I'm curious - what's the difference between Ukraine losing and a negotiated settlement?
If you mean Russian taking all of Ukraine, it seems to me that Trump doesn't want that, or else he'd simply continue to send weaponry while Russia inexorably grinds Ukraine to dust.
That's a fair queston.
To me, a negotiated settlement is the best chance of preserving independence for as much of Ukraine as is realistically possible.
As a practical matter, the Ukrainians can't win the war in the sense of getting all their territory back. At least, not without other countries' forces joining them in actual combat -- which isn't on anybody's radar.
If the Ukrainians lose in the sense of either (1) breaking and surrendering soon, or (2) fighting on to the point of being ground to dust, Putin will move on to other targets -- the Balkans, the Baltics, Poland and Finland. Assuming he would still have the human and military resources to do that, which is another topic.
If the Ukrainians can settle, and have peacekeeping troops from NATO or Europe in place, they have a chance to salvage something.
It's unfair -- Ukraine is the victim of a clearly unprovoked aggressor. It's imperfect -- Ukraine will have to rebuild without help from the aggressor. Still, given that a true win is pretty clearly not in the cards, I see this as the best realistically-possible outcome.
And yes, I'm still irritated that Ukraine isn't drafting 18 - 24 year old men. But I'm more concerned about an emboldened Russia than I am irritated at Ukraine's personnel decisions.
