Ideally we shouldn't make dumb foreign policy disasters like this in the first place. Once the milk is spilled, we can do our best to minimize damage and cut our losses. I guess there's still a question of what the best outcome will be. Say there's a peace deal that recognizes the DPR/LPR/Crimea as Russian, hands over some slice of the contested front line, and preserves the whole west as an independent unaligned country with no NATO status or NATO presence/armament and relations with Russia are restored and sanctions lifted. Even in that scenario, is it actually better for western interests than just ceding the entirety of Ukraine to Russia? I mean, the EU will inherit the poor half of the poorest country, stripped of all its production, its young population, its resources, its infrastructure. It will have that many hungry mouths to feed, the migrant crisis and more strain on the EU welfare state. Is it actually in western interests to take on that burden at this point? With a bunch of heavily militarized neo-nazis being a potential major terrorist threat within our own sphere?
Cutting our losses and taking our half of Ukraine is the logical and most obvious way out and we've just been circling that drain and the entire neoliberal order refusing to recognize the reality of the conflict for years now. Its not a good outcome, but its better than the war continuing to fester and we get all the same risks and costs dug deeper and deeper. Fighting on isn't an endless stalemate or quagmire: Ukraine is slipping away and it will not survive another 5 years of frozen conflict, it will collapse under internal pressures if not being overrun by Russia completely.
The Neo-liberal wants the conflict to play out in this order.
1. Bomb Damascus until it looks like Gaza.
2. Have thermonuclear war over Ookraine.
3. Make Israel emerge as the economic ruling state of the world.