I strongly recommend you read this post from the Multipolarity Substack. Here’s a concluding snippet:
Dr Powell’s model suggests that the war is rapidly nearing a tipping point. Ukraine is approaching the fulcrum beyond which the weight of the war tips its forces into rapid depletion, allowing the Russian military to start achieving much more significant territorial gains. In turn, this would lead to accelerated Ukrainian losses through the ruthless reality of the square law. This road heads toward an eventual Ukrainian collapse.
Ukraine’s effective combat power (a composite of manpower, machinery and munitions) is depleting, the model shows, at a net rate that outpaces its replenishment, while Russia’s holds steady or grows marginally. This imbalance, compounded by recent reductions in Western support, suggests a tipping point where Ukrainian force density thins below viability, triggering rapid territorial losses and operational collapse.
That could be foreclosed by, for example, Western troops from any of the various NATO countries but that in turn risks widening the war into global thermonuclear war.
Ukrainian esprit de corps makes little difference. Innovations in warfare make little difference. What matters is how many troops can be fielded by each side.
The TL;DR version: come up with a minimally livable solution quickly.
