Ukraine Endgame

Ukraine is running out of men, money, and ammo. It doesn't matter which runs out first, because the result will be the same: defeat.

Even if it somehow avoids running out of money and ammo, it has already run out of young men. 

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Recruitment officers in Ukraine are so desperate for new recruits that they are resorting to conscription raids on gyms and shopping centers, per The Economist.

And an unnamed senior officer told the magazine that they are now seeing 45- to 47-year-old recruits who are "out of breath by the time they reach the front line."

According to The Economist, Ukraine recently sent a platoon of 20 soldiers to fight in Donbas, with some taken from villages without notice and one older man who didn't even have time to pick up his false teeth. After just one week of being in the trenches, three had been killed and another three seriously wounded, per the news outlet.

Given the lack of recruits, "we have no choice other than to be bloodthirsty," Viktor Kevlyuk, a retired colonel, told the Economist, calling for a new mobilization strategy for Ukraine.

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As Ukraine's defenses are stretched thin, they will begin to crumble and collapse. In a year or less, they will be forced to accept a ceasefire. The only question left is how much territory they will lose in the end. 

My prediction is that Ukraine will cede the regions of Kharkiv and Dnepropetrovsk in addition to what Russia has already annexed. After that, there will be peace for maybe a decade before Russia attempts to conquer the rest of Ukraine. 

It's a tragic outcome and it could have been avoided if NATO had not steadily expanded eastward right up to the borders of Russia.

The Growth of NATO by Year

NATO is the Cold War dinosaur that refuses to go extinct. It will lumber on for as long as the US feeds it. That money would be better spent on solving America's many internal problems. In the words of the great philosopher Trump, sad!