Ukraine’s Ambassador to the US, Stefanishyna: If Russia had any real desire to negotiate or compromise, there would be zero obstacles.
Ukraine has shown openness and flexibility in every format proposed, including by President Trump. The aggressor never had real intent. 1/
Stefanishyna: Ukraine’s capabilities are now seen and felt by Russia on its own territory.
They deprive Moscow of the ability to attack Ukrainian cities and kill more families. That pressure is one reason Putin is being forced back toward the option of dialogue. 2/
Stefanishyna: Ukraine is depriving Russia of the fuel of war, literally fuel, but also the resources Moscow gains from selling products abroad and using sanctions waivers to finance aggression.
Deep strikes cut the money and capabilities that keep Russia’s war going. 3/
Even some of Russia’s most prominent hawks are starting to say publicly that Russia cannot win this war.
The debate inside Russia is no longer how to achieve victory in Ukraine. It is whether victory is still possible at all, WSJ. 1/
Oleg Tsaryov was supposed to become the Kremlin’s man in Kyiv after Russia captured the Ukrainian capital in 2022.
Now he says Russian propaganda created an illusion of inevitable victory that is colliding with reality “in the most painful form.” 2/
Aleksey Chadaev, a former Kremlin official who runs a drone warfare research center, warns the current course leads “not just to non-victory, but to full-scale defeat.”
Khrushcheva, great-granddaughter of Soviet leader:
There's no [Ukraine] deal because Putin wants what he wants.
Trump likes strongmen, so Putin thought he could milk it. In Anchorage last August Trump probably said he'd push Zelenskyy out of Donbas. He couldn't deliver. 1/
Khrushcheva: Putin thinks history will favor him — that's why he pushes for Donbas, a promise he must keep.
But most Russians don't care and didn't want this war, only 20–25% did. They call it a special military operation, but an operation can't last 4.5 years. 2/
Khrushcheva: Putin is not in a good position now. He had a great chance to end the war with Trump from March to August, who gave him every opportunity.
He could have been a victor if he didn't want as much. I'm not sure he goes into history as Peter the Great. 3/
Applebaum: Trump is using a specific language from the 1930s: “enemies within,” “enemies of the people,” migrants and political opponents as “vermin,” migrants “poisoning the blood” of Americans.
That language comes from Hitler, Stalin and the Stasi. 1/
Applebaum: American politics has been racist before. Americans have called each other traitors and unpatriotic.
But calling people insects, vermin or parasites is different, it is language used by regimes that treat enemies as less than human. 2/
Applebaum: I did not say Trump is Hitler or that he will cause a new Holocaust.
The threat is different: Trump assaulting and undermining institutions, judges, courts, bureaucrats, which is how most democracies fail today. 3/
Garry Kasparov: Ukraine must win, and there is no other option for the future of Europe or the free world.
Putin is not on a trajectory to win. Ukraine has shifted the momentum, and the smart move now is to wait him out, The Telegraph. 1/
Kasparov: Conceding any land in Ukraine will only pause Putin's war machine for a while.
Then it keeps moving, past NATO's borders, into the Baltics, toward Europe's Western democracies. Giving up territory will not stop him. He wants Russia restored as a global superpower. 2/
Kasparov: Putin has sent one million young Russians to fight in Ukraine. Where do they go when that ends?
Disillusioned and traumatised by war, will they return to normal Russian life? Of course not. Putin will send them to the next battlefield. 3/
Shtilierman, Firepoint co-founder: Our goal is a ballistic missile that can strike Moscow and St. Petersburg. Russia is a monocentric state. Everything is concentrated in Moscow. What happens in Volgograd, or Syzran has no impact on the elite. We need missile that can strike beyond 700 km. 1/
Shtilierman: We chose the path of simplifying and scaling fast. We use the same principle for missiles. The biggest mistake is saving money on R&D. Never buy one sample. Buy five. Even if one path has an 80% chance of success and the others 5%, develop all five at once. 2/
Shtilierman: We produce about 55% of deep strikes and deliver 59% of all deep-strike hits. Am I satisfied? No. This is war. Everything changes fast. We will be satisfied when the Russian empire collapses. 3/