In October 2021, President Joe Biden, CIA Director William Burns, and other top members of the US’s national security team heard a briefing from General Mark Milley that suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin might be planning to invade Ukraine. Milley outlined four possible responses: avoiding a kinetic conflict with Russia, containing the war within the boundaries of Ukraine, strengthening NATO unity, and empowering Ukraine to fight. One year later, the US and NATO have pushed all four of these red lines to their limits. Despite NATO's unity, cracks are beginning to appear, with Croatian President Zoran Milanović against sending lethal arms to Ukraine and calling the West's support for Kyiv "deeply immoral."

The Ukrainian victory scenario involves expelling Russian troops from all its territory, including Crimea and the Donbas, and seeking reparations and war crimes tribunals for Russian commanders, including Putin. However, in the early days of the war, President Zelensky hinted that both full NATO membership and the status of Crimea and Donbas were negotiable. The talks broke down because of Russian intransigence and Ukraine's increasing victories on the battlefield, which allowed Zelensky to adopt a maximalist position.

The war in Ukraine is currently in its middle phase, the struggle for advantage, with neither side interested in negotiating. Despite apparent unity in NATO's position of supplying offensive arms to Kyiv, there is a clear difference between NATO's vision of victory and Ukraine's. Zelensky insists on retaking Crimea to restore Ukraine's territorial integrity, while prominent western commentators such as retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges argue that it is strategically vital. However, retaking Crimea and the Donbas will entail a very different kind of war, one of conquest rather than liberation.