The Russia-Ukraine frozen conflict: Evidence from an expert survey

Many ask whether the war between Ukraine and Russia will turn into a frozen conflict, but the frozen conflict has existed since 2014. To improve the understanding of this conflict, we combined existing frozen conflict research with an original expert survey. Our main findings are that the conflict is driven by both the political issue of Ukraine's alignment with the West and the territorial status of Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk; that achieving stable peace hinges on an improbable scale of Ukrainian military victory; and that the alternative Western policies were unlikely to deter the invasion, raising concerns for the future resolution of conflict.