Hi, I'm Aranalni, and this is To the Point.

Russia's brutal war on Ukraine turns out to be as much about refugees as it is about combat.

U.S. media have played down the racial discrimination that crosses

the borders of Europe, but it's an important part of the story, too. We'll hear more about

that in a few moments. First, the possible outcomes of the most destructive event since World

War II in that part of the world, a conflict that could get worse before it gets better.

To get an assessment, a team from Foreign Policy magazine

has spoken to more than a dozen US and European officials,

to military analysts and regional experts as well.

And they've come up with five broad scenarios

of what might be in store.

Amy McKinnon is a defense and security correspondent

who's part of the team. Amy, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me, Warren. Very quickly,

you've got a bloody stalemate. You've got the partition of Ukraine, a decisive victory of one

side or the other, a peace agreement. And what you refer to as a black

swan event. And we'll find out what that means when we get there. First of all, let's talk about

a bloody stalemate. What are the chances of that? What does it mean? I think the chances of a

bloody stalemate based on our conversations with the people we spoke to for this piece are quite high,

that, you know, Russia has not been able to achieve its objectives.

You know, they thought they could go in and take Kiev incredibly quickly within a few days.

That is clearly not the case.

In fact, we're learning now that Russian defense officials are at least saying they're going to pull back

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