I am fascinated by some of the news reports and pundit commentary who insist that a Ukrainian failure means that a long, stalemated war is the likely outcome. That opinion is so stupid and so divorced from reality that it beggars the mind in trying to come up with an explanation for such nonsense. Ukraine is running out of critical weapons, such as artillery, tanks, and fixed wing aircraft — and these losses are accelerating — and Kiev has no good prospects for replacing them. Ukraine also is running out of trained manpower. How does one continue to pursue a stagnant war when the very things you require to conduct and sustain such a war are in short supply and becoming more scarce?
The Ukrainian offensive is entering its eighth day and the only things Zelensky and his generals have to show for the effort are piles of bodies and smoldering tanks and armored personnel carriers.
The thought that losing the war in Ukraine will result in a North Korea style partition is probably wishful thinking. No way is Putin going to agree to highly fortified demiltarized zone defended with NATO weapons in Ukraine. The best that can be hoped for is a Russian puppet government lording it over a demiltarized and neutral Ukraine with a big security buffer. This is the worst of all possible worlds for the US - Russia controls the country while the West (ie America) foots the bill for the outrageously high reconstruction costs of the country. Putin does not really want to control the whole Ukraine but he may decide that ocupation of Ukraine is necessary for Russian security. In this case, things are going to pretty grim in Ukraine