Russia and Ukraine - Year 4: Russian Aggression, Ukrainian Resiliency and the Moral and Strategic Failure of the United States
Photo: Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty Images
Four years after Russian tanks crossed into Ukraine, a remarkable clarity has emerged from the fog of war. The international community rendered its original verdict when 141 nations in the United Nations General Assembly condemned the Russian invasion as a violation of the UN Charter. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and his top military leaders. The world’s most credible military analysts agree that Russia is paying an extraordinary price for minimal territorial gains. What we see on the ground is an aggressor losing badly- and now trying to negotiate through western pressure on Ukraine what it cannot win on the battlefield. Memories are short- the world has attention deficit disorder and it is critical than men of good will see through the fog.
The argument that Russian victory is inevitable is not just wrong, it is a fabrication- one that serves Putin’s strategy of breaking western resolve rather than reflecting battlefield reality. The constant rhetoric that Ukraine must be pressured into concessions, advanced most damagingly by the Trump administration, represents a moral and strategic failure of the first order. Ukraine is the victim here. Victims of aggression do not owe their attackers territory. They are owed justice, security and the steadfast support of the civilised world.
The verdict of international law is that Russia is engaging in an illegal war. Russia’s invasion violates Article 2(4) of the United Nations charter, which prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. This is not a close question. The invasion also violated the 1975 Helsinki Final Act and the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which Russia explicitly guaranteed Ukraine’s borders in exchange for Ukraine surrendering the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal. That bargain is now rubble and the lesson for every nation watching is not lost. Putin’s justifications for the “special military operation” - NATO expansion, de- Nazification of Ukraine, the protection of Russian speakers- have no legal basis under international law. Putin’s historical grievances are not a legal defense- they are a pretext.
Russia has engaged in systematic war crimes since the outset of the war. The International Criminal court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin personally- the first such warrant ever issued against a leader of a permanent member of the UN Security council. His specific war crime is the unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. Ukrainian law enforcement has documented more than 16,000 cases of family separation and forced child deportation. The ICC subsequently issued arrest warrants for senior Russian military commanders for directing attacks against civilians, systematic bombing of hospitals, power stations, apartment buildings and water infrastructure. The UN has verified over 15,000 civilian deaths and credible analysts put the civilian death toll at 50,000 Ukrainians. It is a nasty picture- egregious bad behaviour in the conduct of an illegal war. There is no ambiguity on who the bad actor is here.
There is growing publicly stated myth that a Russian victory is inevitable so let’s deal with that reality. This narrative that Russia is winning - advanced relentlessly by Kremlin propagandists and disturbingly echoed in some American political circles- does not survive rigorous or even cursory scrutiny of the data- the actual numbers. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), one of America’s most respected defence think tanks, estimates that Russian forces have suffered nearly 1.2 million battlefield casualties since February 2022. The death toll is 400,000 troops. The NYT reported in February 2026 that Russia has been losing 40,000 men a month since the beginning of 2025. No major power has sustained casualties on this scale since WWII. Recruiting is suffering and Russia is becoming dependent on mercenary troops from Africa and Asia. The strong consensus is that Russian troops are poorly trained and lack motivation or even a basic understanding of what they are fighting for.
What has Russia purchased on the battlefield with this horrible expenditure of blood and treasure? The Institute for the Study of War calculates that Russia forces advance about 70 meters a day. 70 meters!! Since the start of 2025, Russia has gained 0.77 percent of Ukrainian territory at a cost of 83 casualties per square kilometre. At the current rate of progress, it would take Russia up to five years and up to 1.8 million casualties to control the four eastern Ukrainian provinces it is demanding in negotiations. They will arrive in Kiev in 2050 at the current pace. This is NOT a military juggernaut. It is a military machine that is consuming itself. The Russians are certainly willing to sustain massive losses, but the idea that they are on an inevitable path to victory is nonsense.
Russia’s economy tells the same story. Economic growth slowed to 0.6 percent in 2025. Manufacturing is declining, inflation is high, the sanctions are biting and the country faces a severe labor crunch as its working age male population is consumed by the war. Russia has zero competitive technology companies. In Russia’s poorer regions, a grim phenomenon the analysts call “deathonomics” has emerged; dying on the battlefield is more finically rewarding for the families of a Russian service men than him surviving to retirement age. This is not the economics of a confident and winning nation. It is the portrayal of a declining regional power, heavily dependent on oil (the resource curse) and aid from China.
The Institute of War’s December 2025 assessment is that Putin’s claims of an inevitable victory “do not correspond to battlefield reality.” The Kremlin’s actual strategy is cognitive warfare- convincing the West that Russian victory is inevitable so that they will force Ukraine to concede at the negotiating table what Russia cannot take on the field. This strategy can only succeed if Western leaders buy the propaganda and lose their resolve in supporting Ukraine. Basically, the Putin strategy is to hoodwink a callow Western leadership and convince them to blackmail Ukraine with an abrupt withdrawal of aid. We will get to Washington’s current management of this issue in a moment. First, a quick review of Ukraine’s status after 4 brutal years of war.
Ukraine is a nation that has earned a future. It entered this conflict as the smaller, less equipped and outnumbered defender. Four years later, it has made a remarkable transformation and is now probably the most innovative and creative military in the world. Ukraine produced one million drones in 2024, 2.5 million in 2025 and drone attacks have caused the destruction of 60 to 70 percent of Russian military equipment deployed in Ukraine. They now have 76 domestic defence companies. Its engineers design and deploy new drone variants in weeks rather than years. The innovation has strategic reach. Since August 2025, Ukrainian strikes have forced nearly 40 percent of Russia’s oil refining capacity offline and caused gasoline shortages in Russia. Ukraine has adapted rapidly to the most advanced modern weapons supplied by the West. When Ukraine receives high tech weapons, they use them with a high degree of efficiency. The more the West provides, the better Ukraine does. This reality is undeniable and Western hesitation in continuing to support Ukraine with the necessary hardware is frankly incomprehensible.
None of this diminishes Ukraine’s suffering or its vulnerability. Russia’s systematic attacks on energy infrastructure have destroyed 90 percent of Ukraine’s thermal power generation, leaving citizens facing multi hour blackouts daily. The human cost of four years of war - 46,000 confirmed dead, hundreds of thousands wounded and internally displaced- is staggering. These losses are the reason why Ukraine’s allies must sustain their support. There is no reason to capitulate or abandon a courageous friend. Ukraine deserves to negotiate its future on its own terms- not under duress and not to satisfy the impatience of allies who have borne none of the sacrifice. But, courage aside, Ukraine will not survive without sustained support from the US and Europe. So- do we have a problem in that regard?
The Trump administration’s approach to the Ukraine war has been a strategic and moral inversion of the first order. All pressure has been applied to the victim. None has been applied to the aggressor. Consider the record. Trump has publicly has repeatedly insisted that Russia “holds all the cards” - a claim that the casualty figures and economic data cited in this essay confirm is false. Such banal statements serve no purpose, demoralie Ukraine and embolden Moscow. The administration produced a 28 point peace plan that read like a diplomatic gift basket to Putin. It contains major territorial concessions to Russia and limited security guarantees for Ukraine. There were no identifiable concessions to be made by the Kremlin. Then came Alaska. While Ukrainian soldiers were dying at a rate of 10,000 per month, Trump welcomed Putin to a red carpet summit on American soil- inviting a man who was under an active ICC arrest warrant. Trump extracted no concessions from Putin. Europe was appalled. Trump’s idiotic claims that Ukraine started the war and is primarily responsible for the carnage goes far beyond a diplomatic eccentricity. It is a broken moral compass. It is a strategic catastrophe It is shameless and a low point for American foreign policy. Trump and his unqualified negotiators just recite Russian negotiating talking points, say he is good guy who they take at his word- wow! And, to be clear, the territorial concessions the administration is demanding are huge-basically an amount of land as large as Florida.
Europe has the right instincts and policies but limited resources. Europe can’t replicate American power, influence and weaponry. Europe understands the situation and recognises their future security is at stake. They have stated “Russia’s stalling tactics have shown time and time again that Ukraine is the only party serious about peace. We must ramp up the pressure on Russia’s economy and its defene industry until Putin is ready to make peace.” The correct policy is not complicated. The United States must maintain intelligence sharing and, in partnership with Europe sustain sufficient military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine. This is not an untenable burden on America- it is in our interest and a long term investment. Putin will negotiate seriously only when he concludes that Ukraine will survive long term and that Western resolve is not crumbling. He has not reached that conclusion because he views Trump as his foil- someone who is basically negotiating on his behalf. He must disabuse dog that belief.
Four years of war, hundreds of thousands of dead, millions displaced, infrastructure destroyed but the strategic imperative remains exactly what it was on February 24, 2022. Aggression cannot be rewarded. The rules based international order, the framework that has preserved the peace for 80 years, is not self enforcing. A realistic settlement is available and should be pursued in good faith negotiations. The principles involve limited Ukranian territorial concessions reflecting the current line of contact, a clear pathway for Ukraine for admission to the European Union, robust security guarantees for Ukraine short of NATO membership and continued investment in Ukraine’s defence industry. No settlement should require Ukraine to accept humiliation, surrender sovereignty or legitimise an illegal invasion.
Ukraine is the victim here. That moral reality has not changed with the passage of time or the accumulation of Western fatigue. Facts are not altered by the arrival of an American administration with a broke moral compass and weak strategic judgement. What the West owes Ukraine is not charity. American callousness will have terrible geopolitical consequences. Pray we get our act together!
