Alex Krainer:
Two months ago, Putin articulated a specific plan for ending the Ukraine war, encompassing the following six requiremens:

New parliamentary elections in Ukraine

Appointment of an acting president to replace Volodymyr Zelensky

Referenda (it is not clear what kinds of referenda are planned)

Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) forms a new government

Constitutional amendments needed to conclude peace (the current constitution prohibits negotiations with Russia and enshrines Ukraine’s aspiration to become a NATO member country) and affirm Ukraine’s neutrality as per her 1991 constitution.

New presidential elections, which must be recognized and certified by the United Nations

None of the six points have anything to do with territory or with colors on military maps. They all refer to Ukraine’s system of governance and it is surprising that this point escapes both Professors Pape and Mearsheimer (and pretty much all other Western analystsI have been following).
It may be that our historical curriculum deals with narratives about military conquests, with maps and colors, to such an extent that the question of governance simply gets overlooked and our good professors and analysts devote little attention to it. Or, perhaps they do understand the importance of governance, but can’t imagine that the primitive, boorish Russians could possibly understand it.

Well, perhaps the boorish Russians do understand it perfectly well, and they are not rushed. Vladimir Putin isn’t worried about mid-term elections, being impeached, or any other deliberately contrived paralysis-inducing mechanism of Western democratic governance. He is content to humor the Western powers and see them slip-slide into bankruptcy that’s gathering - gradually at first, and then all of a sudden.

https://trendcompass.substack.com/p/russias-goals-in-ukraine-governance