Every few weeks, the media landscape is swept by a new wave of headlines featuring a specific date for the end of the war in Ukraine. One moment it is a statement by a high-ranking official, the next a conclusion from a “seer,” then an “artificial intelligence forecast.” However, no one can predict the future. Any assessment is based on variables and probabilities. Nevertheless, military analysts and policymakers do genuinely use methods for forecasting the end of wars. DefPulse will explain the existing tools and the factors that may influence the course of the conflict.

What Methods Exist for Forecasting the End of the War in Ukraine

There are several tools that help interested parties anticipate likely trajectories. 

Expert Scenario Modeling

The most methodologically transparent approach is when a think tank constructs several trajectories of events with a probability assessment for each. One example is the annual study by the Slovak center GLOBSEC, which has been running a two-year-ahead scenario forecasting project since 2022. In its latest edition, 71 Ukrainian experts in security, defense, and diplomacy were engaged to assess seven scenarios for 2026–2027. The result is a probability distribution among the options: from a frozen conflict to the continuation of active hostilities without a political settlement.

Analytical Simulators of Negotiating Positions

Research teams (CSIS and others) develop models that identify the minimum acceptable thresholds for each party to the conflict and search for zones where these thresholds overlap — that is, where an agreement is theoretically possible. This tool is used to understand the structure of negotiations.

Indicator-Based Resource Analysis

This involves assessing each party’s capacity to continue waging war: the pace of weapons production, personnel losses, and the state of the budget. For example, Russia’s macroeconomic indicators — slowing growth, a high key interest rate, inflation above target — provide grounds for assessing how long the Kremlin can finance the war at its current level of expenditure without painful compromises in the civilian sector. However, this method answers the question “what constraints are in place” rather than “when will the war in Ukraine end.”

At the same time, there are several assessment methods that definitely cannot be considered well-grounded:

  • Statements by officials. Timelines cited by politicians and military figures are mostly elements of a negotiating position. They should be taken as a fact of the political process, but certainly not as predictions.
  • “Artificial intelligence named a date.” Language models do not have access to “secret” data. They work with public statements, news, and open analytical reports. In essence, they merely interpret expert assessments that have already been voiced.

Why Analysts Cannot Name a Date for the End of the War

All of the official approaches listed above are, to varying degrees, honest about one point: the end of a war is determined by the decisions of a limited circle of people in situations that are themselves in a state of uncertainty. An analytical forecast can outline the drivers that narrow or widen the range of possibilities — and that is where its function ends. Any scientific prediction can be halted by the personal willingness or unwillingness of a political leader to make concessions on one of the negotiating positions.

What Really Influences the End of the War

At the same time, there are several factors that genuinely influence the course of the war and its possible conclusion.

Frontline Dynamics

The rates of attrition of personnel and equipment on both sides, and the ability to hold or advance the line of contact — this is the most “material” driver: it either reinforces a party’s confidence in victory or pushes it toward the negotiating table.

The Position of the United States

Washington’s willingness to continue military, intelligence, and political support for the process remains a variable upon which the calculations of both warring parties depend.

Russia’s Economic Resilience

Slowing growth, high interest rates, inflation above target — these indicators affect how long the Kremlin can wage war at its current level of expenditure before it is forced to choose between funding the front and funding the civilian sector.

Domestic Political Resilience in Kyiv and Moscow

Each side’s willingness to make compromises without incurring domestic political consequences that would be perceived as capitulation is a factor that is rarely quantifiable but often proves decisive.

The Question of Security Guarantees

For Ukraine, this is a precondition for any territorial negotiations: the format and obligations of security guarantees directly affect whether an agreement is possible at all.

The Territorial Question

The most sensitive and currently least resolved issue: the parties’ positions on controlled and disputed territories remain far apart.

To understand approximately when the war in Ukraine might end, one should track the drivers listed above as they evolve. Each shift can either bring a settlement closer or push it further away. These are complex, multi-vector processes, but in conflicts of this kind, there are no simple solutions.

This material was prepared on the basis of the following publications: