Russia Has Won the Ukraine War
The war in Ukraine is effectively over, with Russia on a clear path to achieving its objectives through a grinding war of attrition that has exhausted Ukraine and outlasted Western and NATO resolve.
-Russia's military has adapted, its economy has been reoriented away from the West despite sanctions, and its political regime under Putin remains stable. In contrast, Ukraine faces a critical and irreversible manpower crisis that no amount of Western hardware can solve.
-The idea that Russia might still lose is a comforting but dangerous illusion; Russia is methodically consolidating control over its limited territorial aims.
So, is there any way Russia could still lose? Only at the level of fantasy. Only in the realm of narratives unmoored from facts – as with the delusional fantasies regarding Operation Spiderweb. The battlefield favors Moscow. The economic sanctions have failed to break its will. The regime has stabilized. And the West has no plan – none – for reversing any of this.
Which means it’s time to start thinking like realists. The question is no longer how to defeat Russia, but how to limit the damage of a war we have already lost in everything but name. That’s not a message anyone in Washington, Brussels, or Kyiv wants to hear. But it’s the only honest one left.
The tragedy of Ukraine is not that it fought. It’s that it was led to believe victory was possible – when all along, the most it could hope for was survival. And even that now hangs by a thread.
