Will the war between Ukraine and Russia end this year?

I just can't think of the incentive for Putin to end the war, unless he gets all he's demanding. The Europeans won't give him all he's demanding because they know that if they do, he'll start picking on another country and war will continue. The west doesn't want to fight Putin directly and they can't afford to give him all that he wants. Putin plays a long game and is willing to take the losses he's taking. It's a recipe for a long war.

To understand the mind of Putin, remember that East Germany, where he worked for years in the KGB, was the most Stalinist of the Warsaw Pact nations. Remember also that Putin has partnered with North Korea, the most Stalinist of the Communist nations of Asia, and that Putin has erected monuments to Stalin in Melitopol (Ukraine), Moscow, and Volgograd (by renaming their airport "Stalingrad Airport").

Now consider that to win World War Two, Stalin's strategy killed over twenty million of his subjects, and that in addition to twenty million more Soviet subjects killed in the Holodomor and other peacetime genocides by Stalin. That is, to a degree, the role model of Vladimir Putin. Yes, I am arguing that reconstituting the Soviet Union has been Putin's project ever since the Berlin Wall fell.

The one thing that is heartening here is that Putin has not enacted a draft on his power base of western Russians--meaning he's not feeling confident enough to go full Stalin. He also is not, by and large, risking his Air Force in the war, and his Black Sea fleet is safely anchored at Rostov, far from being of use.

So what we have is a person who loves Stalin, but realizes that his own situation will not allow him to take nearly as many casualties as Stalin did. My take, therefore, is that if we commit to opposing Stalinism in Moscow, and if we attempt to communicate to ordinary Russians what their "leader" is doing, Putin will stand down if we offer him an opportunity for exile instead of being hung from a lamp-post.

Unfortunately, our President does not quite understand how Putin thinks, which has made him a plaything in Putin's hands. I'm praying that this changes.