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After more than four years of war, how will the conflict in Ukraine actually end? This video explores why a frozen front may be the most likely outcome—and why that could create serious long-term problems for both Russia and Ukraine. From economic decline and veteran reintegration challenges to NATO expansion, nuclear deterrence, and Russia’s growing dependence on China, we examine the geopolitical consequences that could shape Europe and the world for decades to come.
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SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/8PGBgKXi
After more than four years of war, how will the conflict in Ukraine actually end? This video explores why a frozen front may be the most likely outcome—and why that could create serious long-term problems for both Russia and Ukraine. From economic decline and veteran reintegration challenges to NATO expansion, nuclear deterrence, and Russia’s growing dependence on China, we examine the geopolitical consequences that could shape Europe and the world for decades to come.
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
#themilitaryshow
SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/8PGBgKXi
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00:00The war in Ukraine has been going on for more than four full years now,
00:04and everyone is trying to find the finish line.
00:08In a normal war, one side wins, one side loses,
00:11and then somehow life tries to move back toward normal.
00:16That's the version of this war's ending that most people have in their heads.
00:20But this is not a normal war,
00:22and its ending could spell doom for Russia and possibly even for Ukraine.
00:27So let's dive right into it.
00:30Rather than ending with a clean victor and a loser,
00:33the most likely outcome of the war in Ukraine is a frozen front,
00:37at least according to the French Institute for International Strategic Affairs' IRIS 2025 analysis,
00:44one that's supported by the lack of progress in the first half of 2026.
00:49Now, imagine the conflict between North and South Korea,
00:53just on a slightly bigger scale, and this time in the middle of Europe.
00:56The two sides would draw the new de facto borders,
01:00carved from what Russia could occupy of Ukraine.
01:03The lines of contact would stagnate,
01:05as neither side could commit to a full peace treaty.
01:08The reason for that is simple.
01:10Russia never achieved what it set out to do at the onset of the invasion.
01:14On the other side, Ukraine is unlikely to fully cede the territory Russia occupied,
01:19especially given that it did once before in 2014.
01:23The war will likely end, so to speak, with a short- or long-term ceasefire,
01:28depending on the geopolitical climate at the moment, when both sides exhaust their resources.
01:33But on Russia's side, the problems that were introduced before and during the war won't just disappear overnight.
01:40Instead, Russia has changed its economy, its governance, the social hierarchy,
01:45and even the Russian culture, as it's seen both internally and abroad.
01:50And it has all made Russia weaker.
01:52But let's start with what peace actually means,
01:55because Russia and Ukraine are not waiting for the same thing.
01:58In Ukraine, the Kiev International Institute of Sociology, founded in January 2026,
02:05reported in a survey conducted on February 12-24, 2026,
02:10that 57% of Ukrainians categorically reject the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from Donbass,
02:16even in exchange for security guarantees from the United States and Europe.
02:21The message from Ukraine is clear.
02:23They can accept a frozen front, only if a real security architecture comes with it.
02:28including binding guarantees, NATO alignment, and the path to membership.
02:33What they will not accept is a concession dressed up as a compromise,
02:37especially one that leaves the country exposed the next time Moscow decides the moment is right.
02:43That was already tried and didn't work in 2014 with Crimea.
02:47Russia is a different story.
02:49In December 2025, the state pollster, Vitsum, and the independent Levada Center arrived at the same headline from two different
02:59directions.
03:00Vitsum, in its year-end presentation, found that 55% of Russians linked their hopes for a better 2026 directly
03:08to the war ending,
03:09with 70% viewing the coming year as more successful than the last.
03:14Levada, which operates under a foreign agent designation and surveyed 1,618 respondents across 50 Russian regions in mid-December,
03:23found that 66% of Russians actually favor a shift to peace talks.
03:28By February 2026, Levada's pro-negotiation figure had climbed further to 67.2%,
03:36with those in favor of continued operations down to 24.3%.
03:41But there is a contradiction buried inside those numbers that matters enormously.
03:46The same Levada data shows that three-quarters of Russians believe Russia should make no territorial concessions to end the
03:53war.
03:53They want the shooting to stop, and they want to believe they did not lose.
03:57Both of those things at once.
03:59That combination is precisely why any ceasefire is such an unstable political outcome inside Russia.
04:06It gives the Kremlin something it can package as success.
04:10The state will say that it held the line, defended national interests, and stood up to NATO.
04:15But there's likely going to be another question here.
04:18Why does everything seem so much worse for Russia?
04:20Well, that question leads directly to the second problem.
04:24The same ceasefire will produce two completely different verdicts,
04:28and only one of them is survivable for the country that receives it.
04:33Are we already in World War III?
04:35Because depending on what you read, it can feel like we're living in completely different realities.
04:40And keeping up with the news isn't the hard part anymore.
04:43It's figuring out what's actually true.
04:46Take this story covered by nearly 200 sources across the spectrum.
04:49It reports the U.S. military says its blockade of Iranian ports has completely halted economic trade within 36 hours.
04:57But just one day earlier, another story, mostly covered by nearly 80 sources, most being left-leaning,
05:04said marine traffic in the Strait of Hormuz was barely affected on the first day of the blockade.
05:09So which is it?
05:11Total shutdown?
05:12Barely a disruption?
05:13Or can both be true?
05:14That divide in coverage is exactly why we use Ground News to help keep us informed on the multiple active
05:21conflicts happening around the world.
05:23If you only saw one of those headlines, you'd walk away with just one perspective and a completely different understanding
05:29of what's going on.
05:30Ground News pulls in thousands of news stories every day and organises them by topic,
05:35showing you bias, reliability and ownership for every source so you can see every angle in one place.
05:41One feature we've been using a lot lately is Blindspot.
05:45It shows you stories heavily covered by one side of the political spectrum but barely talked about by the other.
05:51No matter where you fall politically, breaking out of the echo chamber gives you a more accurate understanding of what's
05:57really happening.
05:58And that's incredibly important when it comes to breaking through the fog of war.
06:02So go to ground.news slash military show or scan the QR code for 40% off the Unlimited Access
06:09Vantage plan.
06:10And it brings the price down for less than the price of a cup of coffee.
06:14So give Ground News a shot for yourself.
06:17For Ukraine, the national story is already rewritten and it will hold regardless of where the front line freezes.
06:23Before February 2022, Western analysts still discussed Ukraine through the lens of Russia.
06:29As a post-Soviet and corrupt nation, trapped in Moscow's orbit, the little brother who could be leaned on, bought,
06:36frightened or partitioned if necessary.
06:39That viewpoint is all but gone in 2026.
06:43Even without the immediate return of every occupied territory, Ukraine can say something historically significant.
06:49A much larger state launched a full-scale invasion, committed to its destruction, deployed its largest army since World War
06:57II against it, and failed to force it back into subordination.
07:00It's the raison d'etre for Ukraine's stance on NATO and EU integration.
07:06For Russia, the same ceasefire is all about exposure and political posturing.
07:11The Kremlin solved this war as a short, righteous demonstration of greatness as the Russian Empire is trying to reform
07:17to its fullest.
07:18The invasion was called a special military operation that would be over in days, that would prove Ukraine was not
07:25a real state, and that would force the West to treat Russia as a serious power again.
07:30Instead, four years later, Russia is poorer, more isolated, dependent on China, and hated across both Eastern Europe, the same
07:38states that used to be a part of the Warsaw Pact,
07:41and unable to make a credible case that anything it built during this war was worth what it cost.
07:47Remember, Russia has the larger army, the larger population, the Soviet stockpile, the energy revenues, the nuclear arsenal, and the
07:55propaganda machine.
07:56Yet it still couldn't force Ukraine to yield, and the war turned into a colossal failure and a monetary and
08:03morale drain on the country.
08:04Economics-wise, the defense minister, Andrei Belousov, confirmed in December 2025 that Russia spent 7.3% of GDP on
08:14defense in 2025.
08:16Applied to the government's own GDP estimate for that year, that implies total military expenditure of roughly $198 billion.
08:24That's money that didn't go into infrastructure, health care, or economic modernization.
08:31Russia's GDP contracted between 0.2% and 0.5% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026,
08:38which was its first quarterly decline since early 2023.
08:42And it arrived as a shock even to Russia's own institutions, which had forecast a 1.6% growth for
08:48that period.
08:49Shortly after, the Russian government slashed its full-year 2026 GDP growth forecast from 1.3% to just 0
08:58.4%.
08:59Inflation is running at approximately 6% and continues to erode household purchasing power.
09:06Russia's central bank kept its key interest rate at multi-decade highs for an extended period to fight that inflation,
09:12which reduced civilian investment and borrowing, even as defense factories ran at full capacity.
09:18Energy revenues, Russia's primary fiscal lifeline, fell approximately 40% year-on-year in the 12 months through April 2026,
09:27driven by lower crude prices, European sanctions, and a strong ruble that squeezed export margins.
09:34In turn, Russia is implementing a VAT increase that took effect in January 2026,
09:40which effectively leaches money from medium-sized businesses to try to continue to fund the war.
09:46And for a period, the war gave Russia an artificial economic boost.
09:50Defense factories pulled in workers.
09:53Wages rose in some sectors.
09:55State television could point to production figures and call it a strength.
09:59But beneath the surface, credit became expensive.
10:02Independent speech became dangerous.
10:04Travel became harder.
10:06Prices kept rising.
10:07And even people who still supported Putin increasingly complained, when they felt safe enough to say so,
10:13that officials were lying, suppressing bad news, and hiding reality from the top.
10:19The clearest public signal of that came when Victoria Bonier, a Russian television personality,
10:24best known for reality shows and beauty content, posted a video rant about the state of Russian life
10:30that drew more than 30 million views and forced the Kremlin to respond publicly.
10:35And it wasn't because she said anything especially sophisticated,
10:38but because she was exactly the kind of person who was not supposed to say it.
10:42The Kremlin can dismiss liberals, exiles, and dissidents as Western agents.
10:47But when someone from the apolitical world of celebrity and luxury says the system is rotting,
10:53millions of ordinary Russians can recognize the mood and sympathize.
10:57That moment could have been a signal about where public sentiment actually sits,
11:01something that Putin certainly didn't want.
11:04And as for the public itself, the actual winners of the war in Ukraine
11:07aren't going to be the governments of the countries at war, but the people who took part in it.
11:12For Russia specifically, the first and most visible group here is contract soldiers and their families.
11:18In poor regions, military service became a great elevator for social and economic climbing,
11:24with wages that would rival some of the most lucrative jobs in the country.
11:27In July 2024, two years into the war, Putin signed a decree nearly doubling the federal signing bonus for recruits
11:35and recommended that regional authorities match it from their own budgets.
11:38In early 2026, the regional signing bonus reached 2.6 million rubles,
11:44or approximately $35,000 in total, in some regions.
11:49For men with fewer other options, this was wealth they'd never seen and had no other path to.
11:54The monthly salary for a contract soldier fighting in Ukraine stood at 210,000 rubles,
12:00about $2,400 back in 2025, more than double the national average wage.
12:06This pulled labor away from civilian jobs, drove wage inflation across affected regions,
12:12and created a population of families whose standard of living was entirely dependent on the war continuing.
12:18Now, before we get into that, make sure you're subscribed to The Military Show.
12:22We post analyses like these and recaps of daily events in global geopolitics, so you can be up to date.
12:29The second group is the defense industry workforce.
12:33Arms plants, drone manufacturers, electronic suppliers, and repair facilities were the ones who needed the most manpower,
12:40and the government could supply a steady stream of contracts to fulfill them.
12:43But these sectors face two major issues.
12:46One, the Russian government is notorious for underpaying for contracts,
12:50or simply failing to pay them due to being one of the few available options for manufacturers to get said
12:56contracts.
12:57Consequently, even when these manufacturers should be thriving, the Kremlin is so strapped for cash,
13:03ironically due to funding soaring military wages,
13:06that it defaults on payments for the very hardware required to sustain the war effort.
13:11The second, these sectors can't really return to normal when military orders stop.
13:16Once contracts dry up, suppliers will lose customers,
13:19and the workers who had stable employment in a booming sector
13:22will suddenly find themselves in a stagnating civilian economy.
13:26There is no planned transition, no managed conversion,
13:29no civilian production pipeline waiting to absorb them.
13:33Russia is running on a war economy without a post-war destination for it.
13:38The third group is smaller but politically louder.
13:41The ideological class.
13:43Z-bloggers, patriotic influencers, volunteer fundraisers,
13:47local fixers who learned to speak the language of war,
13:50and discovered, often for the first time in their lives, that they were important.
13:54Before 2022, many of them were nobodies.
13:58The war handed them audiences, revenue, access to power,
14:01and a sense of purpose that most of them had never had.
14:04But their relevance is entirely contingent on the conflict remaining the central fact of Russian public life.
14:10When it stops, so does their channel for fame.
14:13And people who lose status and purpose, after experiencing both for the first time, tend not to go quietly.
14:20Now on the other end of the war, Ukraine's war economy produced a different kind of winner,
14:25one that's convertible to peacetime.
14:27Drone engineers, cyber security specialists, logistic coordinators, rehabilitation workers.
14:34Ukraine is securing contracts from various western countries to share in its developments and knowledge.
14:40All those people, and all that infrastructure that Ukraine has built,
14:43can be leveraged to improve NATO as a whole, or simply sold to the highest bidder.
14:48The defense technology that Ukraine built has been battle-tested and proven to work.
14:53Meanwhile, Russian equipment has repeatedly exposed its structural inadequacies on the modern battlefield.
14:59Furthermore, Ukraine has built up supplementary sectors,
15:03defense technology, precision manufacturing, logistics infrastructure, and energy repair.
15:09And these are far more long-term prospects for continued research.
15:13Russia's war sectors are almost entirely the opposite,
15:16since they produce weapons, and when the demand for weapons falls, they produce unemployment.
15:21But the group that matters most for long-term political stability
15:24is not the influencers or the factory workers.
15:27It's the veterans.
15:29And what a state does with its veterans tells you what kind of state it is,
15:33and what kind of future it's building toward.
15:35In Ukraine, the scale alone is staggering.
15:39The German Marshall Fund reports that Ukraine already faced the challenge
15:43of supporting over 1.2 million veterans in early 2025,
15:47with projections indicating that number will rise to between 5 and 6 million
15:52once active-duty personnel rotate out.
15:54That's roughly one in every six Ukrainians.
15:58The Peace Research Institute, Oslo,
16:01estimates that up to 5 million veterans and their families
16:03will require reintegration support once the war ends,
16:07well over 15% of the country's total population.
16:11There is no historical precedent for a reintegration challenge of that size
16:15in a country simultaneously trying to rebuild from $195 billion in direct infrastructure damage.
16:22But Ukraine is something Russia doesn't.
16:25A coherent national story that gives the veterans sacrifice meaning.
16:29The men and women who served defended their homeland.
16:32They kept Ukraine alive as a sovereign state when a larger power tried to erase it.
16:37Veterans in Ukraine can become local politicians,
16:39party organizers, business owners, demining experts,
16:43reconstruction managers, border security specialists, and civic activists.
16:48Russia faces a structurally different problem, and it begins with the state's attitude.
16:54The Kremlin doesn't want veterans as citizens with agency.
16:57It wants them as decorations, while they are useful,
17:01like heroes to show off of patriotic events and state media.
17:04The model is to ship them back to their homes, track what they're doing,
17:08deploy them on theatrical appearances, and then hopefully forget about them.
17:12That's not just conjecture.
17:14Some estimates suggest that over half of veterans who return from Ukraine
17:18can't find a stable job.
17:20They're simply too shell-shocked by the war or literally injured,
17:23and yet are not receiving any kind of consistent support.
17:26The reason for this containment becomes obvious once you think about it.
17:30A Russian government that genuinely empowered veterans as citizens
17:34with their own networks, their own grievances,
17:36and their own moral authority would be creating a political force it can't control.
17:41And the Kremlin's entire political model, or more precisely Putin's,
17:45depends on controlling every significant force in Russian public life.
17:49But this comes with its own risks.
17:51These are men trained in violence,
17:53paid more than they had ever earned in their civilian lives,
17:57told at every turn that they were heroes and the backbone of the nation.
18:00And now returning to a stagnating economy that cannot pay what the front paid,
18:05in a system with no credible path for them to become anything other than former soldiers.
18:10There is no Russian equivalent of the GI Bill,
18:13no functioning rule of law that reliably protects small businesses,
18:16no credible retraining system not compromised by ideology,
18:20no political culture in which veterans are expected to participate
18:24as citizens with independent voices.
18:26When the state tries to manage that situation through surveillance and selective patronage,
18:32rather than genuine inclusion, it's not solving the problem, it's deferring it.
18:37And deferred problems among armed, organized, disillusioned men with unit networks,
18:42command habits, and contempt for civilian institutions have a way of surfacing violently.
18:46The statistics are harrowing, as over 500 civilians have been killed or injured by veterans
18:52after they returned from the front line.
18:55So then extrapolate that to the possible millions of veterans returned to economic collapse,
19:00feeling betrayed by the institutions they had fought for,
19:03and found that the existing system had no real place for them or their anger.
19:08It's a kettle just waiting to boil over.
19:10So it's clear that Russia has a long road ahead, and is quite weaker than it started.
19:16And that could be a problem for not just Russians, but potentially everyone in Europe and beyond.
19:21Back to Russia.
19:22The main issue here is that Russia, or Putin,
19:25might feel like there's nothing else to lose at this point.
19:28Let's go with the geography, because it's the foundation of everything.
19:32Russia launched this war partly to restore the buffer zone
19:35that Russian military doctrine considers essential to national survival.
19:39Ukraine was previously used as a buffer zone
19:41that the Soviet Union had between itself and a potential German offensive.
19:46This manifested in World War II, for instance.
19:49So generations of Russian military planners considered territorial buffers
19:53between the Russian heartland and hostile powers to the West as a necessity of life.
19:58And those buffers needed to be firmly subservient to Mother Russia,
20:02like Ukraine did before independence.
20:04And then the Soviet Union broke up,
20:06and Ukraine started making pro-Western moves with each passing year.
20:10The war was meant to reverse that,
20:12but it arguably made it worse in almost every measurable way.
20:15Finland's joining NATO in 2023
20:18nearly doubled the length of Russia's land border with the alliance.
20:22Sweden's succession extended NATO's presence across the Baltic Sea.
20:26Ukraine, which Putin argued in a 2021 article was not a real country,
20:31and was being turned into a weapon against Russia,
20:34has now actually become exactly that,
20:36alongside hosting a million-strong combat experience military,
20:40its own domestic missile program,
20:42with a reported range of up to 600 miles,
20:44and one of the world's most advanced drone industries.
20:47The war in Ukraine was basically a self-fulfilling prophecy,
20:51turning Ukraine into the enemy Putin thought it already was.
20:55Then there's the technology dimension,
20:58which compounds the geography problem and makes it effectively unsolvable.
21:02Even if Russia could somehow restore a territorial buffer to its west,
21:06this wouldn't solve the threat.
21:08European countries are now actively acquiring deep precision strike capabilities,
21:12driven by Russia's own violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty,
21:17and the United States' withdrawal from it in response.
21:20Russia's 2024 nuclear doctrine also becomes significant in this context.
21:26The new verbiage arguably lows the threshold for nuclear escalation
21:30to include receiving what it calls reliable data
21:33of incoming conventional weapons strikes against Russia or Belarus.
21:37This led NATO Secretary General Mark Reuter
21:40to warn the alliance's members in December 2025
21:43to prepare for a potential war with Russia within five years.
21:47Of course, it wouldn't be the first time Russia has pulled
21:50the We Will Nuke You card.
21:51It's done that dozens of times over the course of the war,
21:55every time the west thought about deepening its support for Ukraine.
21:58But a Russia that emerges from this war with depleted conventional forces,
22:02a stagnating economy, and a growing sense of encirclement
22:06might just have an incentive to actually lean on its nuclear arsenal
22:09as its primary instrument of deterrence and coercion.
22:13Russia has grown structurally, economically,
22:15and even geopolitically dependent on Beijing since 2022,
22:20with Chinese technology becoming a critical enabler
22:22of the Russian defense industry,
22:24and Chinese trade filling the gap
22:26left by collapsing European economic ties.
22:29Russia signed a major new gas pipeline deal with China
22:32in September 2025,
22:34the power of Siberia too,
22:37deepening an energy relationship
22:38that's essentially allowing Russia to continue to fund the war.
22:41But Russia is, in practice, the junior partner in that relationship,
22:46dependent on Chinese technology,
22:48Chinese markets,
22:49and Chinese diplomatic cover
22:51in ways that directly contradict its self-image
22:53as a great independent power.
22:56That dependency will deepen after the war
22:58because Russia will have even fewer alternatives
23:00when the dust settles.
23:02So, what does all of this add up to?
23:05What the war has actually produced
23:07is the deepest, most irreversible separation
23:09in the modern history of both peoples.
23:12Ukraine will emerge from this conflict
23:14wounded, exhausted,
23:15and grieving on a scale that's difficult to overstate.
23:18But it will also carry a renewed identity
23:21and international backing from Western institutions
23:24that have already committed hundreds of billions of dollars
23:26to its recovery,
23:28alongside a more than healthy defense technology sector
23:30that's internationally recognized
23:32and on par with that of the US and NATO itself.
23:35But Russia will emerge from the same conflict
23:38as a shell of a country.
23:40It will have a veteran class
23:41with no credible political outlet
23:43and every reason for resentment.
23:45The economy that was built for war
23:47and not for peace
23:48will struggle to find new ways
23:50to use and abuse its citizens for taxation.
23:53And the current leadership
23:54might even be considered good
23:56compared to what we might get
23:57if things turn so dire
23:59that Putin decides
24:00that he doesn't actually want peace at all.
24:02And to learn more about who might succeed Putin
24:05if it comes to that,
24:06make sure to check out this video
24:08and stay subscribed to The Military Show
24:10for more exciting news.
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