Powerful and provocative public intellectual Niall Ferguson, under Creative Commons License from Fronteiras do Pensamento courtesy of Wikipedia

Niall Ferguson, at Time, provides a magisterial assessment of the likely end of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the aftermath.

… How many concessions should Ukraine have to make to secure an end to the hostilities? And what will it take to persuade Putin to drop his original maximalist war aims?

In the first month of the war, I suggested that there were seven questions that would determine the duration and outcome of the war. They are worth revisiting today:

1. Do the Russians manage to take Kyiv in a matter of two, three, four weeks, or never?
2. Do international sanctions precipitate such a severe economic contraction in Russia that Putin cannot achieve victory?
3. Does the combination of military and economic crises precipitate a palace coup against Putin?
4. Does the risk of downfall lead Putin to desperate measures (i.e., carrying out his nuclear threat)?
5. Do the Chinese keep Putin afloat but on the condition that he agrees to a compromise peace that they offer to broker?
6. Does the West’s attention deficit disorder with regard to supporting Ukraine kick in before any of this?
7. What is the collateral damage?

Let’s return and update the answers one by one.

…

But my sense is that peace is coming—or at least a ceasefire. It is not so much that Trump sincerely wants it, though it matters that he does. It is more that both combatants need it. In Ukraine’s case, that is not surprising, after nearly four years of heroic defense. But Russia also may finally be seeing that the costs of prolonging this war exceed the benefits.

This is not the end of the war. But it may be the beginning of the end

Slava Ukraine!