This is the western perspective, but not at all the Russian one. Bar a few outspoken contradictors who are all behind bars as we speak, and a minority of silent people who don’t agree but won’t speak out, a large majority of Russian people are behind that ‘special intervention’, and also behind their leader.
It’s what it is, as Kloppo would say. 
So if a large majority of the Russian people are for the invasion of Ukraine, where do you think this ends?
There will be another mobilization and presumably in time hundreds of thousands more soldiers to the front line. Poor training, and unreliable equipment, so I can’t see them achieving a decisive victory via conventional arms. I’m sure continued horrible tactics and targeting of civilians, and infrastructure like the power grid.
But the Ukrainians are a people possessed, with right on their side and they won’t cede an inch and will continue to fight for their lives and their country.
Will Ukraine start to hit more targets on Russian soil? Will they receive the arms from America and the west to defeat Russia? At least conventionally.
Will Russia finally bring this to a nuclear threshold, as the casualties they are suffering, not to mention the huge equipment losses, are just too much to bear?
Does anyone have a considered view how it ends?
A continued and lengthy war of attrition, without a clear winner for some time to come?
Or one side or the other ratcheting it up to the point that a decisive blow, one way or another, will be landed?
That seems like a plausible end to this mess. Hopefully it happens.
I for one think that this is it. All experts who have spoken about that war have said that it will be a lengthy and ugly affair. I don’t expect this war to be finished within the next five years to be honest. Look at the war in Syria as one telling example.
Hopefully I’m wrong about that, fingers crossed, I’m thankfully no war expert…
it is hard to see this one lasting anywhere near that long, simply because it is so intense. Syria has largely been guerilla/unconventional warfare with episodes of more direct combat. Ukraine has been 8 months of almost unrelenting conventional warfare. In 8 months it is approaching a tally of about half of casualties in Syria over 12 years. In Syria, those casualties are disproportionately civilians, and killing civilians is fairly cheap and fairly easy. In Ukraine, a very large percentage of deaths are combatants, with massive losses of material on both sides. It simply cannot sustain that intensity indefinitely. Either the Ukrainians go broke or the Russians refuse to keep fighting
It’s really hard to see an end to this and what ever the end is there will be dissatified all around.
My thinking is that Ukraine has to take the crimean peninsula. This I believe would bring the fall of Putin and a reappraisal of the situation. Then again the west doesn’t seem to want to see the fall of Putin and we need to ask why?
The evident answer is that the west consider any replacement to Putin an even bigger threat. So all will recommence at some point as well as Russia taking an even more ‘anti’-west stance.
In the meantime Ukraine has to find the manpower and will to not just hold on but attack and eventually invade a very difficult objective. We come full circle and finish by concluding without fighting allies Ukraine is in a stalemate and in 100 years time perhaps Russia will have it’s way.
An interesting perspective from a Russian, saying whatever the result of the war Russians are fucked.
I think this war/invasion will go on for a very long time. 
Yeah, not withstanding my comment above, I don’t see it ending before Winter 2023/24 at earliest.
I had not heard about soaring crime, but it makes sense, and as he notes it can only get worse.
I think you understimate how much NATO respects nuclear weapon use. I think that is the real reason why Ukraine is not flooded with advanced weapons and why it is only incremental advances in weaponry after Russia has clearly escalated a lot more. The idea is that if Russia is gradually taxed and tired by the war without "shocking " them abruptly, they will not be pushed to use nuclear weapons. NATO, I think, fears giving them a “shock and awe”-like moment for psychological reasons I think. I think the US would not mind Ukraine getting Crimea back, but that it must only happens gradually and not too fast, so to not scare them into using nukes.
That’s what I think anyway. Now, it may not be right and even if it’s right, I am not sure it’s the correct strategy. But that NATO respects Russian nukes is obvious, despite the many battlefield losses.
As for how long the war will last, I think maybe a year, maybe more. It depends on Russia’s domestic situation when it needs to get out or not.
The problem in this war, is that it is attritional. Both Russia and Ukraine (because Ukraine has to, with only limited foreign support for offensive operations) has adopted a strategy of attrition. And it is going to take quite a while to exhaust Russia for real (a normal country would be exhausted long ago, but this is Russia and they can take some pain).
Yeah true, that level of intensity can’t be maintained for very long indeed. But it’s entirely possible that the intensity back-scales on both sides at some point, while the conflict goes on and on.
Can Russis still win a war of attrition though, like it did against the Germans in the 40’s?
the weapons used now by the Ukraine are modern, and more accurate and powerful,
Russia Casualties will will higher, as a result
we now live in a world were everything is reported, via the internet, radio and TV
If Russian deaths keep rising, at what stage do the poeple/govermeent of Russia say enough is enough? or is it worth it?
I don’t know. I don’t think so, but it is up to the domestic situation in Russia. Since they don’t need to fight this war like they had to fight WW2, one ought to think their Centre of Gravity comes far faster and that Russian civil society will not accept a 3-5 year period of pain. But as long as the West continues to support Ukraine I don’t think Russia can win. But the Russian strategy is to outlast Western aid to Ukraine and that the West will yield due to internal economic pressure (extremely high energy prices, inflation, food prices, many Western countries struggle from the consequences of the war). That is their strategy and hope anyway,. Do I think the West will outlast Russia ? I would like to hope so, but we got to be honest and also note that discontent with high energy and food prices are becoming quite high.
So I don’t know. I know what I hope for and that is for the West to continue and increase aid for Ukraine. Then, if we do that, Russia will lose, eventually. But it is really a question of Willpower and how much we are prepared to suffer as societies to help Ukraine win.
thats basically what it comes down to unfortunately.
RE: the food prices, with Russia having so many trade sanctions against it, can it substain itself and feed its citizens?
a quick search shows that in 2020, it only produced enough food to feed 42% of it population.
(although a pro Russia news agency suggests Russia is 100% self suffiecient!)
You can be sure that China will have no problem filling that food defeceit with Russia. They’re probably feeding all that Russia needs from the back door.
I don’t know much russia politics.
So i have a Question.
Is putin the emperor character he is portrayed to be or is he a puppet of some greater powers in the kremlin?
There is no greater power in Russia than Vladimir Putin … until there is.