It is striking.

Over the past few days, I have seen several news stories about the war in Ukraine, and they were all critical of the direction of the war.

Suddenly people are speaking openly of a negotiated end to the war.

U.S. and European officials have begun quietly talking to the Ukrainian government about what possible peace negotiations with Russia might entail to end the war, according to one current senior U.S. official and one former senior U.S. official. https://t.co/f8doGW2rIh

— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 4, 2023

For a long time now I have had very mixed feelings about the war in Ukraine. On the one hand, Russia is clearly the aggressor here, so I have no moral qualms about Western support for Ukraine. I also think it was wise to supply Ukraine with limited military aid in order to ensure that it would not be able to wipe the country off the map, metaphorically or literally. As long as Russia was aiming for Kiev it was crossing a red line in my view.

Not to mention the benefits of cutting Russia down to size, militarily, which was a benefit. A Russia contained within its borders rather than as a disruptive power would be a good thing.

All well and good, but the policy of unlimited support for Ukraine made no sense to me. Policy should be driven by a sense of costs and benefits, and as the costs mounted and the benefits declined–Ukraine has made little progress–the continued investment in the war started to look pretty bad. Especially as casualties, civilian and military, kept escalating.

JUST IN: CNN reports that the Ukraine war is an unwinnable stalemate, contradicting recent Biden administration statements.

John Kirby: "It's not a stalemate. They're not just frozen. The Ukrainians are moving."

Jake Sullivan: "We do not assess that the conflict is a stalemate.… pic.twitter.com/4u9H1p04oG

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) November 3, 2023

Comparisons to the trench warfare of World War I have been brought up, and not just by skeptics outside Ukraine; its top military leader has bluntly assessed the situation as one of parity, with technology preventing any kind of breakthrough.

And a military stalemate is a disaster for Ukraine; Russia has the ability to keep throwing bodies into the fight while Ukraine does not. Russia’s troops may suck, relatively speaking, but Russia has always been able to draw on its deep reserves of bodies in order to compensate for its other weaknesses.

American and European officials have brought up the idea of peace negotiations with their Ukrainian partners for the first time – this according to NBC News. pic.twitter.com/G2BzhevBsJ

— Tim Mak (@timkmak) November 5, 2023

Zelenskyy himself is 100% committed to the war, but those around him are less certain about the wisdom of fighting on without the prospect of significant gains.

Now add in this factor: a lot of the aid flowing into Ukraine is subject to what amounts to a “corruption tax,” which again even Ukrainians are forced to acknowledge.

David Sacks and the All-In Podcast discuss the TIME magazine cover story, which warns that Zelensky’s closest advisors believe that the Ukraine war is unwinnable, Zelensky is "delusional," and corruption is uncontrollable.

From @DavidSacks:

"Moreover, it goes further in… pic.twitter.com/T3iVnj8EoS

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) November 3, 2023

World attention has been ripped away from Ukraine’s war, even in Russia where the propaganda mills are spending as much or more time on the Israel-Hamas conflict than the war in Ukraine. This of course is partly due to the fact that the war has been devastating to Russia as well as Ukraine, although more in treasure and prestige than in physical damage. If Ukraine is losing, it’s not because Russia is winning. It’s just that Russia has deeper pockets of manpower upon which to draw.

A Ukrainian official just told Time Magazine that 18 months into the war, corruption is as bad as ever. “People are stealing like there’s no tomorrow," and nobody fears accountability at all.

Why are we paying for all this? https://t.co/GJstNHIt9P

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) October 30, 2023

Europeans tired of the war a while ago, but Washington kept pushing and continues to push for more funding. But the well is not infinitely deep and it’s not clear what more aid will accomplish.

Democrats will continue to back the president, no matter what he chooses to do. But skepticism among Republicans has been building, not due to any love of Putin, but because supplying Ukraine with infinite resources seems to be a bad investment. Republicans who backed the war when it bought benefits are less excited to spend money where it buys nothing but more wealth for oligarchs and more dead Ukrainians.

How Much More Will Washington Spend Bankrolling Ukraine Corruption?https://t.co/2yUlBAaqgb

— The Federalist (@FDRLST) October 31, 2023

Support for wars tends to be proportional to the likelihood of victory. As the prospect of victory recedes the enthusiasm follows.

Nobody likes long slogs with little prospect for a payoff, and there appears to be little prospect for a payoff. A few more Abrams tanks or F-16s won’t fundamentally change the war’s dynamics. World War I was finally won when Germany threw everything into a series of offensives that failed, leading to exhaustion. The Allies won almost by default, although the entry of America certainly helped.

This time around the exhausted party which threw everything into an offensive that failed is Ukraine. Like Germany in 1918, its economic and manpower reserves are nearly exhausted. Were it not for the West propping him up the war would be long over.

Biden will try to keep up his policy of unlimited support–look at the battle in Congress over the combined aid package to Ukraine and Israel–but war exhaustion is setting in here as well.

None of this means that the war will end any time soon. Chances are it won’t because the momentum is strong.

But it does suggest that the end of the war is in sight, and unless something changes it won’t be with a Ukrainian victory.