In that case this war won't be ending until one side totally loses, Russia will see Ukraine joining Nato as an existential threat.
Well, as I said some time ago in this thread, politically and militarily, this war is going to end in 1 of the 2 ways. Either
1.) Russia overrun Ukraine then install a puppet regime
2.) Russia and Ukraine settle in the negotiation table
Technically, there is a third option, and that's complete Ukrainian victory. But I would consider this either as impossible as, or even more impossible than Russia claiming complete victory and celebrate in Kyiv.
The issue here is, politically, Ukraine won't be entertaining any ceasefire unless NATO membership is on the table. Because you can talk about withdrawing Russian troop or returning the land back in Ukraine, but that just mean without any security guarantee, you won't be able to stop the Russian to try again. This is not an "if", but "when" and the next time the West may not jump in, or the Russian performance may not be so retarded. Even if this is not the case, the Ukrainian will see it like that anyway, because the trust between the 2 parties is completely gone.
Militarily, there are pretty much no way Russia can go all the way to Kyiv, Ukraine is big, even tho Russia has enormous resource, apart from getting a general mobilisation and increasing their military capability 10-fold, it would be a feat if Russia manage to conquer the entire Donbas (with the current rate, you are talking about 15-20 years just to do that), let alone cutting Ukrainian off their coast line, let alone taking all Ukrainian land East of the Dnieper. It would take so long if that is possible at all that the chance of Ukraine electing a Pro-Russia government again is more likely than the Russian troop marching in Kyiv.
On the other hand, once this current war ends, NATO is going to accept Ukraine into its organisation, there are NO WAY NATO will turn Ukraine around after we literally give them everything from hardware to doctrine to field menu to communication and intelligence protocol to fight the Russian (that literally everything, I think the only thing NATO didn't give Ukraine is warship, and I don't think even that is out of the question anymore). It would be blind, deaf and dumb if NATO let Ukraine roll back into Russian sphere of influence with all that, or worse, going to China to seek security with all that if NATO don't offer them anything.
So what would that be in the peace process? Ukraine won't negotiation unless security is guaranteed, that mean only NATO membership, Russia won't sign off to negotiation if NATO membership is on the table. So, someone gotta give, and that depends on the situation on the ground. Ukraine won't budge unless its own existence is called into the equation, if so, they might just surrender now, that mean unless Russia is able to put a major threat on Kyiv again, Ukraine won't see this as a threat and would rather to continue to fight than talk, I mean, what have they got to lose anyway? Russia is asking for province that they had NOT yet conquered; you may as well let them try instead of just giving them out for free on an empty promise. For the Russian, they won't budge unless their own line is being threaten, which mean unless some critical event happened like Ukraine retake Crimea, or roll back Donbas completely, they won't see it as anything serious to think they need to drop the bid. On the other hand, Russia cannot keep the current state for war for a long time, war cost both manpower and money, yes, Russian manpower is big, but Russian demography is that it has a lot more 40-60 group than 20-40 group to a point it was almost double
Let say this war is going to last another 20 years like how long the US last in Afghanistan, even if this is financially possible, this will wipe out the Russian 20-40 population in 20 years time, which mean if Ukraine fall in 20 years time and this war is over for Russia, if the current casualty trend continue, there won't be any 20-40 left and one report I read suggested that based on the current state the median age for Russia in 2040 is 48 years old. That mean either they would have to push the retirement age for at least a decade, or they won't have enough workforce in Russia in 16 years' time to sustain their economy. And that is what Russia looks like if they had "WON" in 20 years. And I don't think it's possible A.) They cannot last that long financially. B.) It will most definitely take them more than 20 years to win.
In the words of Peter Zeihan. Russia is "done" one way or another if they try to fight a long war in Ukraine
