Trump’s ludicrous, crassly corrupt “Board of Peace” for Gaza is a prime illustration of what Trumpista diplomacy is about. “Trump's Board of Peace at this point is a shady club consisting of opportunists and people with vested interests.” (1)
At this point, Ukraine has a strong national interest to keep fighting to minimize their territorial losses in the current war. Since the European allies are in the position of regarding Russia as a longterm threat, so they have a strong incentive to help Ukraine in its current war, to show European “credibility” (the most overused term in US foreign policy), to weaken Russia (though diplomatic norms require denying that), and to focus their publics on the urgency of building up European defenses to operate as independently of possible of a now-unfriendly US.
Deutsche Welle English reports on the current situation on the war. (2) If you’re feeling nostalgic for Cold War-era hype, one of the panelists here repeats the zombie trope that any kind of “appeasement” automatically and inevitably leads to more war.
Trump’s territorial threat against Greenland/Denmark has added new urgency to the Europeans’ need to show Russia that they could mount a credible defense against any possible Russian attack on current NATO members. I’m not at all convinced about the maximalist pessimism that anti-Russia hawks promote, that Russia is a relentless expansionist power that is eager to absorb the former areas of the Soviet Union or at least make vassal states of them.
It’s notable that Russia has now been fighting the current Ukraine war (since 2022) for longer that they fought Nazi Germany from 1941-1945. And even if Ukraine were to completely collapse tomorrow, Russia would surely be hesitant to absorb the whole country right away. Ukraine would be facing enormous reconstruction needs even if the war stopped tomorrow. Absorbing former parts of Soviet Union, like the current nations of Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan (and that’s not even a complete list) would be a big additional lift. The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are part of that list, and they are currently NATO members. The current European defense configuration would create an enormous incentive for NATO members other than the US to directly fight an invasion of any of those three countries.
Lithuania’s “Suwałki Gap,” (3) the main land connection for the main territory of Russia to Kaliningrad, which is also part of Russia itself, would be a potential target of any Russian move to seize territory of any current NATO country. Of course, the only country that has recently seriously threatened to seize territory that is part of a NATO member is the US, i.e., Trump’s threats of military aggression against Denmark over Greenland.
I dislike the term “hybrid war” which has been used in recent years to cover everything from long-standing international propaganda operations to immigration to cyber attacks to routine testing of a country’s air defense by brief violations of a country’s airspace. War is war, and expanding the term to cover anything that may annoy another country is a prescription for trouble. Cyber-attacks, of course, can target military defenses directly, so it’s not as though countries can afford to not take them seriously.
Given that some European far-right parties like the AfD in Germany have been adopting “antiwar” rhetoric to support their own brand of political Putinism, joined by some left parties and activists, most of whom presumably aren’t committed to a militarist and/or authoritarian ideology. Private weapons manufacturers are operating on a profit motive which is not always identical to the national interest of particular countries or to the need for a more peaceful world. Military buildups, especially ones being done on the basis of the sudden outbreak of the current “new world order” need to be monitored, audited, and critically evaluated.
For those who take a left perspective, it’s worth noting that today’s Russia does not claim to be promoting anti-imperialism as a principle. By traditional left perspectives, today’s Russia is vcry much a capitalist, imperialist power. But that is very different from the position of Russophobes who see some kind of hostile Russian soul at work in the country’s foreign policy will find it hard to make sense of events involving it.
When it comes to things like this, people should try to be able to walk and talk at the same time. Attributing some kind of mystical inherent national tendencies to a country like Russia can lead to a lot of sloppy thinking.
John Mearsheimer in this interview talks about the current peace-not-in-sight situation for Russia-Ukraine. He also discusses the recklessness of the Trump regime’s current noises about a regime-change effort in Iran. Such a move will not turn out well for the US. Or for Israel. At the end, he talks about why the “Golden Dome” fantasy of making the US invulnerable to nuclear attacks is still just as much poppycock as it was during Reagan’s Star Wars fantasies in the 1980s. (4)
A recent study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) gives the following figures for Russian casualties in the 2022-2025 years of the war:
Assessing casualties and fatalities in wartime is difficult and imprecise, and various sides have incentives to inflate or shrink the numbers for political purposes. According to CSIS estimates, Russian forces suffered nearly 1.2 million battlefield casualties, which include killed, wounded, and missing, between February 2022 and December 2025, as highlighted in Figure 2.15 There were roughly 415,000 Russian casualties in 2025 alone, with an average of nearly 35,000 casualties per month. In addition, there were roughly 275,000 to 325,000 Russian battlefield fatalities between February 2022 and December 2025. (5)And they add:
Russian battlefield casualties and fatalities are significantly greater than Ukrainian casualties and fatalities—with a ratio of roughly 2.5:1 or 2:1. Ukrainian forces likely suffered somewhere between 500,000 and 600,000 casualties, including killed, wounded, and missing, and between 100,000 and 140,000 fatalities between February 2022 and December 2025.Nikolay Mitrokhin writing for Osteuropa as of January 28 uses a higher number for Ukrainian deaths:
Russia is continuing air strikes on power plants and substations throughout Ukraine. The goal is to paralyze Ukrainian industry and to drive the population to the West or to push them to protest against the [Ukrainian] political leadership. That leadership counts on the [Ukrainian] army being able to withstand the [Russian] attacks on the front, which Russia has taken up with new intensity, and that Moscow will run out of funds to continue the war in the coming months.This has been largely a war of attrition, like much of the First World War, and the conventional expectation would be that the defenders of territory versus the attackers would experience lower casualties.
Then the Kremlin might abandon its war goal of taking the parts of the Donbass still held by Ukraine or forcing their surrender as part of a ceasefire agreement. Russia’s army has certainly been weakened by high losses. But about 200,000 Ukrainian soldiers have also lost their lives in four years of war. [my emphasis] (6)
Still, it appears that Russia still has the advantage with a larger population and a larger economy. The chances of Ukraine being able to militarily push the Russians out of their country any time soon look very dim, especially with the Trump 2.0 regime having largely abandoned any serious diplomacy to end the war. For those who assume that conquering all of Ukraine is the immediate aim for Russia, the fact that they have not yet done so is often taken as a sign that Russia is at significant disadvantage. But the evidence that complete conquest is their immediate goal is pretty thin.
Seth Jones and Riley McCabe in their CSIS Brief stress Russia’s economic troubles as a key weakness of the Russian side. This is a point that financier and high-profile Putin critic Bill Browder also stresses. But he doesn’t sound optimistic that Russia is about to throw in the towel on the war. (7) Although he’s right about Russia’s economic dependency on oil sales.
Notes:
(1) Rozovsky, Lisa (2026): Despite Trump's Grandiose Plans, His Gaza Board of Peace Deflated to Its Natural Proportions. Haaretz 01/233/2026. Full link: <https://www.haaretz.com/gaza/2026-01-23/ty-article/.premium/despite-trumps-grandiose-plans-his-gaza-board-of-peace-deflated-to-normal-proportions/0000019b-e6d9-d069-a7fb-e6dda59a0000?gift=06585d60c4d449329c654d48eb974b23> (Accessed: 2026-29-01).
(2) Fighting and Negotiating: How Strong Is Russia Really? DW News YouTube channel 01/29/2026. <https://youtu.be/DHA44ury_xY?si=muWEf-R4Kq3dc6D2> (Accessed: 2026-29-01).
(3) Loan, Kim Son (2025): Nato’s Achilles heel? The Suwałki Gap, and Lithuania’s fears of a Russian attack. EU Observer 05/24/2025. <https://euobserver.com/32751/natos-achilles-heel-the-suwalki-gap-and-lithuanias-fears-of-a-russian-attack/> (Accessed: 2026-29-01).
(4) Prof John Mearsheimer: Element of DESPERATION for PUTIN. Daniel Davis-Deep Dive YouTube channel 01/29-2026. <https://www.youtube.com/live/QIhC3XBEFWU?si=RK8C3yy6f9iqy-_6> (Accessed: 2026-29-01). The title of the video strikes me as a bit odd for the actual content.
(5) Jones, Seth & McCabe, Riley (2026): Russia’s Grinding War in Ukraine. CSIS 01/27/2026. <https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-grinding-war-ukraine#h2-the-issue> (Accessed: 2026-29-01).
(6) Mitzrokhi, Nikoly (2026): Zermürbung durch Kälte: Russlands Krieg gegen die Ukraine: die 199. bis 200. Kriegswoche. Osteuropa 28.01.2026. <https://zeitschrift-osteuropa.de/blog/zermuerbung-durch-kaelte/> (Accessed: 2026-29-01). My translation to English. Paragraph break added.
(7) Putin Has No Interest In Ending This War - Sir Bill Browder. Times News YouTube channel 01/29/2026. <https://youtu.be/uy8OulfibRY?si=okVfIZYA0AGf91QR> (Accessed: 2026-29-01).
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