I think we all hope this would end tomorrow. I highly doubt this will be over in 2023. I am not necessarily a pessimistic person, but there are no guarantees left in terms of brokering a deal with the Russian Federation, and no sane NATO/EU leader that would even contemplate actually sitting with an increasingly insane dictator to re-carve whatever fractions of relationships are left between us, moreover with a RF that would be in a losing position.
The world nuclear sounds far fetched. So did this war, so did Covid in its first two-three-five weeks. At some point reality does bite however. I don't necessarily believe we're going towards a nuclear war. But we are definitely going towards a world in which everything we knew about world peace, stability and conflict is being re-drawn. Many war specialists and governments have quite simply explained the risk is at the highest it has ever been.
No rules were respected in this conflict, no old legal proceedings and deals, not even mentioning war crimes, there is no sane and genuine indicator that the little nonce would not cross another line as he has been doing for the last 8 months.
Yes, Ukraine is winning, will most likely win more. But to look at this and simply say, he won't do this because x,y,z is no longer viable. He's been doing nearly everything he wanted. No reason to stop now.
