The climax is over. Russia has lost its last chance to end the war in a draw

The great military theorist Carl von Clausewitz in his 1832 treatise On War introduced the concept of the "culmination point of the offensive". It is so important for understanding the course of the Russian-Ukrainian war that we have to start with an extensive quote.

"There were strategic offensives that led directly to peace, but they were a minority; most of them were carried out only to the point where there were just enough forces to stay on the defensive and wait for a truce. Beyond this point, there was a turning point, a reaction. The strength of this reaction usually far exceeds the strength of the previous attack. We call this turning point the culmination of the offensive..

...we come to the firm conviction that the use of victory and advance in offensive warfare in most cases diminishes the superiority of forces with which the offensive was launched or which was won by victory.

...therefore, the superiority that is or is acquired in war is not an end, but only a means to be used to achieve the end. But it is necessary to know the point to which the advantage extends, so as not to cross it and shake hands with shame instead of new successes.".

In simple terms, this means that an army in the course of an offensive can simply break from overstretching its forces, and then the enemy will gain an advantage on the battlefield. To prevent this from happening, you need to be able to stop in time to regroup.

This rule can be applied both to a small skirmish and to the entire war. I argue that Russia had three chances to stop its offensive in such a way as to emerge victorious from the war, or at least to remain "on the right side of the line." However, Putin's stubbornness, which always chooses the worst of all possible options, finally led Russia into a dead end.

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Putin's first chance to end the war with victory was in the spring of 2022. Yes, he did not take Kyiv and did not conquer Ukraine, but he did seize considerable territory. At the same time, the most serious sanctions had not yet been imposed on Russia, and the logistics of Western aid to Ukraine had not yet been established. If Putin had proposed a simple ceasefire on the contact line without additional conditions at that point, Ukraine might have agreed .

And if he had returned Kherson in exchange for a written truce, it would have been a victory in the war. Russia would have gained the entire Azov Sea region and secured Crimea and Donbas, and would have gotten off with a mild scare.

However, Putin decided to demand Ukraine's surrender in Istanbul, similar to the one that Germany was forced to make in 1918. But there was one thing: Ukraine had not lost its war. Therefore, the demands were rejected, and the fighting continued. Kyiv has regained part of Kharkiv and Kherson on its own.

The culmination point of Russia's offensive was crossed. After that, it was no longer possible to talk about a complete victory, but Putin still had a chance to get out of the war "with his own people." A ceasefire at the end of 2022 would mean that Russia would retain not only the occupied lands, but also its economy.

But instead of a truce, Putin declared mobilization, and the planned short-term conflict of extermination inevitably turned into a long war of attrition. In such a war, it is almost impossible to win "cleanly": the surrender of Germany in 1945 is the exception, not the rule, and it took the efforts of the whole world to achieve this result.

In our case, Putin has seized only a few thousand square kilometers, losing almost a million killed, wounded, missing and captured, and more than 800,000 more who fled Russia.

Yes, Putin survived Prigozhin's rebellion, but Russia will not survive the bankruptcy of its economy, just as the Soviet Union did not. Russian and Western economists can speculate over coffee about Russia's strength all they want. But just as the collapse of the USSR came as a surprise to most of them, so will the collapse of the Russian Federation.

Donald Trump recently gave Putin the third and final chance to "slip up". Yes, the Kremlin would not have returned the dead, would not have avoided sanctions, and would still have faced all the consequences of the war, from economic degradation to a surge in domestic violence among "veterans of the war." However, he would have retained what he had captured and gained a few more years of peaceful life.

But apparently, Putin has decided to push Ukraine, rejecting Trump's peace – otherwise, it is impossible to explain the missile terror, the demands to give up Zaporizhzhia and recognize Crimea. No one in the world will agree to this, which means that the war will continue at least until the fall of this year. But now the end of the war will be determined by the end of the Russian economy, which will mean the end of all of Russia.

Even today, when preparations for the last leap have just begun, the Russian budget deficit has tripled compared to forecasts. Exactly up to the amount that is in the National Welfare Fund, the Kremlin's "stash". Russia has enough money for this year, and that's it .

Unless some kind of miracle happens and oil is traded at $80-100 again, there will be nowhere to get funds for the war. Russia will never run out of cannon fodder. But the guns will very soon. And then Putin will not offer a ceasefire, but will beg for one .

In 1918, German troops stood near Paris, not French troops near Berlin. And still, Germany lost. Russia will face the same fate.