GenZedong

It's difficult to say right now exactly what will happen, but all that's for certain is that the Ukrainian state as we know it has no future. Drowning in debt, depopulation, and mass privatization - the entire country being sold off to the highest bidder already, piece by piece. It's a tool for war profiteering of NATO and the broader US empire, to be discarded when it can no longer be used, and initially intended to be a tool to destabilize an adversary of Washington and Brussels, Russia, through the Maidan coup in 2014 which has failed miserably - as did a similar "escapade" proving Western incompetence in Afghanistan. A cog in the forever war machine that might serve as one of their final bastions of hope for the rotting corpse that is Western unipolarity.

Ukraine and its NATO puppet masters are facing precarity and desperation more than ever before if we speak of so-called "victory" (tbh a term that becomes vague if the entire dialectic of prolonged profiteering isn't omitted. "Winning" for the bourgeoisie can just as well mean profit maximization, obviously, which they're achieving), with Ukraine now resorting to kidnappings of random civilians on the streets for enforced draft. Russia has practically achieved most of its primary goals, and has de facto annexed and liberated eastern regions which are undergoing rapid urban renewal and restoration of vital infrastructure by Russia, gradually leading to better living standards than they ever saw under the decay and stagnation offered by Ukraine. This, combined with an end to linguistic repression (most of them are Russian native speakers), will undoubtedly be a PR boost for Moscow from the inhabitants too. Though an end to the entire proxy war is not something Russia nor Zelensky's Neo-Nazi comprador regime in Kiev can at all achieve on their own - it all rests on the core beneficiaries who orchestrated this entire ordeal to begin with: Washington and Brussels. Comprador Zelensky acts on their behalf, as we all know. With recent developments, such as the seizure of Russian assets for redistribution towards the Ukrainian war machine by Europe, and the new wave of Russophobic fearmongering campaigns in Europe intended to manufacture consent for continued war (surrounding all the drone nonsense in particular), the writing is already on the wall. "Until the last Ukrainian" isn't an outdated phrase to use.

Putting the US aside here, its European vassals, to me at least, seem really interested in prolonging this conflict - moreso than their masters in Washington. What comes to mind is Europe's own military industrial complex which has become an even bigger topic of debate after Trump was elected (noo big daddy America don't you remember the Marshall Plan?!), and this is just a personal take but I guess Ukraine can serve as a testing ground for Europe's militarization project - it'll drive massive profits, serve to manufacture consent for further welfare austerity against the still highly liberal European working class, and allow Europe to develop repressive tools and intelligence which it could hypothetically turn inwards once the contradictions of capitalism in the EU become so dire that its ruling class needs to resort to fascism to prevent mass left-wing working class uprisings as the multipolar world order rises year after year, burying Western hegemony and hacking away at their beloved imperialist superprofits.

The best answer I can provide is that this ugly proxy war will continue for at least a few more years, until NATO will be forced into admitting defeat and signing a peace treaty with Russia ("forced" how exactly? Time will tell). De jure Russian annexation of the eastern territories will certainly happen, and what will be left of Ukraine is a debt-riddled rump statelet under short-term NATO occupation, reduced in size possibly even only to the Ukrainian speaking regions of the west(?) surviving on EU grants with a Zelensky-like figurehead in power if not a pseudo-neutral comprador figure, as we have to consider that Russia would only accept a neutral state, rightfully so. Azov and its ilk might see a fate similar to other extremist proxies that were once useful to the US empire, such as al-Qaeda, Taliban and ISIS. They might even seize the rump state within no time, or be dealt with by Russia. But this is all only the tip of the ice berg, there's no knowing what further developments could take place.