What could happen if Russia wins war in Ukraine? Experts consider the scenarios
A “battered but triumphant” Russian army amassing on NATO’s borders, posing a major military threat to the alliance for the first time in three decades?
That’s what could happen if the United States cut off military aid to Ukraine and Europe followed suit, according to a prominent thinktank.
Republicans in Washington have been holding up new funds for Kyiv over demands for border control, leading to concerns over the reliability of American support.
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Things look particularly tremulous in the context of 2024: a presidential election where the presumed challenger Donald Trump is poised to abandon both Ukraine and NATO.
So as unsavoury as the thought may be for many in the West, some attention is now turning to a possible future in which aid to Ukraine is much reduced – and what it could mean for those holding the line in Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a thinktank based in Washington DC, has looked at possible scenarios that could arise.
It argues that the US has a “much higher stake” in the war than most people think.
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“A Russian conquest of all of Ukraine is by no means impossible if the United States cuts off all military assistance and Europe follows suit,” ISW writers say in their new report: The High Price of Losing Ukraine.
“Such an outcome would bring a battered but triumphant Russian army right up to NATO’s border from the Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean.”
They say that Ukraine – with Western support – has destroyed nearly 90% of the Russian army that invaded in February 2022, according to US intelligence sources.
But despite these terrible casualty numbers, Russia has replaced them and is ramping up its industrial base to replenish its material losses.
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A victorious Russian army at the end of the Ukraine war, the ISW says, would be combat experienced and considerably larger than its pre-2022 forces.
Moscow’s economy would “gradually recover as sanctions inevitably erode” and its military would rebuild its coherence “drawing on a wealth of hard-won experience fighting mechanized warfare”.
It added: “It will bring with it advanced air defence systems that only American stealth aircraft – badly needed to deter and confront China – can reliably penetrate.
“Russia can pose a major conventional military threat to NATO for the first time since the 1990s in a timeframe set to a considerable extent by how much the Kremlin invests in its military.”
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The ISW argues NATO’s military potential is much greater than that of Russia – even if it fully absorbs Ukraine and Belarus.
But, it says, the costs of allowing Russia to win in Ukraine are “higher than most people imagine”.
The ISW argues:
• The US would have to deploy a “sizeable portion” of its ground forces to eastern Europe
• The US could face a “terrible choice” between keeping enough stealth aircraft in Asia to defend Taiwan and stationing them in Europe to support allies against any Russian aggression
A Ukrainian tank near Bakhmut in the Donetsk region
The thinktank’s report says: “Helping Ukraine keep the lines where they are through continuous Western military support is far more advantageous and cheaper for the United States than allowing Ukraine to lose.”
A ceasefire that “freezes” the conflict would give Russia time and space to prepare for a new war, it adds
The more territory Ukraine is able to regain, the further to the east it would push the Kremlin’s forces.
Best of all, the ISW says, would be supporting Ukraine to victory and then helping it rebuild.
This would put the “largest and most combat-effective friendly military on the European continent” at the forefront of NATO’s defence, according to the thinktank.
“A victorious Ukraine would not be a permanent ward of the West,” it says, arguing that restored to its 1991 borders its economy is big enough to support its own military.
Elon Musk could be on track for a $1trn pay packet.
Tesla shareholders have approved the whopping financial package for the CEO – who’s already worth an estimated $491bn – if he hits a series of ambitious targets over the next 10 years.
But that $1trn figure (or £761,910,000,000) – which is both one thousand billion and one million million – is almost impossible to imagine for most people.
Even so, we have drilled down into the numbers and examined what you can do with a trillion US dollars – and it turns out, quite a lot.
Show me the money
Laid end to end, a trillion one-dollar bills would cover a distance of approximately 156 billion metres.
That could wrap around the equator 3,890 times, easily reach the sun from Earth (around 149.6 million km) or loop from Earth to the moon 405 times.
That many one-dollar notes could cover a massive area (roughly 10,339 km squared), meaning you could blanket nearly all of Lebanon or Jamaica in bills.
Spend it on sport
You could splash out on virtually all of the world’s major sporting leagues.
The clubs which make up the Premier League are relatively cheap ($30bn), and even when snapping up the UEFA Champions League clubs and the big five top divisions of Spain, Italy, Germany, and France, there’s still $858bn left in the kitty.
The four major US sports leagues for ice hockey, baseball, basketball, and American football (NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL) have a rough valuation of $544bn, according to Sportico.
But then add the IPL cricket league ($120bn) and F1 ($23.1bn) and Musk still has change from an estimated total spend of $829.7bn.
Elon Musk is in the money if he hits targets set by Tesla’s shareholders. File pic: AP
Take over Tesla’s rivals
He could buy up the top 15 largest publicly traded automakers (excluding Tesla) by market capitalisation.
They would include firms like Japan’s Toyota ($275bn), Chinese automaker BYD ($120bn), and luxury brands like Ferrari ($81bn) and Mercedes-Benz ($62bn), as well as BMW ($52bn), Volkswagen ($50bn) and Ford ($48bn).
But there would still be a little change left over; the total bill would be an eye-watering $992bn.
Buy up San Diego
He could buy up every single residential property in San Diego County – valued at a total of $1trn. Seattle is just slightly out of reach at $1.1trn, according to recent data from real estate firm Zillow.
But if he wanted to buy big – there is always Tennessee. The total value of homes in the US state is estimated at $957bn. Or there is Maryland, which at $1.01trn could be bought if he can find a little more cash behind the sofa.
Sadly, he would struggle to scoop up London’s entire housing stock, which in February was valued at just under £2trn ($2.53trn), according to agents Savills.
Cities like New York ($4.6trn) and Los Angeles ($3.9trn) are also not within his budget, hosting America’s most expensive residential markets.
Do something charitable?
There is always the possibility Musk could follow in the footsteps of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who intends to give away 99% of his vast fortune over the next 20 years.
He could give every single man, woman, and child in the US a share of his cash pile. They would receive approximately $2,917.32 (£2,223.29), based on a population estimate of 342.7 million.
Although it would be roughly $14,348.79 (£10,935.20) for every person (roughly 69.6 million) in the UK.
If he wanted to give the entire globe an early Christmas present, then based on the rough world population estimate of 8.2 billion, everyone would receive $121.80 (£92.87).
Pay off the credit card
With $1trn, he could instantly rewrite history and erase debt interest payments and the government debt from dozens of the world’s sovereign nations.
Or Musk could wipe out the debts of Singapore ($1trn) or South Korea ($0.99trn) in one go, according to figures from the International Monetary Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook (Oct 2025).
But when it comes to the biggest debt-laden countries, $1trn would not even touch the sides.
The US has $38.3trn of government debt (just over one third of the total global debt pile) while the UK has a modest $4.1trn.
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