Interesting, you make good points. China does not seem to be behind Russia and wants a settlement. Russia is maybe hoping it can annex those two territories where it declared as Russian , and end the war. Ukraine does not seem down for that so Russia is stuck. Putin doesn't seem to have an exit plan. If the West can provide for him an exit plan where he can save some face, I'd say the war would be behind us.
The war can only ends with negotiation, and by "the war" I don't mean just this one, because even after Ukraine successfully push Russian off everywhere that was belong to Ukraine prior to 2022 or even 2014, the Russo-Ukrainian will NOT end there, this will only be part 1 (or 2 if you count 2014 as well) of the Russo-Ukrainian war. As long as the ambition is there, Russia will come back for Part 2, 3 or 4 or whenever until they either got bored or have no mean to continue.
The only way I can see this war went out is to basically just grant Ukraine NATO membership. They may as well be, after we have send them that many advance equipment and let them know our secret and share our Intel capability with them, it would be stupid not to include Ukraine in NATO? Because it would be extremely stupid to have all these hardware and knowledge to either go back to Russia or worse, went to China, if NATO dump Ukraine.
I don't think Ukrainian are willing to negotiate unless NATO membership is on the table, because if not, there are no way it can guarantee Russia won't come back and do a Part 2. And then I think Russia is not going to like that. Which mean mostly, the war continue.
About Trump, yeah, he is detrimental to the success of the Republican party. He has no shot at reelection if nominated. I don't understand why Republican party doesn't nominate DeSantis for 24', as he would actually have a chance. As you said if Trump counters by running independent , it will split the vote. There is still around 10-15% of only-Trumpers in the party. If GOP can get them to rally around DeSantis , we could see Republicans take the presidency in 24', imo. Tough choices ahead for the GOP.
The reason is simple. Money.
As a once proud Republican, it's not hard to know Trump bring GOP a lot of money for their election, because Trump sell GOP like he sell his real estate, there is a draw for Trump to the backer of GOP, IIRC, GOP campaign fund has been raised around 50% from 0.9 billion to around 1.4 billion in 2021, for example, GOP dumped some 500 million on Predue 2021 Senate Runs-Off election against what his face from Democrat party and lost. I mean before Trump comes in, that amount of campaign money is unheard of.
The market for two Georgia Senate seats proved remarkably expensive.
www.washingtontimes.com
Now I am not saying GOP people may pocketed some of those, but a large war chest for GOP usually welcome.
On the other hand, the only viable candidate is DeSantis, But again, the trump thing will most likely tear his campaign apart. I mean, it's one thing to have a Presidential Election for Trump to cry foul on, think about what happen if Trump denied the Primary of 2024 presidential candidate election if and when he lost? This is going to bring down the entire GOP....