The Russians under Putin have been chipping away at Ukraine for decades with the aim of reducing it to a rump state, which would have to depend on Russia and eventually become a province. Had they stopped at Donetsk and Crimea, they might have gotten away with it, but greed and arrogance has led Putin to try for a much larger grab. With all the new military equipment flooding into Ukraine, and the demoralized state of the Russian military, Ukraine has a good chance of regaining the lost territory. There is good evidence that Putin in unwell- cancer or Parkinson's and his death would change everything. The Russian oligarchs are really chafing at the restrictions and losses they are forced to undergo and will take that for only so long.