Kissinger Breaks Down 3 Possible Outcomes of Ukraine Crisis

"If Russia stays where it is now, it will have conquered 20 per cent of Ukraine and most of the Donbass, the industrial and agricultural main area, and a strip of land along the Black Sea. If it stays there, it will be a victory, despite all the setbacks they suffered in the beginning. And the role of Nato will not have been as decisive as earlier thought," Kissinger told The Spectator magazine.

The second possible outcome would be an attempt to drive Russia out of all Ukrainian territories gone under its control since 2014, including Crimea, in which case "the issue of a war with Russia itself will arise if the war continues", he said.

Kissinger, a veteran foreign policy scholar, came under fierce criticism for the third outcome, which he presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos in May. He said that this would be the most favorable scenario and a "substantial achievement" for NATO.

"If the Free People can keep Russia from achieving any military conquests and if the battleline returns to the position where the war started, then the current aggression will have been visibly defeated. Ukraine will be reconstituted in the shape it was when the war started: the post-2014 battleline. It will be rearmed and closely connected to Nato, if not part of it. The remaining issues could be left to a negotiation," the ex-diplomat said.

A Russian serviceman at an airfield in the area of the special military operation in Ukraine.

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Russia will have been shown that NATO can prevent such "aggression" with conventional forces; the accession of Finland and Sweden to the alliance will increase the defense possibility of the Baltic states; and Ukraine will have the largest conventional ground force in Europe linked to the block, Kissinger stated.

"For the first time in recent history, Russia would have to face a need for coexistence with Europe as an entity, rather than America being the chief element in defending Europe with its nuclear forces," he added.

Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine on February 24 in response to calls by the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics for protection from Ukrainian troops. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the op aims to "protect people subjected to genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years."