You keep searching for Ukrainian military failure and the Ukrainians keep surprising to the upside, ever since Russia failed to take Kyiv in Milley's forecast 3-4 days, and since Kharkiv and Kherson, on the eve of which you said Russia was winning the war. Prigozhin and Strelkov are far more realistic than your forecasts. So are the Russian soldiers whose intercepted conversations are on https://www.youtube.com/@insightsfromukraineandrussia/videos.

If I could securitize and trade the other side of your forecasts, I'd be a lot richer than I am.

Putin/Lavrov's premise for talks: accept Russia's annexations of the four regions. They've said this repeatedly, but apparently not loudly enough for you to hear it.

The premise for a viable independent Ukraine: Russia out of the Sebastopol naval base and with no land bridge to Crimea and none of Ukraine's Sea of Azov ports. Otherwise no outside capital will invest postwar.

If you advocate Ukraine compromising on this, you're in favor of a frozen conflict that allows Russia to prepare the next round and against a viable Ukrainian state.

If you want nuclear proliferation on steroids, force Ukraine to compromise with Russian aggression leaving millions of Ukrainians under Russian occupation subject to mass Russification child deportations, filtration camps and torture rooms.

Want a longer war? Convince Britain not to give Ukraine long range Storm Shadow cruise missiles and guarantee Russia sanctuary for war crime bombing Ukrainian schools, hospitals and other infrastructure from out of range planes and ships. Russia has no more offensive capability, so targeting civilians is all that's left.

I have no idea what you mean by "peace talks with funding" if the funding doesn't include the arms needed for Ukraine to eject Russia from Ukraine.