I blogged before about the difficulty of finding a way to a ceasefire in Ukraine. Since then I think I see signs of mission creep.
Ukraine seems to be doing much better in resisting Russia than we anticipated. Ukraine is the underdog being bullied. We're seeing unusual unanimity in Europe about the war. All these factors can feed into a certain euphoria/animal enthusiasm about the war.
But I still don't see an obvious middle ground. Ukraine and its supporters obviously want to repel Russia troops and oust them from their 2022 conquests; ideally they'd like to reverse the Russian gains of 2014. Ukraine also wants compensation for the damage Russia has been inflicting on civilians, housing, infrastructure as well as justice for the war crimes they allege. Finally they want to remove Russia's ability to invade in the future.
IMHO the chance Putin would agree to that agenda is nil. So for Ukraine to achieve its war aims they need a palace revolution in Russia. Unlikely. Think of Germany at the end of WWI and the "stab in the back".
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