Russia is slowly grinding away at Ukraine, and appears on a path to either take the entire country or just chew off the eastern portion and stay there (at Putin’s choice). So Macron is looking forward to the West appeasing that, and returning to normalcy with Russia. Until Russia’s next aggression.
I think eventually, there'll be a ceasefire. Russia will remain a pariah nation. So let's see who's the leader who gets to replace Putin. If they have a new leader who looks to the West, they'll probably withdraw from luhansk and donbass in return to normalcy with the West. Crimea is probaby Russian though. Probably will have to consent to reparations though. 25% tax on Russian oil exports for 20 years in return for international recognization of Crimea as a province in the Russian federation. The UN will probably send peacekeepers to luhansk and donbass.
All of this depends on whether the Oligarchs get to back their man and he gets in power in the Kremlin. It could easily go into other direction where a Russian nationalist gains power and Russia continues to isolate itself for another generation. Sort of like North Korea.
Their going to appease him with it. They could have done that in the first place & kept the peace & saved lives.
Ukraine has killed over 14,000 of their Russian speaking citizens over the last decade in a slow burning civil war in the Donbas. At this point Ukraine will be lucky to keep a Black Sea port of any kind. Russia is systematically cutting them off & making them a landlocked country.
Allowing the Russian speaking majority in Donbas to rejoin Russia was always going to happen. Biden has bumbled into making it an extended bloody affair that will kill tens of thousands & see Russia in control of the entire Northern Coast of the Black Sea.
Biden is more than happy to fight for Ukraine till the last Ukrainian is dead.
Russia is mostly digging in to keep what they’ve stolen. Most of which was in the first few weeks. Meanwhile, they’ll keep burning Ukrainian books, stealing everything and deporting Ukrainians to Siberia. This is classical Russian colonization, Russification and banditry on display here.