Irrespective of all the history discussed throught this post, Ukraine would be unable to sustain any military effort without outside assistance, so they would have to give up. Possibly, Putin is suggesting that it will take Ukraine a couple of months to come to that conclusion. When that happens, the new boundaries of Ukraine would probably no longer include the Russian dominated regions, which would become part of Russia.

I believe Putin would likely allow new elections for self-determination; although, they might be moot, because all the non-Russians would have emigrated to other areas.