• Our core forecast is that Russia’s war in Ukraine will be a protracted conflict, proceeding with varying degrees of intensity for years to come. The war will probably slowly settle into a frozen conflict.

• As things stand, peace negotiations are unlikely, as both sides perceive the war as existential, and both Russia and Ukraine will struggle to win a decisive victory on the ground.

• However, there is a high degree of uncertainty over the outlook, and we have outlined a number of alternative scenarios.

• These range from Ukraine being pressured to the negotiating table amid falling Western support, to Russia consolidating its control over eastern and southern Ukraine as Western support fades, to a humiliating defeat for Russia triggering or triggered by regime change.

Our baseline forecast remains unchanged: as exhaustion and heavy losses mount for both sides, the intensity of the conflict will gradually diminish. We expect the fighting to become concentrated in a few areas around the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, with both sides fighting for control of Crimea and parts of the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhya regions. Substantive negotiations remain unlikely, as the issues at stake are not subject to compromise: Ukraine is fighting for its right to self-determination, while being seen to win is crucial to the survival of the Russian regime.

Meanwhile, we believe that Western military, financial and humanitarian support for Ukraine will continue, in order to dissuade other powers (such as China) from making similar moves (for instance against Taiwan). However, military support is likely to decline gradually as the conflict drags on and war fatigue increases among Western publics, while the arms industry struggles to keep up with strong demand as European countries move to restock their own domestic arsenals.

Still, wars are unpredictable, and the situation could change rapidly. That being the case, we outline here our alternative scenarios for how the war could end, updated from earlier this year, and listed here in order of probability.

Alternative scenario 1—A negotiated end to the war (particularly likely if Donald Trump becomes US president in 2024)

As things stand, neither side is willing to negotiate. However, the potential election of Mr Trump (or another Republican candidate) as US president in 2024 could lead to a sharp change in policy towards Ukraine, with greater prioritisation of protectionist measures and a shift in the focus of national security policy to the Indo-Pacific. This could involve a sharp reduction or even a halt in military and other forms of support for Ukraine. In such a scenario the US could push for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, resulting in the formalisation of territorial losses. Ukraine would have little room to protest given the army’s reliance on US equipment.

This would be beneficial for Russia in two ways. First, it would allow Russia to consolidate its control over the occupied Ukrainian territories. Second, such a sudden U-turn in US policy towards Ukraine would undermine trust in US security guarantees not only in Europe but also in other parts of the world. This would support Russia’s broader geopolitical aims of undermining US and Western influence globally and embolden it to continue pursuing an aggressive, expansionist and anti-Western policy. This would further strengthen the regime of the president, Vladimir Putin, and open the door to future long-term instability driven by unpredictable foreign policy decisions from the Kremlin. If such talks were to happen, they would determine Ukraine’s borders, with fierce debates around the status of Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia annexed illegally in 2014.

Alternative scenario 2—Russia seizes more of eastern and southern Ukraine

This scenario could materialise if Russia ramps up domestic arms production, through successful evasion of sanctions, and mobilises even more personnel to the front. Another trigger for this scenario could be a sharp reduction in Western support for Ukraine. A fall in US military support for Ukraine, such that other Western allies were unable to make up the shortfall, could lead to Russia fully occupying eastern and southern Ukraine, namely the regions it claimed to have annexed in September 2022—Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhya. Russia could also move towards Moldova’s breakaway republic of Transdniestr and occupy Ukraine’s Odesa and Mykolaiv regions, fully closing off Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea.

By facilitating access to all of the occupied territories and beyond, such a move would make Russia’s position in the country more secure and complicate Ukraine’s ability to push back against Russian advances. These regions would become integrated into the Russian economic and political system, and a top-down Russian administrative order would be imposed, replacing local Ukrainian elites. However, this would probably result in long-term instability in these regions, as Russia would meet fierce resistance from parts of the Ukrainian population via civil unrest and guerrilla warfare.

Alternative scenario 3—Russia is defeated

Major setbacks on the ground, heavy casualties and military disarray could result in a defeat for Russia. Western sanctions are making it more difficult for Russia to finance the war and replenish its military stocks, especially for more high-tech equipment. Shortages of microchips and other weapon components could make large-scale offensives less likely and in time force a Russian retreat eastwards, at least partly restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity (possibly even to the borders prior to 2014—that is to say including Crimea).

A humiliating defeat for Russia would lead to regime change in the country, with Mr Putin unable to survive losing the war he had instigated. A coup could come from either the elite or the military. The collapse of Mr Putin’s regime could mean an immediate end to the war, amid either a domestic political crisis or a more pragmatic new leader, but it could also result in a doubling-down on the conflict from a more hawkish successor.

Another way this scenario could unfold would be if Mr Putin suddenly died or was toppled in a coup, leaving Russia destabilised and unable to maintain domestic stability or its military presence in Ukraine. Furthermore, the new leadership that succeeded Mr Putin, while still overtly nationalistic and anti-Western, could be more pragmatic about the prospects of Russia maintaining an occupying force in Ukraine over the long term, and the effects of that on the Russian economy. This scenario could therefore result in a controlled and gradual pull-back of troops and/or a negotiated end to the conflict.

The analysis and forecasts featured in this piece can be found in EIU’s Country Analysis service. This integrated solution provides unmatched global insights covering the political and economic outlook for nearly 200 countries, enabling organisations to identify prospective opportunities and potential risks.