Ukraine Politician Lists 4 Possible 'Outcomes' For How War With Russia Ends

A Ukrainian politician has laid out four possible outcomes for the war between Russia and Ukraine in 2023, including ends as extreme as each country ceasing to exist.

Ihor Zhdanov served as the Ukrainian Minister for Youth and Sports under two governments between 2014 and 2019, departing a few months after Volodymyr Zelensky was elected president. He has since gone on to co-found the Open Politics Analytical Center and also writes occasional articles for the Kyiv Post.

On Monday, he published a new piece for the outlet in which he predicted a few possible outcomes for the Russia-Ukraine War in 2023. While claiming that the conflict has four possible outcomes, he also argued that "victory for Ukraine looks more like a question of when than if."

Possible Outcomes of the Russia-Ukraine War in 2023, per Ihor Zhdanov:

Ukraine wins, restores post-Soviet borders

The first outcome that Zhdanov posited would see Ukraine win the war and achieve its "publicly declared official goal" of restoring its borders to where they were when the country gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. This would include the return of Crimea, the peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

The politician explained that this would likely be the most desirable option for Ukraine's western allies, given that it helps restore a sense of status quo. However, he also claimed that a growing number of Ukrainians saw victory in the war as "nothing less than the crushing defeat of Russia and its disintegration into separate principalities."

Either Russia or Ukraine is defeated and ceases to exist as a sovereign nation

Echoing a sentiment from his first suggested outcome, Zhdanov also suggested that the war could end with the defeat of either opposing nation. Rather than restoring past borders, these outcomes would see the losing side "[cease] to exist as a sovereign country."

The option in which Russia suffers this fate, Zhdanov argued, would be "the most desirable for Ukrainians, considering the amount of suffering Russian troops have brought to the territory of Ukraine." The inverse possibility, with Ukraine losing its sovereignty, he discussed in little detail.

"It is difficult to write about such a variant, but we cannot reject it," Zhdanov wrote.

"Half-frozen conflict"

The fourth and most neutral outcome that Zhdanov foresaw involved the possibility that the conflict in Ukraine would begin to slow down, with neither side "able to gain a decisive advantage." This would essentially turn the conflict into a sort of "cold war," which he likened to the situation in Eastern Ukraine from 2016 to just before the 2022 invasion.

This outcome would only be temporary, he explained further, with the break in fighting allowing Ukraine and Russia to bolster their military might, ahead of a restarting of the conflict that "will take place until the final victory of one of the sides."

The politician argued that continued aid from foreign allies will be needed in order for Ukraine to survive the conflict in Russia. The U.S., Germany, and France are set to send the embattled nation new shipments of light armored combat vehicles, including 50 Bradleys and 40 Marders. While the Kremlin dismissed this aid as only delaying the inevitable, other experts have claimed that they will be a versatile new tool for the Ukrainian defenders.

Newsweek reached out to foreign policy experts for comment.