Let’s imagine that every gun on the frontline gradually grows silent – the Russia-Ukraine war has ended. 

That would actually be nice, because in my brother’s 12 years of life, only the first six months didn’t have daily reports of losses on the eastern, southern, and/or northern fronts.

Of course, in those six months without war, the Revolution of Dignity happened. There a pro-russian authoritarian and his oligarchs killed protesters in the streets. In the minds of most Ukrainians the war started there.

If the war stops, Ukrainians will start to painfully recover from the inhumane damage done to all aspects of human lives mentally, physically, and financially. 

But what will the 2 million professional blood-thirsty maniacs with severe PTSD who serve in the Russian army do? One thing for sure – Putin doesn’t want them back home. Will they try to take over Lithuania? Will they try to punch a corridor to Transnistria through Odesa again? Will they go to North Korea to help fight South Koreans and Americans?  

Many leaders and populations are living in the same denial that Ukrainians lived in even on the eve of the invasion.

The majority seems to default to thinking about some sunny day in 2012 when in their memory everything was decently well.  We’d lift sanctions, rebuild gas pipes, reintegrate economies.

But that is not the trajectory we’re on. 

What happens after the Russia-Ukraine war ends/pauses

Wars end in one of two ways.

1. The sides stop fighting and start negotiating further coexistence.
2. The sides continue to fight until one agrees to victor’s terms (a.k.a. capitulation).

Remember the Azerbaijan-Armenia war? Still not resolved. 

After the Soviet Union fell apart, Armenia occupied parts of Azerbaijan. In several decades they got stronger and took it back. 

Armenia has accepted most demands after the defeat, over 100,000 Armenians have been deported. Now, in 2025, there isn’t fighting, the sides are finalizing the deal, but it’s still unclear when or if it will be signed. 

There isn’t a single indicator pointing to Russia wanting to end this war for good as long as the Ukrainian state exists and is independent from Moscow. This means that we’re looking at freezing the war and slowly negotiating a settlement while both sides are preparing for the final act of the conflict. 

This is made very likely by the fact that Putin has illegally added 50% more of Ukrainian territory than he controls to the Russian constitution and demands full withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the territory of a mid-size EU nation to avoid future conflicts. 

As soon as active fighting in Ukraine stops the following things are likely to happen.

1. Elections in Ukraine within a year.
2. Tough negotiations about continued military and financial support from allies who will want to focus on their electorate and future elections.
3. Ukraine is expected to play a big role in modern warfare tech development and military training for allies. 
4. Brutal recovery of the society from the war trauma. Possible electoral shock.
5. Local and international investments in the “safe” regions can amplify the difference between the North and South of the country. 
6. Active Russian meddling in the national and local politics, provocations, killing activists, volunteers, etc.
7. Ongoing provocations along the frontline and constant movement of Russian forces around the borders. 
8. Regardless of the format in which the war is frozen, the de-escalation and demobilization will not be quick or easy because nobody trusts Russians, and they don’t trust anybody either.

What happens to Europe and her allies 

The problem is that Russia has no intentions of slowing down military production, army reform, and mobilization, which is now reported to be more brutal than ever. 

After Donald Trump announces historic victory in UA-RU war and reopens the trade gates between him and Vladimir, EU will have a choice – stay principled and prepare for the war they know is coming, or close their eyes and try to start it all over again with Russians.

If the informational space isn’t brought under control and Russian/Chinese propaganda keeps pouring into democracies, it will put Europeans in a real danger of having Trump-type leaders in many more countries in a few years.

Hopefully, external forces push Ukraine, EU, UK, Canada, and other liberal democracies closer together to create a meaningful block of countries prepared to project military force on par or better than the US, China, or Russia.

Prospect of the war with NATO

Most European intelligence agencies are seriously warning their respective nations and allies that Russia is preparing for a war with “the West” before 2030.

When we think “Russia at war with NATO”, we imagine a nuclear conflict on a global scale. 

But what if it’s an attack on Estonia with its 1.37 million people? What happens then? 

Brits, French, Germans, Polish, Ukrainians, and others will gradually go to help on that front. 

But the US likely won’t. 

Especially if it’s already at war with Iran and faces a fast-approaching attack on Taiwan.

Russians think that the world was best when they defeated Napoleon and came to loot Paris. But it was also pretty dope when they looted Western Europe at the end of WWII. 

No matter the terms of any peace deal (if any), most world leaders realized that wars do not go nuclear – the conventional war with huge losses and material costs has made a huge comeback. 

We’ve only seen the first spring thunderstorm in Ukraine, giving us an idea of what this iteration of the worldwide bloodshed looks like. 

Ukrainian perspective on what is going on

If Russia can’t swallow Ukraine whole now, they will try to do a Georgia. Meaning influence elections, install puppets, infiltrate, weaken, slow down, sabotage, and prepare for the final assault. This is very similar to 2014-2022, but those precious russian-speaking regions were destroyed and over a million people were killed.

Then Russians wait for the right opportunity – unstable government (like Ukraine in 2014), distracted attention and resources, etc. Remember how before the invasion of Ukraine, russian troops were amassed on the border every couple months. But this time democracies will have to watch all the other borders they have with Russia and Belarus.

For Ukrainians, who have been in this latest bloody dogfight for the last 135+ months, it is clear that Russia has to be maintained behind a steel wall indefinitely as an imminent danger to Europe. 

Clearly, the world is drifting into two separate blocks again. These blocks may even be able to peacefully coexist for a while. But only after they have split the assets on the map. 

Ukrainians have decided to do anything possible to be on the Western side of the wall this time. Because last time Russians/Soviets occupied the country, they killed 8-10 million Ukrainians to subdue resistance (unsuccessfully). 

And why not trust Ukrainians on this? They’ve been dealing with Russian expansionism, exceptionalism, and love for genocide for 300 years. 

How Russia appeared and what it wants

In the 1720s, a Kyiv bishop, Feofan Prokopovych, decided to do a deal with the devil and try to trick the czar and take religious and societal control of the Muscovite empire. Ukrainian monks and scientists came to the Muscovite czars and sold them on a simple plan. 

1. Rename Muscovy (small swamp territory) into Russia (everything, everywhere, all at once). 
2. Allege that the Russian Empire is the direct inheritor of the state with the center in Kyiv, called Rus’.
3. Since you’re in control of the cradle of East European Christianity, you are now in effect the person carrying the torch of Constantinople as a religious center competing with Rome.

Side quest: 

• Dismantle the remaining autonomy of the Ukrainian state (Hetmanate). 
• Exterminate Ukrainian identity indicators like language and culture, as “deformed russian”.

Long story short, these greedy priests from Hetmanate wanted to take over the East Orthodox church. Instead, they have created the perfect tool for czars to control masses, justify wars, claim ownership of all Orthodox nations, and present themselves as an alternative to the decadent western civilization. 

Yes, this dumb take exists and has been pushed by muscovites since the 1720s.

The way out of war for democracies 

The war in Ukraine turned out to be a training ground for the new generation of war. New tech has changed the battlefield and all the same players from the 20th century are eager to see if they can do better than last time with the new weapons. 

Russia tried to project more confidence and strength than they actually have for centuries. In reality, this empire has suffered two major geopolitical catastrophes and weight cuts in the 20th century – when the Russian Empire and Soviet Union died. And it’s well on its way to the next one.

Both dissolutions happened rather painlessly for the people outside the borders controlled by Moscow. Both cases prove that the only thing that works is starving the Russian state until it is ready to do anything for food from the western allies. 

The good thing is that regimes like Russia’s seem to repeatedly eat themselves from the inside. 

But in the 12th year of Russia’s war on the West, they are still getting more money from energy resources that they spend on their death industry. The current trend of toxic, nationalist, strongmen leaders and isolationism isn’t helping deescalate the war ramp up we’re in. 

So if you’d like to prepare your kid for this brave new world, consider a career for them in the military industrial complex or something connected to operating drone tech – these professions are most likely to keep them from being drafted into the infantry which as always takes the worst punishment.