Ukraine is not going to give up. This war can easily last for another 10 years. Unlikely we'll see massive battles such as Bakhmut and Avdiivka. Instead both armies will be entrenched and it will be mostly drones and artillery. The war will be fought at a lower intensity.
The window is closing for a ceasefire. Trump wants it to happen by Easter.
I get the sense there will be no ceasefire without a surrender. Ukraine waited too long to deal and Putin is taking land more easily now. Ukraine can’t even rotate troops for rest, it doesn’t have enough in the trenches, which are death traps given the accuracy of modern weapons.
Maybe, but time is not necessarily on the Russian side.
They cannot afford to let the EU mobilize and perhaps even get directly involved.
This is why Russia wants a definitive end to the war, not a cease fire that is a de facto hudna to buy time for EU to mobilize and re arm the Ukraine so they can resume the fight.
They are poised for a breakthrough and the Ukrainian ability to respond to a resumption maneuver warfare is very limited.
If and when the Russians break through, the Ukrainian will have a tough time stopping them.
Both sides would probably take heavy losses but taking heavy losses to defeat the enemy and win the war is what war is about. It's a simple case of battle field economics - the Russians can incur heavy short term losses to defeat the enemy , or they can stay mired down in the grinding stalemate for years to come.
Either the Trump Administration forces the issue to obtain a new attitude with the the Zelensky regime and his foreign backers or the Russians have little choice to take the initiative and force the issue.