How will the conflict in Ukraine end?

The worst thing any leader can do when it comes to war is underestimate his enemy’s forces, while the second worst thing he can do is overestimate his own. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been guilty of both and consequently finds himself on the back foot in a conflict which he and his generals believed would at the outset be over in a matter of weeks, if that.

Eight months on and Russian forces on the ground are on the defensive everywhere and the offensive nowhere. The utilisation of kamikaze drones, supplied by Iran, to attack Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, particularly the country’s energy network, carries with it the whiff of desperation rather than strength.

Generals and senior officers have been sacked, replaced or killed by the dozen, while untold thousands of men have died or been maimed, and still Russia has been unable to claim victory. And this even after absorbing the four oblasts in the east and south of Ukraine into the Russian Federation.

The result is the frightening speculation surrounding the possibility of Putin ordering the use of a tactical nuclear weapon to try and regain the initiative and momentum. And this after having undertaken the mobilisation of 300,000 new conscripts to address a manpower shortage. Worryingly, in response to Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu accusing the Ukrainians of…