Map of the Kievan Rus’ realm, 1015-1113 CE, of the medieval Rus’ culture in Eastern Europe. Per Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license. from Koryakov Yuri courtesy of Wikimedia.

Chris Snow, at Medium, lays out four ways that Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine may end. Excerpt:

We knew since 1986, since Chernobyl, that they were evil and dangerous but not particularly competent.

“What emerged as a result of the KGB takeover of the economy — and the country’s political and legal system — was a regime in which the billions of dollars at Putin’s cronies’ disposal were to be actively used to undermine and corrupt the institutions and democracies of the West.” Catherine Belton: How the KGB took on the West

Here are 4 possible scenarios how the war could end. I consider scenarios 2 and 3, more likely the longer the war continues into 2023.

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Scenario II:

They suffer a poverty driven crushing defeat, humiliated, and humbled Putin and his regime collapses. We see a sort of revolution in Russia. Then the war criminals would be trialed for their crimes, the empire falls apart, and its eastern regions, the Caucasus and all its remaining strongholds, including Belarus, get their independence. The Russians reform an (sic) one day the western part reintegrates with the rest of Europe.

In this scenario the western part where most Russians live would remain roughly a nation as big as Germany in population and with enough viable ports and resources to pay reparations and then become a normal country not attacking their neighbors any longer and some far-off day even an EU and NATO member

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Scenario III:

Russia continues their war relentlessly and the people of Russia never revolt until the point they truly and utterly collapse, food shortages, violence, breakdown of law and order and everything else a failed state brings with it. The different factions inside Russia: FSB, Chechens, regular army, militias, Rosgvardia, and the Wagner mercenaries turn on each other and drag Russia into a horrendous second Russian Civil War akin to 1917.

This scenario is by far the worst as it could easily spread like a wildfire to Belarus and drag us all into it in a desperate attempt to secure Russia’s remaining nukes before they fall into wrong hands.

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Overall, I just see no realistic scenario in which Russia is remaining in its current form in the long term, but maybe I am wrong and there is another option apart from the, by now, quite unrealistic scenario that Ukraine collapses and Russia gets its way after all and starts an occupation. In that scenario, Russia would simply lose hundreds of thousands of soldiers in a yearlong counterinsurgency and end up isolated and broken. The Soviet Empire collapsed in waves since 1989. This war marks the last major event of this collapse….

Glory to Ukraine!

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