The real issue practical issue right now as I understand it is, are Ukraine and Russia willing and able to make a long-term ceasefire agreement that freezes the current lines of occupation in place and addresses issues like prisoner-of-war exchanges and return of Ukrainian children kidnapped and sent into Russia?
If not, the most likely outcome is that the current war of attrition continues indefinitely. Russia’s occupation of one-fifth or so of Ukraine’s territory, Russia’s presumed (and clearly stated) goal of keeping Ukraine out of NATO is achieved for now. Since Trump has radically – and almost certainly permanently - undercut NATO’s reliability and Europe is scrambling to make collective-defense plans that do not rely on US participation, it’s understandable that European politicians and governments are stressing potential security issues with Russia. And, of course, companies that make huge profit margins on armaments have their own narrow incentives to promote a bogeyman of Russia as much as possible.
But neither unrealistic Russophobia or Russophilia – the latter at the moment most common among far-right parties (and some of them like Georgia Meloni’s ruling party in Italy are anti-Russia) – are conducive to realistic understanding of actual threats and opportunities. Reality does matter.
Ironically, the USSR and its Communist ideology are long gone, but the Western powers’ emphasis on ideology in its Cold War standoffs (and bouts of détente) with Moscow. Now Russia has a capitalist system with an authoritarian government based on rule through billionaire oligarchs – and Russia is still a favorite bogeyman. Trump’s weird admiration for Russia and Putin, whether it’s based on incompetence, corruption and/or blackmail – has not led to some more stable security arrangements or a resolution of the war with Ukraine. In fact, the last formal nuclear-arms-control agreement between the US and Russia expired under Trump 2.0. With no replacement, of course.
But when commentary and analysis become simple war boosterism, that can and often lead to real-world consequences. The Guardian’s Simon Tisdall often provides good analysis. But in a current column on the Russia-Ukraine war, he seems to get carried away by boosterism. (1)
Here’s a sample from just one paragraph:
“For Ukraine, the latest news is mostly good. Using sophisticated Ukrainian-made drones and missiles, it has forced the invaders on to the back foot.”
The front lines haven’t moved much from what it was by the end of 2023. But there does seem to be little question that Ukraine has been able to drone warfare with a notable measure of effectiveness.
“Russia’s tally of dead and wounded is said to be running to 30,000 each month.”
But the lines of engagement are largely unchanged. Russia also still has a volunteer army while Ukraine has been relying on draftees and is apparently having series difficulties with desertions. Russia does have large advantages in personnel and industrial capacity. However, Ukraine is fighting for what presumably most of its citizens consider to be its own territory and even its own national survival.
Ukrainian airstrikes deep into Russian territory are bringing the war home to a misled, disillusioned public.”
Yes, being bombed by an enemy country creates mass demands from the public of the country being bombed to immediately give up its war aims as has been shown by many examples since wartime bombing from airplanes began in the First Balkan War of 1912 including, uh, well … no examples. Because that has never happened.
“St Petersburg burns.“
Or, more precisely, Ukraine has made some attacks in Russia well behind the front lines. Whether those attacks have significantly reduced Russia’s warmaking capacity is very questionable. Also, this makes the limited strikes on Petersburg sound like the American firebombing of Tokyo in March 1945, which killed 80-100 thousand people. This is just silly.
“Fuel shortages cause panic buying. Prices and taxes are rising.“
Isn’t this happening pretty much everywhere thanks to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz?
“Putin’s 2022 ‘special military operation’, which was supposed to bring swift victory, has now lasted longer than the first world war.”
The First World War was a good deal bigger than the current Ukraine war, though it was also heavily a war of attrition.
Tisdall does give examples of he presents likely Russian provocations in NATO countries:
Russia’s offensive is becoming more physically aggressive, too. Armed drone and combat jet incursions into Nato airspace are multiplying. Thousands of GPS interference incidents, disrupting civilian aviation and maritime navigation, are blamed on Russia. Poland’s rail network, which supplies Ukraine, has been sabotaged. Germany and the UK have suffered similar attacks. Baltic undersea pipelines and internet cables have been cut. In this undeclared war, Norway’s land border with Russia, the North Sea and the North Atlantic approaches are emerging fronts.The big problem with claims like this is that they are often based on partial information that is often not independently verifiable. The sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in 2022, for instance, has still not been definitively clarified in the public record. And it’s very possible that the US and/or Ukraine sabotaged them, although the story involving Ukraine doing it has also struck me as dubious. (2)
Scott Lucas, who is a good political analyst and one I follow regularly, also seems to fall into boosterism in this clip title, “Can Ukraine Cut Off Russian-Occupied Crimea?” (3)
The podcast episode is titled, “Can Ukraine Cut Off Russian-Occupied Crimea?” Which also raises the question: Given Ukraine’s success with drone warfare, how much does “cutting off” Crimea do for Ukraine’s side in the current war of attrition? If Ukraine were able to take back their Kherson province, they would cut off Russia’s land access to Crimea through Kherson it currently has. It’s not clear what the advantage of prioritizing isolating the Crimean Peninsula would be at this time if that doesn’t directly include re-securing Ukrainian land connection to Crimea.
The hawkish-leaning Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) did a report in early 2025 about Russia sabotage in Europe that I wouldn’t dismiss out of hand. (Welcome to international politics!) Its opening paragraph claims:
Russia is engaged in an aggressive campaign of subversion and sabotage against European and U.S. targets, which complement Russia’s brutal conventional war in Ukraine. The number of Russian attacks in Europe nearly tripled between 2023 and 2024, after quadrupling between 2022 and 2023. Russia’s military intelligence service, the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (or GRU), was likely responsible for many of these attacks, either directly by their own officers or indirectly through recruited agents. The GRU and other Russian intelligence agencies frequently recruited local assets to plan and execute sabotage and subversion missions. Other operations relied on Russia’s “shadow fleet,” commercial ships used to circumvent Western sanctions, for undersea attacks. [my emphasis] (4)Not to be overly cynical, but this kind of stuff goes at various levels between adversary powers all the time. It’s still very important to evaluate the specificity and reliability of reporting on such incidents, from Russia or any other international actors including the US.
It’s also important to be mindful of what is being described as “hybrid war.” For instance, one of the Russian “active measures” is “Undermining the democratic norms and values that underpin the West.” Against, welcome to international politics. And, yes, Trump and J.D. Vance engage in doing exactly that with their political allies in the anti-democracy “Nationalist International.”
Notes:
(1) Tisdall, Simon (2026): Russia is losing the war in Ukraine, and Putin is desperate. But that’s when he’s at his most dangerous. Guardian 06/14/2026. <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/14/vladimir-putin-ukraine-war-borders-russian-president> (Accessed: 2026-14-06).
(2) Walker, Shun & Cole, Deborah (2026): The Nord Stream riddle: echoes of mistrust ripple through Europe. Guardian 11/03/2025. <https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/nov/03/the-nord-stream-riddle-echoes-of-mistrust-ripple-through-europe> (Accessed: 2026-14-06).
(3) Scott Lucas Worldview YouTube channel 06/14/2026. <https://youtu.be/izJkqpZC5Co?si=RwF_lHhnWQqV_GU4> (Accessed: 2026-14-06).
(4) Jones, Seth (2026): Russia’s Shadow War Against the West. CSIS 03/18/2025. <https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2025-03/250318_Jones_Russia_Shadow.pdf?VersionId=LHamL2L7HJwLgZ7a_wq6xkTIwMh3TFpk> (Accessed: 2026-14-06).
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