A well written piece.
Russia faces two serious military dilemmas. One is its own inability to advance. In some technical sense, momentum is on Russia’s side, as it takes square miles of Ukrainian territory, but this momentum is going nowhere. For months, Russia has tried and failed to take the Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk. Its failure has been accompanied by enormous losses: an estimated 790,000 killed or injured since the beginning of the war (plus 48,000 missing), including more than 100,000 casualties this year alone. By the end of 2025, at this rate, Russia will have over a million casualties, and its strategic situation will not be any better than it was in 2022. Putin has no easy way to alter a trajectory that translates (if unaltered) into stalemate. Mostly war zones, the territories that Russia controls in Ukraine are of no material benefit to Russia.
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Russia has ways to gain advantage in a long war of attrition. It could facilitate a U.S. withdrawal from the war, which would have a severe effect on Ukrainians’ morale, limit the day-to-day capabilities of the Ukrainian military and send a strong signal globally that Ukraine was unable to sustain its most important bi-lateral relationship. Were the United States to opt out, Russia could then try to pick off individual European states, pushing them either toward neutrality or toward active support for Russia in the war. By driving a wedge between the United States and Europe, Russia could do more than improve its position in Ukraine. It could move closer to its dream of a Russian sphere of influence in Europe and of a transatlantic alliance in utter disarray.
But Russia has mismanaged its diplomacy with the West. It squandered the opportunities presented by an avowedly pro-Russian Trump administration in February, March, and April, bombing its way past multiple cease-fires. This has pushed Trump toward Ukraine and Europe, and Moscow has found no way to separate Europe from Ukraine. Germany’s newly elected chancellor, Friedrich Merz, who has excellent relations with the United Kingdom, France, and Poland, is staunchly pro-Ukraine, and he has committed Germany to some half a trillion dollars in defense spending. Russian diplomacy cannot engineer a friendly or neutral West, not least because of the way Russia fights in Ukraine. Putin also prevents Russian diplomats from exploring the compromises that might save Russia from the wartime nightmare he has fashioned for his country.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/05/19/ru ... to-europe/
