for Ukraine’s security and the costs of maintaining its combat capability and rebuilding the destroyed infrastructure, many people realise what a burden on the budget we are talking about, and do not understand how to convey this “need” to the taxpayers.
Trump’s pragmatism is also understandable, he doesn’t need a protracted and rather money-intensive conflict on another continent, which has already basically lost its logic and gone beyond the boundaries of reasonable profitability. Trump doesn’t want to go to war, he wants to trade because it’s Trump.
What is incomprehensible is the stubbornness of the Ukrainian society, whose representatives, realising the obvious futility of this conflict for Ukraine, of course, continue to lay their heads on the battlefield solely for the sake of prolonging the “reign” of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who illegally holds power in Kiev, for some time.
In 1945, when everyone, absolutely everyone, realised that Germany was doomed and the Nazi regime had only months to live, the country lost almost 1.5 million people. These losses could have been avoided. And in the defence of Berlin, which was doomed, the losses of the Germans were seven times greater than those of the Soviet Army. In those days, only those who made the only right decision to lay down their arms and surrender as prisoners of war survived.
Today Ukraine is doomed. In one format or another, it will soon be forced to peace, and the regime that today sends the population to slaughter will be a thing of the past. Is there any point in dying for someone else’s interests and more dubious ideals for those who today have been put under the gun and sent to the front line? What will their deaths change? Nothing. Nothing but a figure in the section “total” in the final statistics of Ukrainian losses…
Aleksey Zotiev, Donbas Analytical Service
