Book your ticket to happiness with Sun Express Airlines. This is John Batchelor, an excerpt from a conversation with my colleague Annettele

about Ukraine and the end of the conflict.

What will it look like?

Will Kieve accept what appears to be a victory, guarantees, and

until lays it all out and at the same time lays out how, after all of the troubles of the last two years and the rhetoric,

will a victory look like a defeat?

Here's Anatole even the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft on the end game in Ukraine?

Well, I mean it's clear that they, you know, they hear it, they can't help but hear it.

But, you know, as so often happens in war, they have nailed

themselves to, you know know the only peace they can accept is essentially

complete victory you know they're still talking about that 10-point peace, but that's not a peace plan.

You know, it demands the complete withdrawal of Russia from everywhere, including Crimea.

Reparations, war crimes trials, you can only get that if you actually win a complete victory on the battlefield.

And no serious military analysts now thinks that's possible. The Biden administration certainly doesn't. But of course people have talked themselves into a corner from which it will be very it is very difficult for them you know now to

extract themselves because you know as I've been saying since this war began

indeed even earlier, if Ukraine could settle for independence and

reasonable security in a path to the European Union, you know, with the de facto partition remaining where it is and a treaty of neutrality.

In terms of not just what Putin wanted at the start of the war but the history of the past 350 years

That would in fact be a great Ukrainian victory

A historic victory

It wouldn't be an absolute victory, but you see we I think in many ways very foolishly we've talked ourselves into a position where now because of everything that we've said that would look like a colossal defeat for Ukraine and of course defeat is very difficult to accept.

More of this later.

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