Ukraine is Falling. The end is Near.

Thoughts and Predictions on the end of the Russia-Ukraine War.

Source: Metaculus

Since I started writing this scattered collection of thoughts and rapid predictions a day ago, the United States and Ukraine announced they are open to an immediate and complete ceasefire. This makes sense. Whether this happens is not clear—as the reasons Russia has for a ceasefire without a guaranteed favorable peace (towards them) are slim to none. Why would they given the battlefield realities and their past negotiating experiences? But, if they can all agree, I think a peace deal is coming soon thereafter (≥85%).

It will become increasingly clear over the next few days and weeks whether or not this current ceasefire offers happens—and whether that will turn into a durable peace—as Russia and the United States hold talks and we hear more from the Ukranianian leadership, both domestically and internationally. The initial signals seem positive, although nothing is guaranteed yet, especially in the short-term.

Source: X.com

Nevertheless:

🔮 Forecast: The Russo-Ukrainian War is set to end this year (~80% odds) and Ukraine will lose it (~95% odds).¹

A Stalemate no more.

Amid talk of a ceasefire, Ukraine’s front line is crumbling – writes The Economist over one month ago.

Data: Dec-23; Apr-24; May-24; Jun-24; Jul-24; Aug-24; Sep-24; Oct-24; Nov-24; Dec-24; Jan-25; Feb-25

Attrition has caught up with Ukraine. That much was and remains clear. It will only get worse. Perhaps technology such as drones and American ISR will continue delaying the collapse of the sparsely-manned front; this will be important as the war pushes past the long-fortified line. Other facts too could certainly play a role—forecasting a timing is notoriously hard.

However, barring intervention from Europe directly—which, even then, is debatable as to whether it would be enough (barring that dragging Turkey or the United States into the conflict)—the expendable resources Ukraine has to persecute this war have run out.

Most crucially is that Ukraine has run out of young, motivated, or otherwise people, and the ones they have are increasingly fleeing or worse.

[VIDEO] Bussification (snatching) in Ukraine

Related: Ukraine on alert over series of attacks on recruitment offices (El Pais)

However, Ukraine also lacks money for example. That’s why they have to rely on foreign backing for government payments and salaries, and crucially why Ukraine’s new initiative to enlist the under 25s offers an initial sign-up bonus of ~$4,750, while Russia’s was ~$22,250. Also:

• We don’t produce enough artillery shells.

• Drones can only get you so far—not to mention China is clamping down on drone technology exports.

• Russia dominates us on Ground Based Air Defense (GBAD). Are we going to give Ukraine the F-35’s necessary for perhaps changing the tide in the air battle? Who would then exploit that on the ground?

• Go back and read Gen. Zaluzhnyi’s 2023 essay written in the aftermath of the failed counteroffensive, and answer how many areas (air superiority; breaching mines; counter-battery fire; electronic warfare; defense production; logistics) have seen game-changing improvements since?

Even with advanced aircraft, without sufficient ground forces, Ukraine would struggle to capitalize on any aerial advantages. Because Ukraine lacks manpower, and the fact that any technology necessary to overcome this debilitating fact is beyond the reasonable escalation ladder at this point, the war is lost (some reflections on whether this was inevitable at the end).²

Claimed: Russian Air Force over Kursk region [March 10, 2024] Reddit [3x]

Ukraine has two paths ahead.

One is a deal; the other is destruction (or a fat-tailed outcome I’d rather not say).

A deal will be terrible, at least for Ukraine.

Whatever deal Ukraine may get—assuming they can get one—will certainly be worse than whatever deal they could have gotten pre-February 2022, April 2022, or Late 2022 to say the least (>98% odds). Ukraine will have bled for at least 28 months with nothing but blood and destruction to show for it. In some ways the peace deal with be surrender in another name.

However, Ukraine may be “allowed” to join the EU, should the EU decide Ukraine is worthy. It is possible that Russia would allow the EU to make this decision after all (50%). The initial price-tag for rebuilding Ukraine (sans military) is $524,000,000,000, and everyone knows contractors give accurate estimates. However, the EU’s push towards militarization could complicate this.

At the same time, the already-horrific demographics for Ukraine have gotten worse, especially considering who has left:

The Ukrainian refugees reaching the EU have on average been young (29.4 years), and the adults are almost exclusively women. Men between the ages of 18 and 60 have been barred from leaving the country since the start of the war. Children have been an even mix of boys and girls, whereas elsewhere such as Africa, refugee children tend to be predominately male.

An astonishing 30% to 40% of all Ukraine’s children have left the country with a caregiver and a similar share of all Ukraine’s women up to the age of 44 have gone. By contrast, only about 5% of Ukraine’s men have left.

In 1991 Ukraine’s population was 52 million; today, Kyiv rules over at most 31 million. Unfortunately, the bleak reality is that most abroad won’t return home unless forced, and the remaining population will largely be a mixture of:

1. war-weary citizens who have had to live under Ukraine’s martial law for three years, snowing many dead and permanently disabled, and who likely know at least one person who was bussified, and live in a now destroyed country;

2. ultra - far-right nationalists (e.g., Azov);

3. a cohort of traumatized, defeated, and potentially disabled veterans who will have sustained true horrors on the front-lines and have easy access to firearms and other, more serious, weaponry…

While Ukraine may be allowed to join the EU, they won’t join NATO (more on that shortly) (~98%). They will lose whatever territory they currently do not hold, sans some places where equivalent (or disproportionately in the favor of Russia) land exchanges make sense for a border / DMZ. They might get some freebies, though. Moreover, there is a chance the much-vaunted mineral deal will get them back some of that land (e.g., in exchange for more compliance on their NATO or other security demands)—but there are some problems, like where the resources are [10%, 50%].

See last two citations for sources.

At the same time, it is likely that Russia will ask for more territory than just what they currently control, given Putin’s past statements and current trajectory of the battlefield. They could get it [20%, 75%].

Related: Russian forces threaten border in effort to push Ukrainian army out of Kursk (The Guardian)

(March 10, 2025) Russian forces are trying to cross the border and gain a foothold in Ukraine’s Sumy province as they press ahead with a counteroffensive aiming to eliminate the last of Kyiv’s position in the Russian Kursk region.

On the bright-side, Russia might contribute towards their reconstruction some $300B.

All other details are minor, except elections will be required in a peace deal (~85%). After all, a referendum was already promised on a peace deal and Zelensky is overdue. Assuming Russia and the United States believe these won’t immediately trigger a civil war (~5% odds at least?), they will happen before a peace deal is fully implemented (>66%). (Before a ceasefire, not likely.) Otherwise, they will happen shortly thereafter. But Ukraine is unlikely to take a pro-Western government, deal-mandated or not (≤33%).

As for the United States—

whatever deal we can make will likely resemble or be worse than whatever deal we could’ve gotten before the war, in addition to items ranging from (near total) sanctions relief to potentially (some degree of) public image cover for the Russian Federation.

Reminder: Press release on Russian draft documents on legal security guarantees from the United States and NATO [The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation] [Archive.ph]

Of relevance here are the original treaties submitted to the US and NATO before the invasion—less so NATO than the US, and in particular Articles 4, 5, 6, and 7:

• Article 4: The United States pledges to block further NATO expansion eastward, specifically excluding former Soviet republics, and will not establish military bases or engage in bilateral military cooperation with non-NATO former Soviet states.

• Article 5: Both parties agree to restrict military deployments (including warships and nuclear/non-nuclear capable heavy bombers) outside their own national territories in areas where they could be perceived as a threat by the other, and will work to improve mechanisms to prevent dangerous military incidents, particularly at sea.

• Article 6: Neither party will deploy ground-launched intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles outside their national territory, nor in locations within their territory from which they could strike the other party.

• Article 7: Both parties commit to not deploying nuclear weapons outside their national territories, to returning any such existing deployments, to eliminating supporting infrastructure, and to refraining from training non-nuclear states in nuclear weapons use or conducting nuclear war simulation exercises.

The same Articles matter in the NATO treaty, but of unique importance:

• Article 4: Russia and NATO members as of May 27, 1997, will not deploy additional forces or weaponry in other European countries beyond what was present on that date, except in exceptional cases with the consent of all Parties to address a security threat.

• Article 7: NATO member states will not conduct military activity in Ukraine, other Eastern European states, the South Caucasus, or Central Asia, and both Russia and NATO members will not conduct military exercises above brigade level in an agreed-upon border zone to prevent incidents.

Will the final deal be worse than this? It’s possible, and it’s possible that much of the US’ recent actions re: NATO are being done to satisfy some variant of this treaty in perhaps less explicit ways (saving face goes both ways). But what I do predict, is that this deal will be worse than whatever deal we could have gotten had serious negotiations actually taken place before the war.³

The effects of this treaty will be in addition to the other effects this war has had on us, including the:

• Depletion of our current stockpiles;

• Investment in our modern procurement and production;

• Accelerated and increased attempts at global de-dollarization; and,

• Failure of a 30-plus-year foreign-policy pathway towards defeating Russia.

Ukraine needs a deal.

With Russian forces advancing and Ukrainian defenses weakening, the window for a negotiated settlement is closing rapidly. Getting a deal accepted means:

1. Russia needs to be satiated such that the incremental costs of completely defeating Ukraine (e.g., tightened sanctions, economic strain, increased battlefield lossses) are not worth it for some other set of reasons (e.g., sanctions relief, investment, public image, saving lives).

2. Ukraine(‘s leadership) accepting these terms.

What destruction means is not exactly clear,⁴ but Russia has the capability to (over the span of 1-2 years)—and ultimate strategic desire—to take:

• up to the Dnieper river, presumably including sacking Kyiv, although ultimate control of the city could be divided [ala Germany] across the River;

• across the Southern coast to Odesa, landlocking Ukraine.

After all, this tracks with the late Prigozhin’s (the founder of the Wagner Group) long-cast prediction:

Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a video interview released late Friday that it could take 18 months to two years for Russia to fully secure control of Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland of Donbas. He added that the war could go on for three years if Moscow decides to capture broader territories east of the Dnieper River.

Source: Wagner owner says war in Ukraine could drag on for years (AP News) Published 1:28 PM MDT, February 11, 2023

As discussed across sections above, barring outside intervention or, perhaps, a last-ditch-gambit involving mobilizing Ukraine’s small, treasured 18-25-aged cohort or drafting all the women (assuming that would work?)—the die is cast. Doing so would risk completely the future of the country and total stability of their economy, and moreover, the threat of such mobilization is already on the table. It is unclear turning the potential into the real will be enough, given:

Source: The Demography of War: Ukraine Vs. Russia (AEI)

Could Ukraine have won?

Just because Ukraine is bound to lose the War at this point does not mean it was destined to be as such. It is merely that the balance of factors has reached the point where barring divine (or extra-national) intervention, there is no turning around.

That being said, I don’t think the odds were ever in their favor. But Ukraine did have a chance, and those odds waxed and waned throughout the war, until dropping nearly directionally downward since the failed 2023 Ukrainian Counteroffensive. There has been no credible pipeline, infrastructure, or plan—as Zelensky loves to say—to fix these problems, either from Ukraine or its allies’ perspectives, since then.

Looking at the state of Russia at the turn of 2025 (e.g. continued, increasing inflation and reduction in FABs), events such as Prigozhin’s rebellion / coup (it’s the former), and other indicators shows how weakened the country had become by the turn of 2025.

There were also obviously many signs throughout the war that Ukraine was filled with strong, capable, and creative forces. However, it is important to note that much was over-inflated, e.g. the Ghost of Kyiv or the original 2022 Counteroffensive, which went worse than reported: Kherson was bloody and Ukraine couldn’t follow up; and Kharkiv was ultimately an orderly withdrawal—an impressive outcome to force nevertheless.

Ukraine lost the War in Bakhmut and sealed it in the Counteroffensive.

• Bakhmut et al wiped out the 2014-2022 NATO-trained soldiers from the battlefield (dead or wounded).

• Ukraine then burned through much of their recently-trained (post-invasion) NATO troops in the 2023 Counteroffensive which dragged on for months after it became clear [3-14 days after] the effort would be a dud—barring a complete re-imagination (a rapid shift from 3 axes to one).

• A large number of these remaining “elite” troops were tapped out later, incl. during Krynky and Kursk.

• This created a vicious cycle involving public opinion, motivation to join, success on battlefield, and quality of force composition.

Why did this happen (not just the manpower, but the larger situation)?

One hypothesis is that it appears the United States (and allies) basically let Ukraine run their own war (not completely—the US was obviously heavily involved). But if true, this was very dumb: Ukraine’s (post-mobilization) officer corps and general staff are of Soviet background; the country is / was corrupt; and Zelensky had no relevant experience, among other factors. What this would ultimately lead to was a war that was Soviet v Soviet. And in Soviet v Soviet, Bigger Soviet beat Smaller Soviet.

Another, potentially (related) issue is that the proxy-party to the war (the United States) was helmed by a leader fundamentally lacking the capabilities (or not empowering individuals with the requisite capabilities) to:

1. persecute a war, from a strategic, tactical, or public-opinion perspective across a whole host of domains that could take up a whole post writing up; and,

2. navigate the delicate balance that is the nuclear escalation ladder in a manner that might have allowed proper acceleration in Ukrainian force capabilities, such as that by late 2024, early 2025, they were capable of going on an offensive capable of rendering an outcome favorable to Kyiv.

Of course, many other issues happened. And, none of this is to mention the successes of Russia et al. The odds were never necessarily in Ukraine’s favor, but a lot happened to make those odds worse. That’s perhaps the most important point. But if you want to know the marginal factors that prevented the outside chance from happening, this is where it is I think.

And at this point, I don’t see how Ukraine turns it around.

Winners and Losers in the Russo-Ukrainian War

Russia has won in the Ukraine. What this means is beyond the scope and much contingent on the many ways the End actually ends. However, what seems likely to me is that:

• The overall impact on the United States of this war will be…relatively minor in the longer term, but negative; the short-term effects could be worse. The United States can likely blunt the blow given it’s still unique position in the international system, except the moral blow (I guess add it to the tab).

• The overall impact on Europe will be…bad. The overall impact on Germany will be lol…lmao even. But, maybe not that bad for either. I hope!

• The overall impact on China will be…relatively positive. The marginal difference wrt the US will be relatively significant.

• The overall impact on Belarus and Turkey will be…marginally positive.

The overall impact on Russia will be…clearly positive. Switching an economy from a war-time footing back to a consumer-based production can be tricky. Russia’s victory could be smaller than expected as a result. At the same time, however, Russia will likely want to build up some degree of a modern stockpile given their successful ramp in production and current middle class boom, and will have a lot of construction projects in the near-term. Outcomes for the Russian Federation range from minor victor pre-status quo to emergence of a great period.

However, for Ukraine, the overall impact will be beyond imagination, for the country has been led down the primrose path.

If I’m Wrong?

"I know Zelenskyy very well, and I know Putin very well, even better. And I had a good relationship, very good with both of them. I would tell Zelenskyy, no more. You got to make a deal. I would tell Putin, if you don't make a deal, we're going to give him a lot. We're going to [give Ukraine] more than they ever got if we have to. I will have the deal done in one day. One day," Trump responded. [July 16, 2023]

Most Likely Reason Wrong for “Ukraine will lose.”: If “more than they ever got” is enough to create a virtuous cycle that mobilizes the remaining groups of Ukraine’s male population (perhaps, even triggering a return of many who fled?) —> shift in battlefield balance —> navigate the escalation ladder —> ??? —> Ukraine wins. (Sure, Europe can help along the way.)

Most Likely Reason Wrong for “War ends 2025.”: Partially if the above, but also if Ukraine, supported by Europe, decides to duke the war out to the bitter end. Also some combination of true negotiations starting after one more offensive season (assuming Ukraine still holds) then some fat-tailed time delay on implementation.

Reflections on some war forecasts and predictions coming soon(ish).

1. I reserve the right to update all predictions over the first 24 hours, and I expect this forecast to have a fair bit of movement at the start. (Note: Predictions = one off…well, predictions; Forecasts = continually updated predictions. I only commit to making this one forecast in this piece, although I am convert some of the other predictions later.)

2. Because this is scattered thoughts and I want to get this out, I won’t litigate the argument that Russia can sustain this war to Ukraine’s collapse given the current realities. If enough are interested, I’ll write up a scattered thought for that. But looking at the two sides and their allies makes it clear that the two sides are in fundamentally different states of strength.

3. Yes, the Biden administration said they were giving a “serious” response that according to news outlets, but I argue that it was completely unserious in light of: a) their counter-proposal. When you view the Russian demands as serious, and an ultimatum before war, then the US basically said: go ahead.

4. I want to get this out, so thinking out what exactly Russia wants if it doesn’t get a deal it can accept is beyond the scope.