So now we're at the stage of the narrative where the USA is distancing itself from the actions in Ukraine and bad outcomes will be attributed to failures of the Ukrainians. This will lead to the next stage of the narrative where the US uses these failures as justification for unhitching their wagon from what's happening politically. The US will, of course, remain connected to the region through arms shipments, black ops, training, and intelligence, but the form will shift to a loose network of autonomous partisans, like Al-Qaeda.