I find John Mearsheimer’s prediction that Russia seeks to turn Ukraine into a inert rump state as a bulwark against NATO to be convincing. Given the apparent lack of military vitality of the west, and the indefinite delayed entry of Ukraine into NATO, the fate of Ukraine seems pretty clear. The Ukranian military command must see the writing on the wall and must also perceive NATO’s wavering material support after treating Ukranians as sacrificial pawns.
As the deceit of NATO becomes undeniable, even to Ukranians, how likely are we to see Nazis march west? What factors are involved? Imagining we see Ukraine turn on NATO, what would a NATO response look like, and what would this do to the information war? Do you think Zelelenski would still be the nominal leader at this point?
Ukraine/NATO didn’t spent >8 years of fostering (ultra)nationalism and russophobia in Ukraine only to then sell their people on “oh wait, we were brothers and sisters all along, forget about all the previous propaganda and let’s capture Poland* together”. I think it’s much more likely that NATO will slowly drop support for Ukraine by shifting the propaganda focus on new/old boogiemen like North Korea or Iran (because nuclear something something?) as a diversion of the their petro dollar losing in relevance ever so slowly.
I worry that Ukraine will remain a breeding and training ground for european neo-nazis for the time being, unless Russia is successful in demilitarization.
(*just an example)