It has been nearly a 12 months now since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, sowing loss of life and destruction throughout the nation. The toll of the battle is grim: 1000’s of Ukrainian civilians lifeless, tens of 1000’s of troopers on each side killed, thousands and thousands displaced, entire Ukrainian cities and villages razed to the bottom.

As we transfer into the second 12 months, each side are making ready large-scale offensives, with tens of 1000’s of recent recruits and new refined {hardware} being despatched to the entrance line. A variety of eventualities which might be viable to a unique extent could unfold this 12 months. The one factor we are able to predict with a excessive diploma of confidence is that we’re going to see a massacre on a bigger scale than final 12 months.

Declared targets

Of their public rhetoric, each Russia and Ukraine sound assured of their victory, however they appear to outline it in numerous phrases.

The federal government in Kyiv has made it clear that its aim is the liberation of all Ukrainian territories Russia at the moment occupies, together with the Crimean Peninsula. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself has mentioned in a November interview for a Czech TV channel that when the Ukrainian military achieves victory, he’ll trip in Crimea.

Some Ukrainian officers have gone even additional, spelling out the aim of breaking the Russian Federation up. Earlier this month, the chief of Ukraine’s Nationwide Safety Council, Oleksiy Danilov, wrote in an op-ed printed within the Ukrainian information outlet Ukrainska Pravda that Russia needs to be “de-colonised”, its statehood within the present type undone, and the independence actions of assorted peoples inside its borders inspired.

The Ukrainian military has been in a position to liberate some areas, however a lot of the territory occupied within the final 12 months stays beneath Russian management. Mobilisation is occurring throughout the nation, and the Ukrainian military is getting new coaching and weapons from the West.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s initially declared targets had been to “liberate” Ukraine’s Donbas area and to “de-nazify” and “de-militarise” the nation.

The Russian military has failed to totally occupy the 2 Donbas areas, Donetsk and Luhansk, nevertheless it has seized giant chunks of two different Ukrainian areas within the south, Zaporizhia and Kherson, thus securing a land bridge to Crimea. In October, Putin signed laws formally annexing these areas to Russia.

Within the fall, the Russian authorities carried out a nationwide mobilisation marketing campaign, including some 300,000 troops to the nation’s common forces. A few of them have already been deployed on the entrance traces, as a part of the brand new Russian offensive, however most, it appears, stay within the reserves.

With this mixture of army successes and failures, the Kremlin has intentionally left its definition of “victory” in Ukraine fairly imprecise. It’s thus permitting itself a a lot wider vary of acceptable outcomes on the battlefield.

In the meantime, the West, whereas united in its ethical assist for Ukraine, has additionally been ambiguous about how the battle ought to finish. The official rhetoric from Washington, Kyiv’s largest supporter, is that it’ll assist the Ukrainian authorities and military “for so long as it takes” with the intention to safe a decisive victory over Russia. In Europe, some have been extra cautious. French President Emmanuel Macron, for instance, has mentioned that Russia needs to be defeated, however not crushed.

Ukraine has acquired near $40bn in army help from the West, round $30bn of it from the USA alone. Final month, NATO nations simply crossed yet one more of the self-imposed “crimson traces” by permitting the provides of contemporary German and US tanks to Ukraine, although in restricted numbers.

Unofficially, although, as a latest Washington Publish article suggests, the Ukrainian authorities is being warned that this 12 months it might have the final likelihood to alter details on the bottom with full Western assist earlier than the inevitable peace talks.

A latest ballot of European Union policymakers, carried out by the European Council on International Relations, exhibits that European capitals differ extensively on what consequence in Ukraine battle they see as practical. Solely a handful of the respondents seem to understand Kyiv’s “full liberation” as a probable consequence. Many anticipate that Russia will retain management over some Ukrainian territory.

Attainable eventualities

There are far too many unknowns to make any assured predictions of the place Ukraine and Russia will discover themselves after one other 12 months of carnage. However there are some eventualities that seem extra doubtless.

An amazing Ukrainian victory, as envisaged in Kyiv, can be a triumph of justice. However it’s also a Russian roulette state of affairs, as a result of Putin’s defeat, particularly the liberation of Crimea, could very nicely immediate him to make use of nuclear weapons. The destiny of humanity, on this case, might be within the fingers of 1 troubled man who has already executed the unthinkable by unleashing a large-scale battle in Europe.

Russian victory, alternatively, will imply a decisive defeat of the West and the world order upended by an aggressive autocracy. However Russia is unlikely to realize that given its less-than-impressive battlefield efficiency to this point.

Between these two extremes lies an entire vary of extra practical eventualities, primarily based on a brand new equilibrium that can emerge after this 12 months’s season of Russian offensives and Ukrainian counteroffensives.

Russia is prone to retain some Ukrainian territory, however future battles will determine how a lot and in addition how completely – or, in different phrases, at what human and financial price will probably be in a position to maintain on to them.

An essential issue is the big distinction in social expectations in Russia and Ukraine close to the result of battle. The Russian society is lukewarm about Putin’s army adventurism and territorial enlargement. It should settle for a broad vary of outcomes that aren’t manifestly humiliating or pricey.

Ukrainian expectations, alternatively, are extraordinarily inflated. Virtually any sort of compromise may threaten Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s authorities, which took a deadly gamble by refusing to implement the humiliating Minsk agreements and resolving to place up a struggle as an alternative of succumbing to Putin’s ultimatums.

For now, nearly any realistically attainable association seems to be worse for Ukraine than the phrases of the discarded Minsk agreements, which warrants the query: What had been all these huge sacrifices for? For that reason, Zelenskyy has a really robust incentive to maintain preventing.

If he doesn’t, he’s going through the specter of home backlash, all the best way to an armed coup by radical army parts and far-right militants. These fears, nevertheless, derive largely from the bellicose wartime rhetoric by radical lobbyists and opinion polls carried out at a time when folks, particularly these extra inclined to compromise, have a really robust incentive to not be sincere about their preferences.

Except their topic is Russia’s full capitulation, any viable peace negotiations will contain Ukraine ceding territory. Relying on the nation’s battlefield efficiency, this may very well be Crimea alone; Crimea and components of Donbas that Russia successfully managed previous to the beginning of the full-out aggression final 12 months; or these territories together with those who Russia seized within the final 12 months or could seize in future. Solely beneath the primary state of affairs will Ukraine be capable of declare that it has achieved victory, as in bettering its positions in comparison with these envisaged within the Minsk agreements.

What lies forward this 12 months feels very darkish. Even brushing apart the very actual nuclear menace, it’s exhausting to keep away from the nagging feeling that tens of 1000’s will die with the intention to show that it is a stalemate which is finest resolved on the negotiating desk.

The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.