The Ukraine war is a war for survival between two aged superpowers.

European Union requires more easy to assimilate immigrants to keep growing. The only major easily accessible group of immigrants remaining is Ukrainians and Russians.

Russia itself also requires a population boost, and the only accessible manpower are Ukrainians.

If Europe loses the Ukraine war they will begin to decline within a decade.

If Russia loses the war they will begin to decline within a decade.

EU needs Russia to fall into decline to increase its power levels. Russia needs EU to lose to increase its power levels. Both these regions don't have a large enough local populace to raise their power levels without winning a conflict or two.

The current Ukraine war is a war for survival between two major powers of the world, and whoever loses is set permanently on the path of stagnation and death.

This is why I believe the Ukraine war is going to continue till the end of 2030, as it is a war of survival so no power is going to give up the region until and unless a point is reached where it costs far more to keep the region than to let go.

This is why we are going to keep seeing a scaling up of the quality of tech that Ukraine receives year on year, meanwhile the Russian side is going to keep improving on quantity of weapons over quality as the quality has already peaked.

The F-16 released in 1978. So Ukraine still has decades worth of tech transfer left available to it for military applications.

Meanwhile the US is happy with a forever war, so as far as it is concerned this is the best possible result as a forever war where Russia might almost win is a war where it wouldn't escalate to nukes, but also a war where they will lose due to tiring out from all the fighting in the end, or until they run out of people willing to fight the war for them.

Every time Ukraine loses some land it will be supplied with even better weapons. With a major chunk of dead Ukrainians and Russians, Slav culture will decline even further, and it will become even easier for the EU to assimilate these territories down the line.

Long term expectation:

Ukraine wins the war. Assimilated into EU afterwards.

Russia loses war, replaces its population with Central Asians. Many women immigrate to Europe, US, and China.