I think what you are saying here is that it is a mess, from which there seems little hope of extricating ourselves, that is the various countries involved.
It looks like a mess to me too.
I hadn't heard there was friction between Wagner and the Russian ministry of defence, or FSB or whatever, that is news to me. If it is true, I am a little surprised our UK mainstream news haven't pounced on it, as they seem to love any story that puts across the idea that Russia might be being weakened (Therefore we should escalate, to finish them quicker). We are just being told Wagner are simply employed as mercenaries, to fight alongside Russian conscripts, and we should cry foul about that, as it doesn't look very fair, to be using mercenaries, but ssshhhh... everyone does it when push comes to shove, we should notice, there were seasoned folk working the streets in UK to recruiit young would-be "Mercenaries" from here, I saw them recruiting for that with my own eyes, as we all did, in busy Town Centres all around the UK, how could we miss, the actual weapons being offered to these jobless kids, for them to hold and aim, imagining sighting and shooting big bad Russians, on an all paid adventure abroad. I hate to think what has most likely happened to probably most of the ones who were tempted to go now. My understanding is that the Russians consider such as basically terrorists, radicalised into killing, so not worthy of the same consideration they might give to captured conscripts.
Anyway, we probably agree the history doesn't matter much to what happens next. The scenario you present of Ukraine being completely free of Russian involvement looks extremely unlikely to me, even if Wagner and the Russian Ministry of Defence were competing for power, neither will be willing to just pull everybody back out, so the task might look like Ukraine has to somehow be "Cleaned out", and then barricaded to stop future Russian incursions.
Do you really think that could be possible?
I don't see this as a real possibility at all.
The drive to nuclear war is absolutely being made by NATO. This is something a lot of folk are noticing, that NATO has actually outlived its usefullness, different countries are being scared / bullied / bribed into joining, but everyone can see that NATO itself is emburdened / emboldened by its own political ambitions, it is no longer a defence force, but an offence force.
I don't write about this much, only getting drawn in sometimes when I see things that look relevant to the world energy problem which is my usual subject. I never feel happy after getting drawn in, I actually hate the drama, all of it is wasted energy. War is the ultimate, most stupid energy extravagent bullshit business ever, it is such a bad reaction to shortage of energy.
The solution, it seems to me, which will probably be forced by Russia, is to live with Russia being involved to some negotiated extent in Ukraine for the foreseeable future, but not only that, the disbanding of NATO.
Its either that, or nuclear war, it seems to me, and the latter is actually unthinkable, as it would surely be the last straw for the already very fragile environment. Even the US would not escape this.
Here is another viewpoint of NATO, by another writer, who I think has said it as well as anyone:
