Scenario 1: Miracle on the Dnipro

In this scenario, we forecast the possibility—seen as remote in early March—of an unexpectedly strong Ukrainian resistance forcing Russia to execute a swift withdrawal from Ukraine. This scenario now appears to be no miracle, as a Ukrainian battlefield victory is more likely today than it appeared in early March.

July update: Strengthened by Western sanctions against Russia and the provision of increasingly lethal military equipment, Ukraine weathers Russia’s offensive in the east. With better equipment, higher troop morale, and superior leadership and tactics, Ukraine launches powerful counteroffensives (as they have already done around Kharkiv, where they have pushed back Russian forces to the border) and expels Moscow’s troops from occupied Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as from southern Ukraine—where they retake Mariupol and other territory along the Sea of Azov. Then, they prepare for an assault on Crimea.

Ukraine’s advances are met with increasingly strident escalatory threats from the Kremlin. Although Moscow had degraded the shock value of such threats long before through sheer repetition, both Western and Ukrainian intelligence services place greater weight on the nuclear threat this time because they believe attacking Crimea is a true red line for Moscow.

This is the moment when Russia and Ukraine reach an agreement to end the war. Ukraine agrees to stay out of NATO, while Russia agrees to respect the country’s pre-2014 borders (minus Crimea, the resolution of which is put on indefinite hold) and Kyiv’s quest for membership in the European Union (EU). Russian President Vladimir Putin nonetheless attempts to claim a victory and walks away, his attention shifting to his increasingly fragile domestic power base.