Russia has worked really hard to calibrate their push so the front line will collapse all at once. If they push hard suddenly they'll break through in some places exposing their flanks. Exposed flanks get people killed. Russia isn't in a hurry.

I think Russia will get Ukraine to come to the table soon but Russia will drag out negotiations as a way to further demoralize ukraine and consolidate their gains. Think how many mass surrenders would happen if Russia Ukraine negotiations were announced.

The inevitable outcome is of course a white peace where any de facto Russian controlled territory becomes de jure

There's no real reason for Russia to do this as long as they're making progress. Any land they don't take will be immediately added to NATO once the war is over.

Europe and the US don't seem to have any significant ability to manufacture new equipment while Russia has double the tanks and triple the artillery it did in Feb. 2022. Taking it slow is working for them and I doubt they'll change it up unless Ukraine becomes so depleted that they have no ability to resist whatsoever (which is possible, but not very likely IMO).

Ukraine's going to want to close the war out before Trump arrives in office. They will want to do it while they have a supportive US administration rather than getting forced to do it by a hostile and unpredictable one.

Best approach for Russia is to grind it out without doing anything that might change the current situation. If nato commits before the US election the situation changes.

Any thoughts on a potential Western carve up? Poles invade lviv anytime soon?

the recent NATO summit asserted that Ukrainian membership was inevitable. i believe they added the caveat that they would only get in once they were not under threat. while he is a problematic favorite, i think simplicius has rightly articulated that putin wants a brand new/ re-defined security architecture, in europe if not the world, in order to get peace in the Ukraine. the west has lied too many times for anything else. so there can’t be a real peace with the current version of NATO policy.

i think it turns on who is it that you think is speaking there when NATO says ukrainian membership is inevitable. if it’s Joe Biden/ Bidenist Americans, then he’s toast in 6 months, and you can keep up the current level of pressure on the hopes of a better negotiation with a new president (winner doesn’t really matter). if it’s the European Council or NATO/ US military speaking here, then either they or their public facing statements are delusional, and russia has every incentive to maintain the slow and steady screw turning until they realize. never interrupt your enemy while making a mistake and all that.

i agree that your description is the inevitable outcome of the actual war in ukraine, but you and i have known most of that since 2022. i think the slow war/ fast war thing has an impact on how involved NATO is in the conflict, not the actual military result against the UA. if you go too fast, then NATO goes nuclear (bad) or sees it as a lost cause and stops sending free equipment to burn (bad). i’d be happy to be proven wrong by either someone else or reality, but i don’t see any benefit to accelerating the war. more dead russians, minimal change in western posture (they’ve been rattling sabres at defcon 1 for 2.5 years), and possible nuclear conflict in exchange for potentially fewer dead ukrainians is not a good deal, cruel as it might be.