It’s worth pointing out that Russia doesn’t need to “surrender” to stop the war. It just needs to withdraw.

That’s not surrender because Russia started this invasion without provocation. It wasn’t under attack and Ukraine hadn’t joined NATO.

Russia had no reason to invade except as a show of force.

If Putin suddenly declared he’d met his objectives and withdrew who’s to say otherwise?

When the pager attack happened, there was a implicity sentiment on focusing on the technical details and not focus on politics. But I didn't see the same sentiment when Iran ballistic missles did their job.

I've mulled this over and have come up with a plan that's probably "not even wrong" that's something along the lines of:

1. there needs to be a buffer zone between Russia and Ukraine; it needs to come from both countries. There are plenty of oblasts in Ukraine that are annihilated hellscapes where demographically it's possible that Ukraine may be happy(ish) to shed those populations since they're broadly prorussia(ish). Similarly there are regions of Russia that should be set aside as "buffer zone". Ukraine would be free to chose which regions are set aside for this buffer zone; the remaining depth of the zone will be "contributed" by Russia.

2. This buffer needs to be rebuilt by the west since they're the ones who "caused all the damage" -- a neutral 3rd party should oversee that rebuilding; obviously western countries won't want to just pour money into Oligarch owned companies -- instead the buffer region should be managed by some set of neutral countries such as Ireland, Indonesia, and India. This strip of land would describe the whole Russian / Ukrainian border and be at its narrowest 20 miles wide.

3. This region will eventually (in 40-60 years) have a plebiscite to allow it to rejoin russia or join Belarus, or remain independent.

4. So long as this land and Belarus remains free of Russian or Ukranian armies or military personnel Ukraine may not join nato. Ukraine will be free to petition to join nato, but so long as Belarus and the border zone are free of Russian or Ukranian forces nato will not allow Ukraine to join nato (IE no formal article 5 protections of Ukraine from nato)

5. Belarus will have sanctions lifted if they have normal elections.

6. This new zone will be under "russkiy mir" in that this zone will be governed by the written legal system as modeled by the russian legal system; though instead of the ultimate power (the "roof") being russian, it will instead be indigenous.

7. taxes would be collected and disbursed to Russia and Ukraine and Belarus in some proportion of the land "contributed" by each party to this buffer zone.

So -- in this way, the Russians can be told "they won" even though in practice this gives Russia no control over Ukraine proper. They can be told "NATO has been made to pay!" and "All of this is under Russian Law" but at the same time it helps squeeze Russian control out of Minsk as well. The goal is to allow Russians to be Russia without being under the thumb of Moscow.

Anyhow, sorry for the fan fiction...

That's not how geopolitics work.

Does anyone really believe Russia will eventually just surrender and leave? I can’t imagine the rationale to believe that. When Putin leaves all indications are that the next leader will actually be much more hawkish. They will only leave if someone bombs them to death. Which is quite a dangerous thing to do. Ukraine is pushing the limits, and everyone knows it’s with the help of many EU countries. I wonder what it will take for Russia to reach desperate measures in this war.