Any outcome short of surrender of Ukraine is an enormous headache for Putin that will likely cost him and his system dearly. They simply cannot, or they will be dead. Why? Because a million of veterans coming back and telling the stories will ask this question: „Why?“ The „Nazis“ are still in Kiev, the NATO is coming, what we got is just thousands of kilometers of ruins, what for was that? The war keeps them busy, for now. The situation is worse for Ukraine than for Russia, so it may feel like they can go on and actually win.

The same can be actually said about Zelensky, for whom any concessions to Russia mean political death too. If Ukraine loses territories forever, people will ask, why so many had to die for that. What was the plan. And blaming the West (which won‘t be 100% justified) will not help. And he may feel that now he is applying good pressure too, with those drone strikes and knocked out refineries.