By Kevin Batcho, Website, 5/19/25

“Victory has a hundred fathers,” John F. Kennedy observed days after the Bay of Pigs invasion imploded, “but defeat is an orphan.” He spoke not as a triumphant statesman, but as a coroner delivering an autopsy—cool, clinical, already stepping back from the still-smouldering wreckage. The disaster in question: a CIA-trained exile force, dead or captured on Playa Girón’s sands, their promised anti-Castro uprising evaporated like morning mist under Cuban gunfire.

There it was—the bitter truth, suspended like breath in winter: victory is always a crowded christening—everyone jostling to be godfather, to claim a hand in the miracle. Defeat gets no such ceremony. It is left at the threshold in the dead of night, unblessed and unnamed.

In the Ukraine war’s defiant early months, they dressed their gamble in sacred vestments—casting Zelensky as a paladin of modern virtue, arming him with weapons, myths, and standing ovations. They saw themselves as midwives to liberal democracy reborn in the black mud of Kherson. But the dream could not survive the discipline of Russian attrition. As the frontlines stalled and counteroffensives dissolved into mire, the self-declared fathers of victory grew queasy, slipping into shadow as their creation began to rot.

Today, the pathology returns as tragic farce. European leaders and American hawks cling to the illusion of victory—not secured on the battlefield, but performed through ultimatums, pageant diplomacy, and the hollow theatre of sanctions. This is no longer strategy, but reflex: a compulsive shedding of responsibility, a disavowal of a war no longer convenient to claim—masked by ever-louder cries for justice that barely muffle the silence of inner defeat.

As the outcome sours, a new adversary emerges—not in Moscow, but in the White House. The temptation grows to pin failure on the man who refuses to follow their script, to recast their miscalculation as his betrayal. Like Roman patriarchs exposing an unwanted child to the elements, they abandon their geopolitical offspring, hoping the cold wind of history will carry off both the body and the blame.

The war now marches forward—increasingly disowned by its patrons, sustained only by the one power that never recoiled. For Moscow, there is no shame in the scars of this conflict, no urge to rewrite its origins. Even its most disfigured chapters are embraced as providence—grim, perhaps, but righteous. And so, in the ceremonial hush of the Kremlin’s vaulted halls, they wait for the hundred fathers of victory to one day claim their seats.

Istanbul 2.0

In a last-ditch effort to blunt the trajectory of Ukraine’s defeat, Western leaders issued an ultimatum on May 10. The United States, Britain, France, Germany, and Poland demanded that Russia submit to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire by May 12—or face expanded sanctions on its financial and energy sectors, along with a renewed surge in arms deliveries to Ukraine.

The Kremlin swiftly rejected the Western diktat. At a 2 a.m. press briefing on May 11, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov declared that “the language of ultimatums is unacceptable for Russia,” and insisted on addressing the “root causes” of the war. Rather than comply, Russian President Vladimir Putin tore up the Western script and imposed his own: direct talks with Ukraine in Istanbul on May 15. President Trump, determined to force an end to the conflict, compelled Kiev to accept Russia’s terms.

For Moscow, the aim is not to open a new chapter but to resume the one left unfinished in 2022—when peace talks were first derailed by Western intervention. The symbolism is clear: once again, negotiations take place in Istanbul’s Dolmabahçe Palace; once again, Russia’s delegation mirrors its earlier form, now reinforced with senior military officials to underscore both resolve and leverage.

Back in the early days of the war, Ukraine appeared ready to accept sweeping concessions: permanent neutrality, strict limits on its military capabilities, a ban on foreign troops, cultural protections for Russian-speaking Ukrainians, and a 15-year timeline to negotiate Crimea’s status. But these terms unravelled shortly after Russia’s retreat from Kiev, when Western leaders—especially Joe Biden and Boris Johnson—urged Zelensky to reject the deal. Instead, they unleashed a flood of arms and promises of victory. For these leaders, it was not enough merely to avoid defeat; they sought to sire triumph—to be remembered as the proud fathers of a decisive strategic victory over Russia.

For a brief period, this strategy created the illusion of success. Ukraine reclaimed territory through mid-to-late 2022, but by the failed summer offensive of 2023, momentum had decisively shifted. Ukrainian forces crashed against an impenetrable Russian defensive wall. Since then, Russia has seized the initiative—both on the battlefield and at international diplomatic forums.

Russia has survived the Western sanction onslaught, outpaced the G7 in growth, and now unquestionably commands the battlefield. The perceived balance of power has changed—and so has the language of diplomacy. Western leverage has dwindled to a theatre of gestures: sanctions that failed, stockpiles that thinned, and declarations no longer matched by capacity.

What remains is a vanishing space for illusion. Wars do not end through moral appeals or maximalist demands from the losing side. They end through negotiation—or collapse—depending on the foresight of those facing defeat. Caught between these fates, Ukraine and its patrons oscillate in confusion—unable to accept the war is lost, yet desperate to end it on terms that feign dominance. They speak in the language of resolution not to claim authorship, but to obscure it—nudging the burden of paternity toward more convenient shoulders, hoping history forgets who first blessed the cause. Yet the window for meaningful dialogue narrows with every uncompromising demand.

Kellogg’s Ceasefire Plan

The Western call for an “unconditional ceasefire”—echoed by Kiev and increasingly framed as the moral minimum for peace—rests largely on a blueprint attributed to retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg. His proposal has come to define the broad contours of Washington and its allies’ expectations: an internationally monitored armistice, with the United States and European powers acting as “neutral guarantors,” tasked with enforcing compliance through the solemn theatre of impartiality.

At its core is the demand that both Russian and Ukrainian forces withdraw 15 kilometres from the current line of contact, creating a demilitarized buffer zone—a frozen strip of contested land intended to suspend hostilities and cool tensions along the front.

But what are the odds this plan will play out as advertised? Imagine Ukrainian artillery shelling European monitors in the buffer zone, blaming it on Moscow and then executing a swift punitive advance into the vacated zone towards the new Russian lines? Would British or French officers then solemnly indict Kiev for violating the terms? Or would Moscow once again be the predictable scapegoat? The answer is as damning as it is obvious.

For Vladimir Putin, accepting such a plan would be political self-immolation. Signing away strategic ground under the watchful eyes of adversarial “arbiters” would not only weaken Russia’s military posture—it would be seen as capitulation dressed in legalese. The penalty for such betrayal would not be diplomatic embarrassment but a bullet in a Kremlin courtyard.

For Moscow, the Kellogg Plan is a non-starter. The ancient axiom endures: the weak do not dictate terms; they suffer what they must.

Premature Peace Negotiations

Following Putin’s call for renewed peace talks in Istanbul, the world watched a tense choreography unfold. Ukrainian delegates stalled, detouring to Ankara while their Russian counterparts sat in cold silence at the Dolmabahçe Palace table. After a day of low-stakes manoeuvring and diplomatic squirming, the two sides finally met face-to-face on Friday, May 16—their first direct negotiation since the collapse of peace talks in March 2022.

And yet, despite the high stakes, these talks remain premature. Russia’s battlefield momentum is undeniable, but not yet decisive enough to dictate terms outright. It is as if, in early 1864, a battered yet unbroken Confederacy had demanded a ceasefire from a rising Union—not in surrender, but as a calculated gambit to freeze the war and preserve the means to fight another day.

From Moscow’s perspective, any ceasefire must represent an unambiguous admission of defeat: a full Ukrainian withdrawal from the four annexed oblasts—Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. Even this concession, Russian officials warn, is a closing window of opportunity.

When asked if he had threatened, “Next time there will be five regions,” Russia’s chief negotiator corrected him: “No. I said, next time it will be eight.” In Moscow’s view, time is firmly on its side—both on the battlefield and at the negotiating table. The terms offered now are already harsher than those of 2022; what comes next promises to be even more severe.

What most shocks American observers is Russia’s insistence that Ukraine vacate these oblasts even where Moscow lacks full military control. Beneath this surprise lies a common delusion: that territorial gains must mirror battlefield occupation. History suggests otherwise.

In the 1846–48 Mexican-American War, the United States annexed over half a million square miles—including California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and beyond—without ever fully occupying them. Japan, too, surrendered all of its territory, despite the U.S. never invading the Japanese home islands, let alone coming anywhere close to capturing Tokyo. Europe offers further precedent: Alsace-Lorraine changed hands between Germany and France twice with only partial occupation, and Finland ceded 11% of its territory to the Soviet Union in 1940 despite fiercely resisting Stalin’s invasion.

Art of the U-Turn

By compelling Ukraine back to the negotiating table on Russian terms, President Trump reveals that he holds more leverage over Zelensky than over Putin. He has already shown he’s both willing and able to halt military aid and suspend intelligence cooperation—pressure points Kiev cannot afford to ignore. Reports from the Ukrainian capital suggest the country’s defenses could hold out for only four more months under such conditions.

With Russia, however, Trump’s options are narrower—and politically perilous. His only potential instruments of leverage—reviving sanctions or resuming large-scale arms transfers—would require him to embrace the very policies he denounced on the campaign trail. Doing so would lend retroactive legitimacy to Joe Biden’s Ukraine strategy while undermining Trump’s own populist credentials. Such a pivot risks alienating his base. Meanwhile, Senator Lindsey Graham boasts of 70 senators ready to back “bone-crushing sanctions.” That number carries weight: it exceeds the threshold needed to override a presidential veto—and, ever so faintly, gestures toward the spectre of impeachment should Trump impose peace on terms deemed too harsh for Ukraine.

As the delegations departed Istanbul for the airport, having only achieved a 1,000 for 1,000 prisoner exchange deal, the Trump team’s new message was unequivocal: the path to peace must pass through a personal summit between Trump and Putin. But Moscow has held firm since the start of Trump’s second term—summits are ceremonial endpoints, not negotiation venues. They occur only after every clause of an agreement has been finalized and signed off by the Kremlin. There is no room in Russian protocol for impromptu theatre or improvisational statesmanship. If Trump wants a handshake for the cameras, he must first deliver terms that Moscow has already endorsed—final, binding, and on paper.

In America’s Five-Front Trap, I argued that the U.S. had dangerously overextended itself by engaging in multiple simultaneous conflicts, when prudence demanded a sequential strategy. Since then, Trump has done a great job pivoting: reversing course in Yemen after Houthi air defenses exposed the F-35’s vulnerabilities; easing trade tensions with China; and extending diplomatic overtures to Iran, even at the cost of a public “breach” with Israel. North Korea remains a dormant front, likely to be activated only if others spiral out of control. On paper, these reversals free up military bandwidth to focus U.S. pressure on Russia.

But these de-escalations are tenuous at best. Yemen and China are quiet, not resolved. Iran is a tinderbox. After U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff allegedly promised Hamas that in exchange for the release of prisoner Edan Alexander, the Gaza food blockade would be lifted—a promise still unfulfilled—American credibility has been wounded. In this context, why would Putin take U.S. assurances at face value now?

In many ways, Trump has stumbled into a trap laid not by Moscow, but by the very neoconservatives and European elites who oppose him so viscerally. Just as Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive broke against an immovable Russian wall, Trump now finds himself caught between two planks of intransigence—Moscow’s cold resolve on one side, and the unyielding demands of Western hawks on the other. The walls are closing in. His attempt to wrench a frozen peace from the jaws of Western defeat has become a solitary campaign of theatrical will. For his adversaries in London, Paris, Berlin, and the think tanks and Senate chambers of Washington, the war that truly matters isn’t in Ukraine—it’s against Trump himself.

And yet, whatever the outcome, Trump has a knack for declaring it a triumph. If defeat is an orphan, then Trump is the self-declared father of a hundred victories—sometimes christened in defiance of the facts, but always a declared monument to his own legacy. The battle may seem unwinnable, but the genius of Trump is that any seeming orphan of defeat can be rebranded, dressed in glory, and proudly claimed as rightful victorious progeny.

By Ian Proud, Responsible Statecraft, 5/30/25

Ian Proud was a member of His Britannic Majesty’s Diplomatic Service from 1999 to 2023. He served as the Economic Counsellor at the British Embassy in Moscow from July 2014 to February 2019. Prior to Moscow, he organized the 2013 G8 Summit in Lough Erne, Northern Ireland, working out of 10 Downing Street. He recently published his memoir, “A Misfit in Moscow: How British diplomacy in Russia failed, 2014-2019.”

Ukraine is already asking for more money to continue fighting into 2026, a sure sign that President Volodmyr Zelensky has no plans to end the war.

With the battlefield continuing to favor Russia, European leaders have their collective heads in the sand on who will pay. How long before President Trump walks away?

At the G7 Finance and Central Bank governors’ meeting in Banff on May 21, Ukraine’s Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko sought financial support for 2026, “including the provision of support to the Ukrainian army through its integration into the European security system,” according to reports.

I have said before that Ukraine cannot keep fighting into 2026 without a significant injection of European money. Even if the war were to stop tomorrow, Ukraine would still face a huge funding black hole. And that prolonging the war simply extends Ukraine’s indebtedness and delinquency, nudging it every closer towards the status of a failed state.

Making light of the price tag, German-based Kiel Institute has suggested extra EU support to Ukraine’s army would only need to cost an extra 0.2% of GDP or $43.3 billion per year. This assumes no additional U.S. funding under President Trump and is a figure practically identical to the $41.5 billion figure I forecast two months ago.

The Ukrainian side pointed out two assumptions that underpin their request — first, that funding Ukraine’s military supports macro-financial stability in that country. That is untrue. By far the leading cause of the increased financial distress of Ukraine is its vast and unsustainable prosecution of a war that it cannot win. As I have said before, ending the war would allow for immediate reductions to be made to military spending, which accounts for 65% of total government expenditure.

Second, that paying for Ukraine’s military is keeping Europe safer. It isn’t. The best route to European security would be to end the war tomorrow. The risk of escalation only grows for the longer the war continues and President Zelensky resorts to increasingly desperate tactics as the battlefield realities turn against him.

This latest request for money is a clear signal that Zelensky is not serious about U.S. demands for peace, and would prefer to continue the fight, drawing directly upon European funds. It has long been clear to me that Zelensky is evading peace because it would bring his presidency to a close, not to mention elevate risks to his personal safety.

He has therefore been piling on more pressure for Western leaders to impose more sanctions and other measures, which will only serve to prolong the war. Senator Lindsey Graham’s recent brain wave that the U.S. impose 500% secondary tariffs on countries that trade with Russia is a classic example. No doubt other countries, China in particular, would respond negatively to this, as it has already to the launch of Trump’s tariff war. It would kill President Trump’s efforts at engagement with Russia, by boxing him in to Beltway demands in an identical rerun of his first presidency, making him appear toothless in the eyes of Putin.

But these are not the real points. Having suffered over 20,000 sanctions already since 2014 yet maintaining a stable, growing economy, what makes people believe that Russia will back down to even more sanctions now?

The war continues to favor Russia on the battlefield. In recent days, in addition to expanding territory in the south of Donetsk, the Russian army has made major gains in the pocket around now-occupied Toretsk. Progress, as always, is slow and grinding as it has been since the start of 2024. Ukraine has undoubtedly mounted a formidable defence of its territory, for which its fighters deserve great credit.

But Russia has never fully mobilized the country for the fight in Ukraine, for various domestic political reasons. Putin also wants to maintain relations with developing country partners and a more devastating military offensive against Ukraine would make that harder.

Pumping more billions into Ukraine’s army will merely slow the speed of defeat. Even the Ukrainians now accept that they cannot reclaim lost territory by force. Ending the war would at least draw a line in the sand for future negotiations.

For their part, Europe simply can’t afford to pump another $40 billion per year into Ukraine’s army, at a time when member states are trying to boost their own militaries, revive their flagging economies and deal with an upsurge in nationalist political parties that want to end the war.

An April pledge for extra military donations in 2025 elicited just $2.5 billion per year from Germany, and reconfirmed the £6 billion from the UK already committed, without pledging new funds. Keir Starmer’s government is in the process of making an embarrassing U-turn on previously agreed cuts to winter fuel payments for pensioners.

I seriously doubt that British people would consider another big increase in funds for Ukraine’s war would be a sensible investment if peace was on the table. That this isn’t actively discussed in Britain, in a way that it is in the United States, is driven by the complete lockdown of debate in the UK and European mainstream media.

Right from the beginning, the war in Ukraine has been an attritional battle of who can sustain the fight for the longest period of time. A longer war will always favor Russia because the economic liability Europe faces will ratchet up to the point where it becomes politically unsustainable. We make the assumption that Russia’s aims in Ukraine are to prevent NATO expansion and to protect the rights of native Russian speakers in that country, and of course, on the surface, they are.

But on the current track, Putin gets the added benefit of watching the European Union project slowly implode, without the need to go all in on Ukraine.

President Trump for his part continues to walk a fine line that involves criticizing both Putin and Zelensky for the continuance of the war. In the face of intransigence on all sides, I wonder how long it will be before he washes his hands of the mess and walks away.

By George Beebe, Responsible Statecraft, 5/30/25

George Beebe spent more than two decades in government as an intelligence analyst, diplomat, and policy advisor, including as director of the CIA’s Russia analysis and as a staff advisor on Russia matters to Vice President Cheney. He is the author of “The Russia Trap: How Our Shadow War with Russia Could Spiral into Nuclear Catastrophe” (2019).

This article is co-published with The American Conservative

If the Trump administration truly makes good on its threats to walk away from its efforts to settle the war in Ukraine, the situation is very likely to get worse for all parties to the conflict, including for the United States. Potentially far worse.

This would most obviously be true for Ukraine if President Donald Trump’s diplomatic disengagement were paired with a cutoff of military and intelligence assistance. Ukraine is highly dependent on American intelligence data and on the U.S.-provided Starlink satellite network to target and coordinate attacks on Russian forces.

Without this support, few of Ukraine’s precision-guided weapons would function effectively, and Ukrainian communications would be far more vulnerable to Russian jamming, disruption, and interception.

Kyiv could still elect to fight on under such difficult conditions, but its battlefield fortunes would greatly suffer. Coupled with Ukraine’s ongoing manpower challenges and with the dwindling number of U.S. Patriot air defense systems to protect against large-scale Russian missile attacks, the blow to Ukrainian morale might prove decisive. Trump is correct that the Biden administration deserves considerable blame for failing to prevent the war in the first place, but in the ensuing controversy over who lost Ukraine, many would be quick to point fingers at Trump.

In fact, absent a compromise settlement of the war, Trump has no clear way of avoiding that blame, justified or not. Doubling down on Biden’s sanctions strategy by toughening enforcement or imposing secondary sanctions on Russia’s trading partners stands little chance of forcing the Kremlin’s capitulation to American demands for an unconditional ceasefire, but it very likely would roil American relations with India, Turkey, and others while undoing recent hard-won progress in Trump’s trade negotiations with China.

Opting to sustain or even increase current levels of U.S. military and intelligence aid to Ukraine would delay defeat, but not prevent it. Many point to the slow pace of Russia’s advance along the front line as a sign that Ukraine can sustain a stalemate with sufficient Western political will. But gauging Ukraine’s fortunes by tracking Russia’s progress on the map is misleading. In a war of attrition, progress is measured not by battlefield breakthroughs, but by how many well-trained and well-equipped troops each side can put in the field.

By this metric, Ukraine is in big trouble. Russia’s defense industry is greatly outproducing U.S. and European military factories in such critical munitions as artillery shells, and it is assembling attack missiles at a faster rate than the West can produce air defense missiles. At least a million Ukrainians have been killed or wounded on the battlefield; many millions more have fled the fighting for Europe, Russia, and beyond.

Although Russia has also suffered great casualties, it has five times Ukraine’s current population and has employed sound approaches to training and replenishing its forces. These trends point not to a long-term stalemate, but to a World War I-style Ukrainian implosion sooner or later, probably during Trump’s term in office.

Contrary to popular perceptions, however, a Ukrainian collapse would not be entirely good news for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Granted, Russia would be in a commanding battlefield position that would allow it to occupy all four of the Ukrainian regions it has officially annexed but not entirely conquered. And Moscow could reasonably expect that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would not survive such a defeat politically, paving the way for regime change that Russia claims to want.

But that would very likely amount to a Pyrrhic victory.

Although Moscow can break Ukraine, it cannot fix it. Its territorial expanse is too vast and its war-stricken population too anti-Russian for military occupation beyond Ukraine’s east and south to be viable. Absent a compromise peace settlement, Ukraine’s societal repair and economic reconstruction would be difficult to imagine, as few refugees would return, and no one would invest hundreds of billions of dollars in projects that could be wiped out by Russian missile and bomb barrages in a matter of hours.

A physically and militarily broken Ukraine could very well become politically broken, too, leaving Putin with a failed neighbor, whose dysfunction would in turn radiate problems — such as crime, terrorism, ethnic unrest, and political extremism — that could pose threats to Russia itself.

For Putin, such an outcome would be preferable to a Ukraine that is a military ally of the United States and NATO, but failed peace efforts would still spell bad news for Russia’s efforts to address its broader security concerns with the West.

Absent new arms control and confidence-building measures — which will be almost impossible without a settlement in Ukraine — Europe’s rearmament would be constrained only by its own political will and industrial capacity, and such informal NATO sub-groupings as the Nordic-Baltic axis combine a high degree of military capacity with deeply held anti-Russian views. Even with a massive militarization of the Russian economy, using conventional forces to defend a border with NATO that has doubled in size since the Finns joined the alliance would be almost prohibitively costly for Moscow.

It would be only a short hop from that dilemma to new, more cost-effective deployments of Russian nuclear forces in the European theater, resurrecting the days of nuclear decapitation scenarios and hair-trigger warning times that ended when Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev signed the now defunct Treaty on Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces in 1987.

Some in Washington might look indifferently at a re-nuclearized Europe that lacks the diplomatic safeguards that kept the Cold War cold but features a host of imaginable new East-West flashpoints in Belarus, Kaliningrad, Moldova, Georgia, and the Balkans. They might ask, why would this be America’s problem?

For starters, American fingers would still be holding the nuclear triggers on one side of that tense Russia-West divide. The United States is scheduled to deploy new intermediate-range missiles in Germany next year, and the political pressure to pair them with nuclear warheads will be enormous if Russia points new nuclear weapons at Europe. Trump officials have openly discussed drawing down US ground forces in Europe, but no one has suggested withdrawing America’s nuclear umbrella, because doing so would prompt Germany and other technically capable European states to develop their own nuclear weapons, which in turn would fuel proliferation in other regions and increase the odds these weapons would one day be used.

Moreover, this more volatile version of the Cold War in Europe would deepen Russian dependence on China, incentivize Russian mischief-making in the Middle East, and make Trump’s vision of stabilizing and counterbalancing relations among great and rising powers in an increasingly multipolar world considerably less attainable. Much of Washington is already opposed to Trump’s broader efforts to pursue détente with Russia; improved US-Russian relations will be well-nigh politically impossible absent a compromise settlement in Ukraine.

For obvious reasons, Trump does not want this. For less obvious ones, neither does Putin. And neither of them has a good way to avoid this mutually troubling future without a negotiated end to the war.

The path to that compromise will not begin with an unconditional ceasefire, however. Having been burned before by perceived American deception over NATO expansion and European double-dealing over the Minsk 2 accord in Ukraine, Putin will not agree to a ceasefire (which would ease military pressure on Ukraine and undermine Russian negotiating leverage) until he gets strong assurances that the United States is addressing his key security concerns.

Ukraine and Europe lack both the desire and the capability to bargain with Russia over these issues. Only Trump can deliver the kind of deal that can secure Ukraine, stabilize Europe, and still address Russia’s core concerns.

To test Russia’s interest in peace, Trump’s negotiators should press Moscow directly to agree to a settlement framework that codifies the key geopolitical compromise — Western assurance that Ukraine will not join NATO in return for Russia’s support for Ukraine’s EU membership — and establishes a roadmap for resolving the range of complicated issues required for a stable peace.

The sooner we begin the hard negotiations over these core issues, the better. They will not get easier to resolve if the Trump team steps away from the table.

By John Wight, Consortium News, 6/3/25

Russian President Vladimir Putin now finds himself at a monumental crossroads when it comes to his stewardship of Russia at a time when nuclear Armageddon has never been closer.

Ukraine’s devastatingly successful and audacious strike against Russia’s long-range strategic bomber aircraft stock marks a major inflection point in a conflict that evidences no sign of ending.

But let us not lose sight of the salient fact that Russia is not engaged in a conflict with President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Ukraine. This is instead a conflict pitting the Russian Federation against NATO, with Ukraine a proxy of the latter. And NATO is taking advantage of Putin’s caution.

No consequential conflict has ever been won by half-measures. General William Sherman’s “March to the Sea” arguably did more to break the Confederacy than President Abraham Lincoln’s famed Emancipation Proclamation. The Allies firebombing of Dresden in February 1945 and the Soviets arrival on the outskirts of Berlin on April 25, 1945, did more to break the back of the Germans than Hitler’s suicide nine days later.  The Vietnamese won their national liberation with the fully-committed and symbolically important Tet Offensive of 1968 rather than all of the diplomatic machinations that came thereafter.

Russia’s military campaign at Putin’s direction has placed  a priority on avoiding escalation. But it is a posture that has invited escalation, evidenced by this latest major turn of events.

Vasyl Malyuk, head of Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, viewing satellite images of Russian military airfields, clockwise — Olenya, Ivanovo Severny, Ukrainka, Belaya, and Dyagilevo — and photos of strategic bombers Tu-95MS, left, and Tu-22M3, right. (Ssu.gov.ua/ Wikimedia Commons /CC BY 4.0)

Russia has been fighting the West diplomatically but not militarily, while Ukraine under Zelensky has been waging its conflict with Russia in the name of the strategic aims of NATO, rather than the interests of Ukraine and its people.

Russia is at a decisive point.  Does it continue its war carefully to avoid confrontation with NATO, while encouraging its continued provocations, or does it take the hardline approach of Yevengi Prigozhin, the late outspoken leader of Russia’s Wagner Group, who made repeated demands for national mobilization in the name of a speedy victory dictated by Russia’s far superior mass and weight of industrial potential.

Ukraine’s June 1 drone attack ona Russian airfield. (Ssu.gov.ua / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0)

Putin is a deft leader. Even his adversaries in the corridors of power in the West would grudgingly admit this given his long record in power in the Kremlin. It was he who dragged Russia out of the free market abyss into which the country and its people were plunged in the wake of the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.

Putin’s Rebuilding of Russia 

In the process, Putin succeeded in restoring the primacy of the state over a new rising Russian economic oligarchy  —  one that had been happy to allow the masses of the Russian people into the arms of destitution and despair because of its own greed and corruption.

The Russian leader then set about rebuilding state institutions that had been destroyed in the name of the religion of free market capitalism, with the result that slowly but surely a new state emerged from the ashes of the old.  Russia regained pride in a new identity embraced the indispensable role of the Soviet Union in defeating the Nazis in World War II with respect for the pre-Bolshevik role of the Russian Orthodox church as a pillar of spiritual stability and social cohesion.

From the Russian standpoint, this is why Putin is credited as their historical version of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the U.S. president who likewise saved his country from the abyss during the 1930s, when the Great Depression was at its terrible and destructive zenith and then went on to lead the bulk of the U.S. war effort during World War II. 

But Putin has, it appears, misread the West’s resolve in this period of the rapidly shifting tectonic plates of geopolitics.  Putin’s reasoning has been the avoidance of escalation to direct military conflict with the collective Western powers. However those powers are already heavily involved in the arming, training and direction of Kiev’s war effort.

Zelensky at a meeting with Jens Stoltenberg, the former NATO secretary general, in Kiev in April 2024. (President of Ukraine/Flickr)

So where now and what now?

Ukraine’s devastating drone strike deep into Russian territory is a gauntlet thrown down. Will Russia under Putin’s leadership ever be able to persevere to the point of claiming a clear victory? Or has Ukraine under the leadership of Zelensky just changed the dynamic to the point of proving to the collective West that he is a leader worthy of continued support to the point of victory at all cost?

President Donald Trump’s dressing down of the Ukrainian leader in the Oval Office back in March was driven and motivated by the belief that Ukraine’s war effort was faltering. Zelensky in this context appeared isolated, adrift and weak.

Well, not anymore.

As these words are being written, reports of heavy Russian air and missile strikes against targets across Ukraine are emerging. The famous quote of the French revolutionary thinker and agitator, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just springs to mind: “Those who make revolution halfway only dig their own grave.” Substitute the word “war” for revolution and this is the point at which Putin and the Kremlin have arrived.  But how far can Russia go before all-out war with NATO and its potential, dreadful consequences?

Beware of small states, as throughout history it is they who have dragged the world into major conflict. Zelensky, when viewed in this light, knows that Ukraine cannot forever stand against Russia’s superior manpower and mass. He knows that to stand any chance of emerging from this conflict with a result at the end, he must drag the West into direct conflict with Moscow sooner rather than later.

World War III is the only road to victory that lies open to him. For the rest of us, it is the road to hell.

John Wight, author of Gaza Weeps, 2021, writes on politics, culture, sport and whatever else.  Please consider making a donation in order to help fund his efforts. You can do so here. You can also grab a copy of his book, This Boxing Game: A Journey in Beautiful Brutality, from all major booksellers, and his novel Gaza: This Bleeding Land from same. Please consider taking out a subscription at his Medium site.

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

Russia Matters, 6/2/25

1. “Astonishing” is the adjective Economist and Politico writers used to describe Ukraine’s operation to smuggle some 150 drones into Russia and launch them in a June 1 attack on Russian long-range bombers and early-warning aircraft at bases across Russia, including one base 2,500 miles away from Ukraine. “Today’s operation is likely to be ranked among the most important raiding actions in modern warfare,” the Economist proclaimed in reference to the June 1 attack, in which an estimated record of 11 to 12 Russian long-range bombers were damaged or destroyed within one day.¹ “The Ukrainians rewrote the rules of warfare again,” claimed Max Boot in his Washington Post column. Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy lauded the attack, calling it “brilliant,” and even some of Russia’s pro-war commentators conceded Ukrainian creativity in this instance. The June 1 attacks showed “the enemy is strong, cunning, technically savvy,” editors of the pro-war Russian telegram channel Dva Mayora wrote. Notably, both pro-Kremlin commentators, such as Georgy Bovt and Aleksey Zhivov, and opposition-minded Russian commentators, such as Alexander Baunov, discussed whether the June 1attacks could increase the probability of a nuclear strike by Russia. Pro-Kremlin commentator Sergei Markov warned against a nuclear response to Ukraine’s attacks, warning that “this would lead to real political and economic isolation in the world,” while “tactical nuclear weapons would not significantly change the military situation in Russia’s favor.” It should be noted that the June 1 strikes on Russian long-range bombers, which form the air leg of Russia’s strategic nuclear triad, could theoretically satisfy the criteria for Russia’s use of nuclear weapons per its 2024 Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence.”² That said, however, even if all of the estimated seven Tu-95 bombers damaged or destroyed in the attack could not be repaired, that would still leave Russia with an estimated total of 45 such bombers and 15 more advanced Tu-160 bombers, meaning the air leg of the Russian strategic nuclear triad would still have 60 aircraft. Thus, while the tactics used in the June 1 attack contain innovations, such as mass launches of UAVs against multiple targets from trucks, the losses this attack has caused are unlikely to have a decisive impact on either the Russian strategic nuclear triad (which mostly relies on ICBMs), or on Russia’s ability to launch cruise missiles at Ukraine.*
2. “Ukraine and Russia agreed to hold a new prisoner exchange and swapped memorandums on a possible ceasefire to end Vladimir Putin’s three-year war,” but remained “far apart on terms for a lasting ceasefire after a second round of peace talks in Istanbul” on June 2, Financial Times reported. Ukraine should pursue a peace deal in earnest because it is losing in the war of attrition, according to George Beebe, while Moscow should follow suit because “although Moscow can break Ukraine, it cannot fix it.” “Only Trump can deliver the kind of deal that can secure Ukraine, stabilize Europe and still address Russia’s core concerns,” Beebe writes in a commentary for Responsible Statecraft. See the texts of both memoranda in the section on “Ukraine-related negotiations” to compare Russia’s and Ukraine’s negotiating positions.

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Zelenskyy’s Reckless Strikes Risk Undermining New START Treaty: The Role of Visible Nuclear Bombers

By Iain Muir, Substack, 6/2/25

The United States and Russia maintain their commitment to the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), a vital framework for global nuclear stability. Signed in 2010 and extended until February 2026, the treaty limits each nation to 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads and 700 deployed delivery systems, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.

A key aspect of compliance involves parking nuclear-capable bombers in open view at airbases, enabling verification through satellite imagery. However, Ukraine’s drone attacks on 1 June 2025, authorised by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and targeting Russian strategic bombers at bases such as Belaya, Diaghilevo, Olenya, and Ivanovo, have raised concerns about the treaty’s stability.

While reports claim over 40 aircraft were damaged or destroyed, only 8-10 losses or damages have been visually confirmed.

This article examines the reasons behind U.S. and Russian adherence to New START, the role of visible bomber deployments, the risks posed by Zelenskyy’s actions, and the possible sources of satellite imagery used for Ukraine’s strikes, including the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

New START Framework

Implemented in 2011, New START seeks to reduce nuclear escalation risks by capping the strategic arsenals of the U.S. and Russia. The treaty allows 18 annual on-site inspections, biannual data exchanges, and notifications for changes in delivery system status, such as converting a bomber from nuclear to conventional roles. According to the September 2022 data exchange, the U.S. reported 659 deployed delivery systems and Russia 540, both within the 700-unit limit. Heavy bombers, such as the U.S. B-52 Stratofortress and B-2 Spirit or Russia’s Tu-95 Bear and Tu-160 Blackjack, count as one delivery system each, regardless of warhead capacity.

Satellite imagery is central to New START’s verification regime. Bombers stationed openly at bases like Minot Air Force Base (North Dakota) for the U.S. or Engels Air Base for Russia allow both nations to confirm compliance with treaty limits without relying solely on inspections. Although not mandated, this visibility supports transparency. Ukraine’s recent attacks, approved by Zelenskyy and targeting openly deployed bombers, have sparked concerns about the treaty’s future.

Reasons for U.S. and Russian Compliance

The U.S. and Russia adhere to New START due to strategic, diplomatic, and practical considerations:

1. Strategic Stability: By limiting warheads and delivery systems, New START fosters predictability. Russia’s Tu-160 fleet at Engels, constrained by the treaty, assures the U.S., while U.S. B-52s at Barksdale offer similar reassurance to Russia. This mutual transparency stabilises deterrence, supporting a balanced strategic environment.

2. Robust Verification: The treaty’s mechanisms, including satellite monitoring and on-site inspections, ensure compliance. Openly parked bombers, visible via commercial satellite imagery from providers like Maxar, allow both nations to verify adherence to the 700-delivery-system limit. For example, the U.S. declares which B-52s are nuclear-capable, and Russia follows suit for its Tu-95s, with open deployments facilitating verification.

3. Diplomatic Credibility: Compliance strengthens both nations’ global standing. For the U.S., adherence highlights leadership in non-proliferation, reinforcing alliances and influence in forums like the United Nations. For Russia, it supports its position as a responsible nuclear power, enhancing diplomatic engagement. Visible bombers signal transparency, affirming commitment to the treaty.

4. Economic Pragmatism: Building additional bombers or warheads beyond treaty limits would require substantial investment. Both nations focus on modernisation within constraints—the U.S. with the B-21 Raider and Russia with the Tu-160M. Open parking avoids the high costs of hardened shelters or underground facilities, impractical for large fleets like the U.S.’s 66 B-52s or Russia’s 60+ Tu-95s.

5. Avoiding Escalation: Adhering to New START prevents actions that could prompt the other side to expand its arsenal, maintaining stability. Visible bombers reduce suspicions of covert buildup, as concealment could suggest non-compliance. Russia’s open deployment of Tu-95s at Ukrainka, for instance, aligns with treaty obligations, as does the U.S.’s approach at Minot.

Zelenskyy’s Attacks and Risks to New START

On 1 June 2025, Ukraine, under President Zelenskyy’s authorisation, launched a drone operation, codenamed “Web,” targeting Russian airbases hosting strategic bombers. The strikes, involving 117 drones, targeted aircraft at Belaya, Diaghilevo, Olenya, and Ivanovo. While initial reports claimed over 40 aircraft, including Tu-95s and Tu-22M3s, were damaged or destroyed, affecting a significant portion of Russia’s strategic cruise missile carriers, only 8-10 losses or damages have been visually confirmed through satellite imagery and other sources. Although Ukraine, a non-signatory, cannot directly violate New START, Zelenskyy’s decision to target these assets raises concerns about the treaty’s stability:

1. Exploitation of Transparency: New START’s Article VI requires observable strategic arms to prevent concealment, with Russia deploying Tu-95s and Tu-22M3s openly at bases like Olenya to comply. Zelenskyy’s strikes leveraged this visibility, using precise targeting data to hit bombers integral to Russia’s strategic forces. This could lead Russia to reconsider open deployments, potentially affecting treaty verification.

2. Potential Treaty Tensions: The attacks targeted aircraft linked to Russia’s strategic capabilities, which its nuclear doctrine (updated November 2024) considers critical. While Russia continues to engage with New START, Zelenskyy’s actions could prompt adjustments in deployment practices, complicating transparency and verification as the treaty nears its 2026 expiration.

3. Perceived U.S. Complicity: Despite Ukraine’s claim that the U.S. had no prior knowledge, suspicions of U.S. involvement, particularly through agencies like the CIA, may arise due to intelligence-sharing. Such perceptions could challenge trust, hindering future arms control discussions.

4. Strategic Imbalance: The confirmed loss or damage of 8-10 bombers reduces Russia’s delivery systems, potentially bringing it below the 700-unit limit. While not a violation, this could disrupt the treaty’s intended balance, possibly influencing Russia’s modernisation efforts within treaty constraints.

Ukraine’s Claim and Satellite Imagery Sources

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) asserts that the U.S. had no prior knowledge of the 1 June attacks, supported by reports from BBC and Axios indicating independent planning under Zelenskyy’s direction. The operation’s precision, targeting remote bases like Belaya (4,000 km from Ukraine), suggests access to high-quality satellite imagery. Possible sources include:

1. Commercial Providers: Companies like BlackSky, Maxar, and Planet Labs have provided imagery throughout the Ukraine conflict. For example, Maxar imagery from May 2025 showed 40 Tu-22M3s and 11 Tu-95MSs at Olenya, aligning with strike targets. Ukraine likely acquired such data, which offers sufficient resolution to pinpoint aircraft.

2. Ukrainian Capabilities: Ukraine’s advanced drone programme, with models reaching 3,000 km, likely conducted reconnaissance to complement satellite data. The SBU’s deployment of 117 drones, some launched from Russian territory, suggests additional on-the-ground or aerial intelligence.

3. Western Allies: NATO allies like the UK, which shared imagery of Russian naval assets in 2024, or Germany, supporting Starlink systems, may have provided indirect assistance. However, commercial sources are more likely given Ukraine’s claim of independence.

4. U.S. Intelligence, Including CIA: The U.S., potentially through the CIA or National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), has shared imagery with Ukraine since 2022, primarily for defensive purposes, as seen in the 2022 Moskva sinking. The CIA’s role in intelligence coordination could suggest its data was indirectly used for Zelenskyy’s strikes. U.S. officials, including Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, maintain that intelligence is not provided for offensive operations, and no direct evidence links CIA imagery to the 1 June attacks. Ukraine’s claim suggests any U.S. data was repurposed independently.

5. Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT): Groups like AviVector published detailed analyses of Russian airbases, such as May 2025 imagery of Olenya, shared on platforms like X. Ukraine’s intelligence, under Zelenskyy’s oversight, likely used such data for targeting.

The most likely scenario involves Ukraine combining commercial imagery from Maxar or BlackSky with drone reconnaissance and OSINT, enabling precise strikes without direct U.S. involvement. However, the CIA’s broader intelligence-sharing role could have indirectly contributed, potentially raising questions about U.S. neutrality in the context of New START.

Conclusion

The U.S. and Russia uphold New START due to strategic stability, robust verification, diplomatic credibility, economic pragmatism, and the need to maintain balance. Openly parked bombers at bases like Minot and Engels facilitate satellite verification, ensuring compliance with the 700-delivery-system limit. However, Ukraine’s 1 June 2025 attacks, authorised by President Zelenskyy, target this transparency, with only 8-10 aircraft losses or damages visually confirmed. These actions risk disrupting the treaty’s framework. Ukraine likely sourced targeting data from commercial satellite providers, its own drones, OSINT, and possibly indirect CIA or allied intelligence, supporting its claim of no U.S. prior knowledge. Zelenskyy’s provocative actions underscore the challenges facing arms control as New START approaches its 2026 expiration.

For further details on New START, consult the U.S. State Department or Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs treaty resources.

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Russia’s talking heads discuss the Ukrainian attacks on air bases across the RF this weekend

By Gilbert Doctorow, Website, 6/2/25

In an essay yesterday, I mentioned the Ukrainian drone attacks over the weekend on airbases across the Russian Federation from Murmansk in the North, to the Moscow region and Central Russia, across all of Siberia to the Baikal region (Irkutsk). My brief remarks were based on Western accounts, principally, The Financial Times, which in turn was re-transmitting what Kiev had to say about its daring and seemingly highly successful feats destroying Russian strategic bombers.

Note that the Ukrainians had stressed that the aircraft destroyed were being used to launch missiles that were fired on Ukraine. However, for our purposes in looking at the broader threat to Russian security that their destruction poses, should it have occurred as the Ukrainians say, these aircraft are key components in the Russian nuclear triad for strategic defense against the United States. The Ukrainians claim to have destroyed 40 such bombers, meaning one-third of the Russian fleet in this category of aircraft.

Last night, the Sunday edition of Vladimir Solovyov’s widely watched talk show featured a military expert panelist who told us a good deal more about what happened and in which directions Russian investigation of this calamity and thoughts of retaliation are headed.

Firstly, the Russians deny that the destruction was as extensive as the Ukrainians claim. They insist that their local air defenses neutralized most of the incoming drones. They speak of some damaged aircraft without specifying how many. On the other hand, they are considering a nuclear response in line with their nuclear doctrine of retaliation for attacks which endanger Russian national security. This in its own way is an acknowledgement that something awful did occur. The same panelist makes it clear that the ongoing investigation has already led to arrests of Russians who facilitated the attack by acts of commission and omission.

The attack this weekend took 18 months to prepare. The positive conclusion we may draw is that a follow-on attack is improbable if not impossible to carry out. Nonetheless, the events of the weekend highlight serious security problems that it will not be easy for Russian authorities to correct.

Specifically, it is now known that the Ukrainian drones were brought into the Russian Federation in truck-trailers. This means that the border inspections by Russian customs were strangely lax at more than one border crossing and on more than one date. Secondly it raises the questions about the complicity of the truck drivers, some of whom have now been arrested and who, under questioning say they had no idea what the containers held.

Then there are questions one must pose regarding the long time that these trailers were kept in place in the general vicinity of Russia’s most important air bases. How could their presence not have raised questions for local officials?

Finally, the investigation has revealed that Russian military recruits on the airbases under attack photographed what was happening and the destruction of planes, and then put these images up on social media. That they had kept their personal phones with them was itself a violation of military regulations. That they posted images identifying the strategic bombers which were damaged is itself punishable under Russian wartime law.

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The next set of questions, for which as yet we have no answers, is how the Kremlin will respond to this attack that would appear to meet the criterion for nuclear escalation under the latest Russian doctrine.

Will President Putin now declare war on Ukraine, as his legalistic mind would suggest, to clear the way for destruction of the ‘decision making centers’ in Kiev, with or without all staff on board? Will he break off all peace negotiations, as logic would have it?

We will not have long to wait to get answers. I expect to see them in the coming week.