They were a year ago: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-zelenskyy-kyiv-bor...
Ukraine can win if West supplies enough weapons. Some trained manpower may be required too because Ukraine’s losses are pretty bad too. Especially if you look into most experienced ranks.
At the same time, Ukraine would loose soon if West cut off support. Ukraine would both run out of ammo and morale would be ruined.
Ukraine can be forced to take whatever peace treaty West wants.
In reality… If West was strongly in crush-Russia camp, Ukraine war escalation in February of 2022 wouldn’t have happened. Even 2014 wouldn’t have happened.
Had West went all-in, I believe the war could be ended in 24-72 hours. Close airspace over Ukraine. Put some boots on the ground. Done.
Now the question is why the war is not over yet. Nuclear scare? Economics? Corruption and blackmailing? All of those could make crappy peace treaties a thing either.
Richard N. Haass (President of the Council on Foreign Relations) would like to see as many Russians as possible killed in an Ukrainian offensive and start negotiating afterwards. (do not know wether he wants Ukrainian soldiers killed as well)
"Given the likely trajectory of the war, the United States and its partners need to begin formulating a diplomatic endgame now."
"Ukraine’s Western supporters would propose a ceasefire as Ukraine’s coming offensive reaches its limits"
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/russia-richard-haass-...
"Ukraine might still refuse the call for a cease-fire. If so, it would hardly be the first time in history that a partner dependent on U.S. support balked at being pressured to scale back its objectives."
"Another plausible outcome is that Russia would agree to a cease-fire in order to pocket its remaining territorial gains but in fact has no intention of negotiating in good faith to secure a lasting peace settlement."
My own maybe wishful thinking:
There are reasons for both sides to end the war.
Ukraine is failing more and more and Ukrainian people are suffering the most.
The cost of war is high for Russia as well and Putin's aims are limited.
Allowing them to enlarge their share then consolidate, regroup, rebuild their forces, and ease out of financial straights and better prepare to take the rest of it in a few years and once again sally forth to murder, rape, and destroy is a bargain no reasonable person would take.
If you are suggesting that we stop providing them weapons in hopes that they be more inclined to negotiate you have misjudged the situation and you would have us only condemn people to murder and horror as punishment for your failure to analyze what is ultimately a simple situation explained in simple terms by Putin's own words on the topic.
Furthermore you seem to have analyzed the article in question based mostly on the title as the shallow straw man you scoff at seems absent from the actual reporting. In fact it does a better job than you of dismissing the argument you foist upon it.
>----------------------------- “We do not have nor do we want a system where the United States government monitors private internet chats,” Glenn Gerstell, the former general counsel of the National Security Agency, told NBC on Wednesday.
On Discord, some servers already joke about the possibility of being surreptitiously infiltrated by the government. Using a word first coined on the anything-goes message board 4chan, people commonly accuse others of being “glowies” — federal agents whose out-of-place behaviors are so obvious that they practically glow.
But surveilling gamer chatrooms might also end up pushing away the same young recruits the military desperately needs, all for questionable practical gain: The internet is full of ways to anonymously share images, videos and documents. >-----------------------------
I invite you to read more of it as its actually fairly well thought out