I know no one here is part of the Russian government, so I’m not expecting concrete answers here.
What I’m asking is simply what will happen if [well, when, at this point] The Ukraine ends up…falling, per se?
That’s a question in of itself really. Will Ukraine fight until the AFU collapses? Will there be a coup? Would a pro russian or neutral ukraine be established across all of what is currently the Ukraine, or will there be an attempt to make a “taiwan-ified” state in the west?
Oh yeah I agree, NATO is absolutely off the table and likely EU membership as well at this point given that EU is becoming more of a military alliance at this point. I also wouldn’t rule out total victory, once the AFU starts collapsing then there’s really not going to be any way to reverse that. At that point, Russia can dictate whatever terms it wants. I really can’t imagine Russia settling for any sort of a ceasefire, they’re going to finish this decisively.
I also don’t really see the EU being able to do much here. They can pump money into Ukraine, but they can’t solve the manpower problem or provide ammunition in volumes that would remotely make a difference. The US is needed to keep the war going, and even the US industry isn’t keeping up anymore now that the existing stocks have run down.
The collapse of the EU core states shouldn’t be ruled out either given how things are going in UK, Germany, and France right now. I actually wrote about this in some detail recently. https://dialecticaldispatches.substack.com/p/the-terminal-crisis-of-european-neoliberalism