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How Will the War in Ukraine End? Two Scenarios
The Trump-Putin summit in Alaska is over, and peace in Ukraine isn't yet nigh. But the two most likely endings to the Russian invasion are coming into view.
Ukraine could lose land but survive as a secure and sovereign, if shrunken, nation state. Alternatively, it could lose both land and sovereignty, falling back into Moscow's sphere of influence.
Which will come to pass—and when—is no clearer after Alaska, which disappointed hopes for a diplomatic breakthrough.
Russian President Vladimir Putin brushed off the push by the U.S. and Europe for a cease-fire that would freeze the current front line, followed by talks about control of Ukrainian territories and guarantees for Ukraine's security. Instead, Putin signaled he would continue the war until Ukraine and the West are willing to satisfy Moscow's broader geopolitical aims.
'We are convinced that, in order for the Ukrainian settlement to be sustainable and long-term, all the root causes of the crisis, which have been repeatedly discussed, must be eliminated, all of Russia's legitimate concerns must be taken into account, and a fair balance in the field of security in Europe and the world as a whole must be restored,' Putin said after the summit.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Trump arriving to address reporters on Friday in Alaska after their meeting.
Putin said Ukraine's security also should be ensured—but past talks have shown the devil is in the details.
His emphasis on 'root causes'—his standard shorthand for a litany of grievances about Ukraine's Westward-oriented political trajectory and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's expansion into central and Eastern Europe—show he hasn't given up his overarching goals of restoring Russian political sway over Ukraine, rebuilding Moscow's sphere of influence in Europe's east, and regaining the status of a global great power. That is what he went to war for in 2022.
Russia's attempt to conquer Kyiv outright failed, and is likely beyond reach. Ukraine's still-tenacious defense is limiting Russia to marginal battlefield gains at a high cost. Ukraine's hopes of fully expelling the Russian invaders have also dwindled, given the stretched state of its own army.
That leaves two plausible endings to the biggest war in Europe since World War II. Here is what they mean, and what they depend on.
Partition with protection
Ukraine's leadership has quietly come to accept that it doesn't have the military strength to get its borders back in full. Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky indicated his willingness to negotiate about territory in video calls with President Trump and European leaders—after a cease-fire that freezes the current front line.
Kyiv and European countries say they would never give legal recognition to Russia's gains, a step that would turn international law into an incentive for further conquest instead of a taboo against it. But they are signaling they would live with the reality of de facto Russian control.
Ukrainian soldiers resting in a basement last month in their country's Donetsk region, keeping out of sight of Russian drones.A Ukrainian paramedic loaded a wounded soldier into an ambulance last month.
The best-case scenario for Kyiv and its European backers is probably to limit Russia to what its forces already occupy, equivalent to about one-fifth of Ukraine's land. The Kremlin continues to insist that Ukraine retreat from areas that it claims as Russian but doesn't control—notably the Ukrainian-held part of the Donetsk region, where Ukraine holds a chain of fortified cities that Russia so far has been unable to conquer.
But the biggest question is what happens to the other 80% of Ukraine.
Kyiv and its European allies want to protect the future security and sovereignty of the remaining rump with a combination of strong Ukrainian military defenses and Western security assistance. A so-called 'coalition of the willing' led by the U.K. and France wants to deploy some of its own troops to Ukraine as a further deterrent against a future Russian attack.
European leaders are hoping that the U.S. would join security guarantees for Ukraine, and they have been encouraged in recent days by Trump's apparent openness to it. Any possible U.S. role remains unclear, however.
Such an outcome would bear a resemblance to the ending of the Korean War in 1953, which left the peninsula divided but South Korea shielded ever since, not least by American troops.
For Putin, however, a Korea-style outcome would amount to a historic failure.
He would hold 20% of Ukraine's land—swaths of it reduced to rubble—but lose the bulk of Ukraine for good, while watching Western troops protect a country he insists is a brother-nation of Russia.
A Soviet poster at a theater in the abandoned city of Pripyat near Chernobyl, Ukraine, last month.
Putin's reasons for such a climbdown might be that he fears the war is imposing unsustainable economic and political risks to Russia's internal stability—or that Russia couldn't cope with an escalation of U.S.-led sanctions. So far, though, most observers see little reason to think that is true.
'The Russian viewpoint at the moment is that this war isn't sustainable, but Ukraine is less sustainable, and by the time economic problems would force an end to the war, Ukraine will have lost,' said Janis Kluge, a Russian economy expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, a think tank in Berlin.
Trump and other U.S. officials have suggested Washington could batter Russia's economy with a crackdown on its oil revenues, via punitive tariffs on Russian oil buyers, sanctions on banking transactions, banning Russia's shadow fleet of oil tankers and other measures. Most analysts say sanctions could be tightened but major effects would take time.
And, short of Putin fearing for his own rule, it isn't clear at what point he would put economic strains ahead of his historical fixation with Ukraine and his determination to make Russia great again.
Partition with subordination
Russia's demands since its 2022 invasion have included shrinking the size of Ukraine's armed forces, limiting its weaponry and its supplies of Western armaments, and changing its political regime—including its constitution, its leadership, and its policies on language, history and national identity.
The greatest danger for Ukraine isn't just losing its east and south. It is that what remains wouldn't be able to resist a third Russian invasion, following those of 2014 and 2022. The threat could force Kyiv to show deference to Moscow's wishes about its leadership and its policies at home and abroad.
First responders covering the body of a factory worker killed in a Russian missile strike near Dnipro, Ukraine, in June.
Such an outcome would turn the surviving rump of Ukraine into a Russian protectorate, amounting to a capitulation for a nation that wants to consolidate its democracy and integrate with Europe and the West. It is this, even more than the fields and towns of Ukraine's east, that Ukrainians are fighting to prevent.
The battlefield remains the only way Putin could achieve such capitulation terms. Although Russia's forces continue to make only limited gains in terms of square miles, their main objective is to wear down Ukraine's army—and the country's will to fight.
After 3½ years of relentless war, Ukrainian troops are tired, outnumbered and discontented with their own generals. But they continue to resist. And the nature of the war—with drones increasingly dominant—favors defense over attack.
A Ukrainian soldier checking on a drone before a night mission in June.
'I don't see the Ukrainian army collapsing. But on a long enough timeline, we could get to a point where, if Ukraine fails to address its problems of force generation and force management, it might not be defeated on the battlefield, but it will grow increasingly exhausted,' said Michael Kofman, a military expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington-based think tank.
Russia's advantages in population, troop numbers and financial resources make its war effort look more sustainable than Ukraine's, most analysts say. 'But the history of this war is that Ukraine has proved adaptable and resilient,' Kofman said.
Against the odds, Ukraine has so far found ways to prolong its resistance and keep the outcome open.
Write to Marcus Walker at
How Will the War in Ukraine End? Two Scenarios
How Will the War in Ukraine End? Two Scenarios
How Will the War in Ukraine End? Two Scenarios
How Will the War in Ukraine End? Two Scenarios
How Will the War in Ukraine End? Two Scenarios
