Disagree with this.
It was what the experts on the subject were saying at the time the country is huge they couldn't stop the Ukrainians from fighting to take it back and there was no way they were ever going to accept a Putin puppet as leader.
Considering the amount of civilian casualties so far I can't see how the Ukrainians would agree to a partition of their country
This backs up my comment above, they will never let Putin have the whole country but as for most of them who have left there is nothing to go back to they may accept some kind of deal to stop the bloodshed.