A reasonable staring date for WWIII is 2014, when Yanukovich was ousted in favor of his western-backed replacements.

The only remaining question is the manner in which this war is decided. It is now clear that both sides are committed. The US, UK, and western Europe have leaned sufficiently into the fighting in Ukraine that they are no longer able to credibly back down. With statements such as this one here by Macron, they are entrenching their own legitimacy upon the results of this war.

If Russia is seen as "winning", the western "community" will be exposed as illegitimate, and there will be genuine political reform in the west, in a way that has not happened for more than a century. The current "elites" will be seen for the grifters they have actually been for decades.

Given the current geography of the conflict, they have picked a really stupid place to stake their power. The advantages lie with Russia in the Ukrainian theater. While the war has been painful for Russia, from a resource point of view (measured - imperfectly - in "dollars spent") and from a lives lost point of view, the war has been much more painful for the western countries. The west is wasting huge amounts of resources and Ukrainian lives relative to what the Russians are spending. All that waste is going into obvious corruption. Look at the clean-out that was just attempted in Kiev. The west is betting the farm on a thoroughly corrupt regime. They rail against Russian corruption, while lying vociferously about equal (at a minimum) corruption in Ukraine. I repeat, this is a very stupid place on which to stake the credibility of western institutions. But what's done is done.

The only hope is for for the two sides to come to the table and find a way that nobody "wins". The Russians will not let this go. They are committed, because these are ethnic Russian lands they are fighting in, and they will not abandon literal relatives to be conquered by a foreign culture.

The ball is in the west's court. They need to come up with a way to let this go while maintaining the illusion that "Russia didn't win". If they are creative, they can spin whatever peace can be worked out as a "tough on Russia" settlement. Russia won't have won, because they say Russia didn't win. This is the nature of political spin.

But if the west thinks they can prosecute this war to a successful military victory and intends to remain until that victory? The Russians are not bluffing. The outcome of a true Russian "defeat" is nuclear exchange and the destruction of human civilization as we've known it for three centuries.

One last note. In the propaganda in the west, this is played (predictably) as the west vs Putin. That is a huge mistake. The Russian people are not monolithic, and of course there are elements who are against Russia's participation in this war, just as there are elements in the west against their countries' participation in the war. But the overall Russian "mood"? The west is buying their own bullshit if they believe there is no popular support for Russian defense of ethnic Russians in Ukraine. There is major, sustained support for this project among the majority of the Russian population. In fact, Putin for eight years was fighting a huge battle on the domestic front trying to keep Russia from explicit military support for Donetsk and Lugansk. There are voices a lot more reactionary and militarily aggressive than that of Vladimir Putin. The ideologues in the west are morons for not recognizing this reality. Get rid of Putin? They truly don't understand what they are asking for with that. They honestly think their chosen "good guys" in Russia are the ones to take over in that scenario? Believing that demonstrates a radical misunderstanding of Russian popular and educated culture. This is no surprise. The west has been misunderstanding Russian culture for centuries.

But again, if they can be smart and come up with some way to paint a negotiated settlement as "Russia being punished", there still is a way out of this without nuclear annihilation. Spinning reality is what they do. Far preferable that they pull that off than that they attempt to force reality to fit their fever-dreams. Reality will win in that battle, and the reality is that Russia cannot be "defeated" without everybody losing. We can only hope that western leaders have at least a shred of appreciation of the danger of forcing a nuclear-armed powerful country against the wall.

One doesn't have to be a "Putin lover" to want to avoid pushing Russia to the point they feel there is nothing to lose. If Russians are pushed to that point, we will all lose.