Plausable, but I will add that the peace deal will allow Putin to keep some areas that he now controls so that he can claim that he was just trying to save the citizens of those regions from atrocities at the hands of the Ukrainians. Possibly as far east as the Dnieper river.
I agree. He's got to have a face saving way out of this. And honestly the Ukrainians will probably be glad to get rid of the contested regions. They've been fighting there since like 2014 haven't they?
I will also bet that somewhere in those negotiations there's money involved in the form of guarantees from the Western alliance for post war rebuilding.
