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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ends in one of two ways; either economic weakness undermines Russia’s capacity to sustain its war or Putin loses domestic support enough that he is deposed. A third way is that Putin dies in office, with or without help.
Although economic weakness and/or loss of domestic support will inevitably bring Putin down, it is not a foregone conclusion that Ukraine will not defeat Russia on the battlefield. Ukrainian resistance has proven much stronger than Russia anticipated and apparently has thrown Russia’s conquest of its neighbor behind schedule. The longer resistance can slow or stop the Russian advance, the less likely Russia will prevail.
Whatever the outcome in battle, Russia does not have the capacity to occupy Ukraine for long because of the difficulty and cost of occupying the largest country in Europe after Russia with forty million plus citizens. And an occupation on that scale will spur opposition at home as the economic cost and cost in soldiers' lives grow.
For good real-time reporting of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine follow https://twitter.com/nexta_tv on Twitter.
For good analysis of the economic cost to Russia, read the excellent article by Vladislav Inozemtsev at Riddle (although posted on February 26, Inozemtsev’s analysis is behind rapidly evolving sanctions against Russia’s economy, which would result in an even worse economic outcome than Inozemtsev describes in his article) or this thread by Rob Person at the US Military Academy at Westpoint.
The evidence for loss of domestic support is uneven. Russian civil society has been aggressively suppressed by Putin by arrests, crushing public dissent, and closing of public media. Nevertheless, there is incidental evidence of the Russian public’s discomfort with Putin’s invasion of a Slavic neighbor, including as reported by Johnson’s Russia List and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty or from Moscow Correspondent for the Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich.
For why Putin will ultimately be defeated, read Dr. Brain LaPierre, Zoya Sheftalovich at Politico.EU or Lawrence Freedman at King’s College, London.
