The famous American research center Rand Corporation (among its customers and the Pentagon) in its report “Avoid a long war” comes to the conclusion that none of the parties in the war in Ukraine will reach an “absolute victory”. Exposure from the report is given by the Ukrainian edition of the country.ua.
Three options for the end of the war are analyzed: absolute victory, truce and political settlement. An absolute victory (like the one that the allies won in the Second World War), according to the center, is extremely unlikely. Most likely, it implies Rand, the war will end with some negotiations.
A truce in Ukraine, experts believe, froze the front line and will lead to a long -term termination of active hostilities. Russia will stop attempts to seize additional Ukrainian territories (except for those that have already been captured) and stop missile strikes on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. In this case, the Armed Forces of Ukraine would cease blows to the regions of Ukraine and Russia itself.
Unresolved territorial issues will be preserved. But they will dispute in political and economic, and not the military. Analysts write that the parties most likely will only conduct minimal trade, and the boundaries will be largely closed.
Separately studies the prospects for the use of nuclear weapons and a full involvement in the NATO war.
Both scenarios are seen by Rand unlikely. The first one says: if, nevertheless, Russia decides to inflict a nuclear blow and receives some kind of benefit from this, even if situational, it will cause great political damage and can lead to the collapse of the entire world order, including Atlantic cooperation.
for the involvement of NATO, it is said that this is not in the interests of Russia, already exhausted by the war with Ukraine. But given the existential character, Moscow gives the confrontation with the West, it can go for it. But Rand does not see the visible prospects for the success of the Russian Federation in such a confrontation.
Rand analysts note that in the interests of the United States to prevent the conflict in Ukraine – the benefits of such a scenario are inferior to negative consequences, given the risk of nuclear weapons and the direct involvement of NATO in the war.
The key obstacle to the Russian -Ukrainian negotiations is the mutual optimism of the parties in relation to their own military prospects and mutual pessimism regarding the consequences of the world.
Rand sees four tools that the United States could use to mitigate these obstacles and accelerate the movement to the negotiation process: clarifying Ukraine’s support plans, obligations to ensure the security of Ukraine after the cessation of the war, providing guarantees of Ukraine’s neutrality and establishing conditions for relieving sanctions from Russia.