Ukraine fears that the war will end in a divided country like North and South Korea International

And the United States should do everything possible to support it, including, if Congress approves more funding, by providing the more advanced weapons Ukraine has requested. The slower global economic growth that our scenarios predict, along with the retrenchment and fragmentation of globalization, would be unwelcome developments for most of the world’s nations. Their future will likely involve more civil conflict and impoverishment. Although they will be reluctant to align with either the United States and its allies or China and Russia, many developing countries will probably be susceptible to Chinese influence, given China’s massive investments in regions such as Africa and Latin America. With much of the developing world on the front lines of climate change, a breakdown in global cooperation could bring less help on that score too.

But Ukraine joining NATO could itself be how the war ends, consistent with Biden’s current policy — and at a time and on terms set by Ukraine and its allies, not by Russia. Gaining security within NATO as a strong, pluralistic, democratic state would absolutely count as a victory for Ukraine — arguably as big as quickly regaining Crimea. The war in Ukraine assumed international dimensions the moment Russian armoured columns rolled across the border in February 2022. https://www.openlearning.com/u/michaelsenbishop-s2dhzs/blog/UkraineWhatWillEndTheWarHeresWhatResearchSays0 where a major nuclear power and energy exporter violated the sovereignty of a country that is a keystone of global food security was never going to be contained to just two countries.

How has the conflict changed?

The rapidity and the fury with which the United States, Europe, and major Asian economies (Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia) slapped severe sanctions on Russia almost certainly came as a shock to China’s leaders. The swift Western response will give ammunition to Chinese proponents of more fully decoupling the country’s financial system from the West. Beijing’s goals as part of its Made in China 2025 initiative to become self-sufficient in key high-tech areas, and China Standards 2035, an effort to shape trade and technology standards and rules, seem even more urgent. What follows are four scenarios for how this war could conclude and the alternative geopolitical futures that might result, transforming international relations over the course of the next two to three years. We develop scenarios not to predict the future but to help decision makers imagine what could happen next and devise ways to prevent the worst case. The only certainty about the war over Ukraine is that all existing certainties have been shattered.

• Now Xi faces deep economic malaise, with an investment-driven, state-controlled model that no longer works.









• Elsewhere, a fire broke out at a terminal of Russia's largest liquefied natural gas producer Novatek on the Baltic Sea, a regional official said on Sunday, amid reports of drone sightings in the area.









• Ukraine's resistance and willingness to fight remains strong, but — if there is a Russian offensive on the horizon as some are predicting — their fortitude will once again be put to the test.









• Given what’s at stake — not just the survival of Ukraine but of the whole international order — that would be risky.









• As such, many Ukrainians are against the war, with "no war" becoming a common slogan.

The words of Danilov and Arestovich were spoken before the Ukrainian counteroffensive began in June. This is the same percentage as in November of 2022, since the last victorious Ukrainian counteroffensive, when half of the province of Kherson was liberated. Ukraine claims it has killed more than 50,000 Russian troops, and at the end of August said it had lost nearly 9,000 military personnel since the start of the conflict. The Donbas is a mainly Russian-speaking area, and after Russia seized Crimea in 2014, pro-Russian forces captured more than a third of the region. The areas are largely in the eastern Donbas region and in the south of mainland Ukraine, as well as the Crimea peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014.

Elsewhere on the BBC

Similar attacks continued for several days and show no sign of abating in the new year. This prompted the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to warn that Russia was probably planning a prolonged air campaign aimed at exhausting Ukraine. The recent arms donations — Kyiv still wants fighter aircraft and long-range tactical missiles — are predicated on the assumption they’ll force Moscow to end its invasion and begin negotiations because military costs are too high.

Industrial-age warfare bends significant parts, or in some cases whole economies, towards the production of war materials as matters of priority. Russia's defence budget has tripled since 2021 and will consume 30% of government spending next year. With Western hesitancy bolstering Russia, and in the absence of either a coup or a health-related issue leading to Putin's demise, the only foreseeable outcome will be a negotiated settlement that for now both sides continue to refuse. For democracies, long-term consensus in support for war has always been more complicated than for autocrats with no accountability.

Leadership change

As the world’s biggest marketplace, Europe has long punched below its weight. This section examines the enduring changes in the world that are evident so far and how our scenarios could further impact the movement of these repositioned chess pieces. "We are in for a very long fight, this is not going to be short, this is not only going to be about Ukraine. ... This is probably the biggest challenge that we are seeing in Europe since World War II," he said.

• Other analysts warn of a "quagmire" — where there is no easy solution for what would likely be a heavily destroyed Ukraine, or for Russia — if an insurgency continued long term.









• The fighting has echoes of Russia's long and brutal struggle in the 1990s to seize and largely destroy Grozny, the capital of Chechnya.









• So even if there’s no ceasefire, the parties can still agree on other issues.

This, in turn, would likely weaken the regime and distract Russia from what remains of its war effort. If there was no clear successor, Mr Putin's departure could spur on a brutal power struggle among pro-war, right-wing nationalists, authoritarian conservatives and a murky anti-war movement. Mr Putin's exit would not end the war in Ukraine because the Russian leader would likely be replaced by another pro-war nationalist, Professor Clarke said. However, if the war were to drag on this year and into next year, the reasoning could change. Mr Zelenskyy has so far ruled this out as a possibility, proposing a 10-point "formula for peace," which includes demands for a full withdrawal from Ukraine's territory.

• Under the cover of darkness on February 24, 2022, Vladimir Putin acted on a long-held ambition, rolling his tanks across the border and disrupting the lives of 44 million people.









• One reason that countries such as Germany have been reluctant to send heavier weapons to the Ukrainians is that Berlin does not want to give Putin any pretext for escalation.









• However, a total Russian retreat could be possible if Putin were to be ousted or die.









• Some observers have suggested that continued defeats on the battlefield might result in Putin’s downfall.









• U.S. trainers continued working in Ukraine right up until the full-scale Russian invasion a year ago.

"The nightmare scenario would be that the states close to Russia double down on aid to Ukraine while those farther west decide to force a deal on Putin's terms. Then Europe itself could fracture," he says. "The document referred to in the Financial Times article is a background note written by the secretariat of the council under its own responsibility which describes the current status of the Hungarian economy," the statement by the senior EU official said. That could end up looking something like the Korean peninsula, with a demilitarised zone between Ukrainian and Russian-controlled territory, or a grinding perpetual conflict that flares up and down, eventually resulting in an uneasy truce. But to analysts, like Morris, the prospect of Putin being removed is extremely unlikely — and the chances that whoever replaces him will be less hawkish are even more remote. “There isn’t really any source of alternative power to coalesce around while Putin is healthy and alive,” said Morris. The Russian ruling elite saw the Soviet Union’s collapse merely as a reconfiguration in which former Soviet countries would “continue to be together in some way”, Popova told Al Jazeera, whereas Ukraine saw it as an opportunity to be fully independent.

• "[Russia is] facing three or four generations, 60 or 80 years, of guerilla war, because they're up against a population of 44 million people who are now completely and utterly Ukrainian men," Professor Clarke said.









• Over the past two years, the middle classes in these countries have sunk back into poverty, stoking discontent and political instability.









• Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, surrounding the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.









• And even once Russian forces have achieved some presence in Ukraine's cities, perhaps they struggle to maintain control.









• Both sides are now digging in as Moscow’s “special military operation”, which was intended to last a matter of days, grinds into another year of attritional warfare.









• The current war is different, with Western support helping Ukraine regain large parts of the territory Russia grabbed in the early weeks after last year’s invasion.

A prominent war expert says the US is on the verge of lessening its support for, or even withdrawing from, NATO - with potentially catastrophic consequences for Europe. "This is a factual paper which does not reflect the status of the ongoing negotiations. The note does not outline any specific plan relating to the [long-term EU budget] and Ukraine Facility, nor does it outline any plan relating to Hungary," it said. The Russian-installed mayor of Donetsk has reported at least three civilians have been killed in a rocket strike. Some observers have suggested that continued defeats on the battlefield might result in Putin’s downfall. After all, Russian defeats in the Crimean War in the 19th century, and losses to Japan and in Afghanistan in the 20th century, all catalysed profound domestic changes.

• Either side may act boldly if it winds up on the ropes and needs an exit strategy.









• But with Republicans poised to take control of Congress, there may be significant implications for the war.









• "The price we pay is in money, while the price the Ukrainians pay is in blood. If authoritarian regimes see that force is rewarded, we will all pay a much higher price," NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg said at the end of last year.