Sacks’ core claim was that, from October 2022 onward, the Russia–Ukraine war would not move toward a peace deal but would instead keep escalating because key "off‑ramps" (e.g., compromise over territory, Ukraine’s NATO status, sanctions/energy leverage) had been removed. Looking at October 2022–November 2025, that is broadly what happened.

1. Off‑ramps largely disappeared and no peace deal emerged

• Early 2022 negotiations in Belarus, Turkey, and especially the Istanbul communiqué explored a framework in which Ukraine could forgo NATO membership in exchange for security guarantees, without recognizing Russian annexations. These talks collapsed; a senior Kremlin official later said a draft settlement tying an end to hostilities to Ukraine’s NATO neutrality was blocked by Putin, who expanded his aims to annex more Ukrainian territory. (en.wikipedia.org)
• On 30 September 2022, just before Sacks’ comment, Russia formally annexed four Ukrainian regions (Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia), declaring their residents "our citizens forever" in a ceremony widely described as a major escalation and condemned as illegal by 143 UN member states. (en.wikipedia.org) This hardened Russia’s minimum terms (recognition of these annexations) and made territorial compromise far harder.
• After that, Russia insisted any ceasefire or peace required Ukraine to surrender all the annexed regions and accept a permanent bar on NATO membership, plus sanctions relief. (en.wikipedia.org) Ukraine, by contrast, applied for NATO membership and set full Russian withdrawal from occupied territory and robust security guarantees as prerequisites for real talks. (en.wikipedia.org) Those positions effectively removed the mutually acceptable middle ground Sacks was talking about.
• From mid‑2022 through 2024, peace negotiations were largely frozen; meaningful talks only resume in 2025 under U.S. mediation, but even then Russia demands territorial concessions and NATO restrictions that Ukraine rejects, and no settlement is reached. (en.wikipedia.org) The UN General Assembly in February 2025 is still passing resolutions on "advancing a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine," underscoring that no deal exists three years after the invasion. (en.wikipedia.org)

2. The war continued with major escalatory phases rather than de‑escalation

• Starting 10 October 2022, Russia launched a sustained nationwide missile and drone campaign against Ukraine’s power grid and other critical infrastructure, knocking out nearly half of Ukraine’s electricity generation by November and repeatedly plunging cities into blackouts. (en.wikipedia.org) This was a clear escalation beyond earlier battlefield-focused strikes.
• The 2022–23 Russian winter offensive, centered on Donetsk, produced the months‑long Battle of Bakhmut, widely described as the longest and bloodiest battle of the war and one of the bloodiest of the 21st century, with extremely high casualties on both sides. (en.wikipedia.org) That is consistent with intensification rather than de‑escalation after October 2022.
• Through 2023–24 and into 2025, large-scale operations continued: battles like Krynky on the Dnipro (2023–24), a new Borova offensive starting December 2024, and the ongoing Pokrovsk offensive from July 2024, where Ukrainian sources say Russia has committed up to ~220,000 soldiers by August 2025. (en.wikipedia.org) This sustained mobilization and series of offensives show the conflict has not settled into a low‑intensity freeze.
• Russian strikes on civilian and energy infrastructure intensified again in 2025. The UN reported that attacks on infrastructure in the first five months of 2025 caused 50% more civilian casualties than the same period in 2024. (en.wikipedia.org) On 3 October 2025, Russia mounted what was described as its most extensive attack of the war on Ukraine’s energy system, using 381 drones and 35 missiles to hit natural gas facilities. (apnews.com) Late 2025 has seen further massive barrages on Kyiv—hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles in single nights—cutting power to half the city and prompting Ukrainian retaliatory strikes deep into Russian territory. (theguardian.com)

3. Assessment relative to the prediction

• Sacks argued that once the possible compromises over NATO status, Donbas/territory, and sanctions/energy leverage were taken off the table, there would be no realistic peace deal and the conflict would "just" keep escalating. From October 2022 to November 2025, there has been no durable ceasefire or peace agreement, bargaining positions have hardened on exactly those axes (NATO, territorial control, sanctions), and the war has remained high‑intensity with repeated spikes in battlefield and infrastructure escalation.
• While the front lines have at times been relatively static, that has coincided with extremely destructive attritional fighting, major new offensives, and record‑scale missile and drone campaigns against infrastructure—not with de‑escalation in any ordinary sense.

Given the continued absence of a peace deal and the pattern of sustained and, in several respects, increasing escalation since October 2022, Sacks’ prediction is best judged as right.