No one is going to win in Ukraine

Rishu Sunak hops over to Kyiv to promise another £2.9 billion in support for Ukraine in its mighty battle with Russia and warns the world that the fight has to continue because to allow Putin to win would mean giving him carte blanche to attack other countries. This message has been repeated a million times since the Russians invaded Ukraine nearly two years ago. The words chosen by Sunak were the same used by every other western leader. It's a script set in concrete. But does anyone really believe that Putin is going to win or that Zelensky is going to win. There are going to be no winners in this war which has ground to a stalemate and it's time Kyiv's western backers accepted this truth and started thinking about ways of bringing the whole disaster to an end. A long time ago, it seems, General Mark Milley, the recently retired chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that at some stage there would have to be a diplomatic settlement because an end to the war would not be achieved by a victory on the battlefield, ie, Ukraine forcing every Russian soldier and tank out of the country. Now, months later, the situation hasn't changed. The Ukrainian counter-offensive which was intended to recover all the occupied territory hasn't worked out and even when the F-16s eventually start to operate, they are not going to make such a difference that the Russians will just give up. They stayed put when all the western tanks started to arrive. So instead of churning out the same old message and delivering more and more money to the Kyiv government, a way has to be found to change the dynamics in this war. Is any leader brave enough to come up with a proposal or will Sunak and co keep on with their "secret" visits to Kyiv and pledge eternal funding and support?