Russia is gaining so little territory that it really doesn’t matter with regards to the overall war. The frontlines shifted single towns in the past three years, and there are still Ukrainian forces even on Russian territory. For example, one of the largest frontline movements in a straight line was from Avdiivka to Udachne in the past 18 months.

That is 70 kilometers towards Kyiv, so let’s round up to around 50 kilometers over a year. Kyiv is another 600 kilometers, so if they kept this pace, they would get there by 2037. Extrapolating their current - verified, so again a very low estimate - loss rate, it would require around 15000 more tanks, and around half a million people dead, and even more wounded, again, by a very, very low estimate done by BBC et al., these are the people they found by name.

So all this is an incredibly Russian-tilted assessment, as Avdiivka was an Ukrainian salient closed by Russians, while Udachne is a Russian salient, so this rate of advancement could not even be sustained in the vicinity of Avdiivka, much less the entire frontline. Much less while outperforming the peacetime production of the whole USSR in its heyday.

Zelensky’s administration - it is incorrect to call it his “rule”, as he has been elected in a democratic and transparent manner that anyone could audit, unlike Putin - is going to end certainly either way shortly after the war ends, and is not really a factor in ceasefire negotiations for two reasons.

One, after a definite end to the war, he only has another 5 year term at maximum, so he is not going to be a perpetual dictator like Putin, it’s more like a Churchill situation there, the country is at war so it’s impossible to hold elections The other reason is that a simple ceasefire will not make elections viable again, as the martial law will not end until the war does, so Zelensky will stay in office.

The EU is not trying to “buy up Ukraine at a discount”, they are pushing for Ukrainian EU membership, which would be mutually beneficial. On the one hand, the EU would gain massive strategic food production and a large experienced military, and further buffer area towards Russia.

Ukraine would in turn get direct security guarantees going way beyond NATO, a nuclear deterrent, and immense amounts of monetary support, as in free money intended to build up Ukraine to be a good trading partner. They would both gain full entry to each other’s markets, so in that regard, Ukraine would not be “bought up” by the EU, they would become the EU, with full voting rights and representation in government.