trouble is, Russia has annexed the most fertile and industrially powerful region of the former pan-Ukraine ( may be some aircraft manufacturing excluded). Yielding it, would leave Ukraine a very less rich country. Re-conquering the occupied parts would result in a Stalingrad - type defensive battle put up by the Russians.
Realpolitik would be to face reality. Let the Polar/grizzly matka bear have her prey, and settle down, if that is possible living next to a predator, with all its lice, never nice.
Anomy Mouse must be thinking of the past, of Czechoslovakia ( where I was in 1931) that stretched east of Praha a long way.
yeah, Russia would love to have Nato countries waste all their armament (Leopards) in the Ukraine theatre, then to be able to re-integrate all their former vassals states, this time expulsing and replacing all these populations like they did in Ostpreussen, now Kaliningrad.