#WTH Trump vs Putin, finally

The President has turned a corner

©

History is a powerful teacher, but we tend to remember only the major events and not the smaller stones that pave the way to global conflict. Ukraine is just such a a stone on the road. We cannot analogize it to Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia in 1914 or Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939. Rather, it is Montenegro and Serbia’s 1912 attack on Albania; it’s Hitler’s 1936 rearmament of the Rheinland. These are the straws in the historical wind that should alert us to the ominous intentions of the parties, but too often fail to do so. These were the moments when a larger war might have been averted, had the world’s leaders been sufficiently prescient.

Russia’s war on Ukraine is just such a conflict. Yes, we might have suspected Vladimir Putin’s intentions decades ago. And if we had any doubt, his 2008 intervention in the South Ossetia region of Georgia might have swept such doubts aside. Or his 2014 invasion of Ukraine and subsequent annexation of Crimea. Where we go wrong, however, is in thinking that his claims on Donetsk and Luhansk are Putin’s end game. Even all of Ukraine is not his end game. Rather, he wishes to reconstitute the Russian Empire.

How do we know Putin’s true aims? Because he has told us repeatedly. Like Xi Jinping, or, if you prefer, Hitler and Tojo, Putin cannot resist articulating his grand visions.

Donald Trump may not recognize the historical analogies or lessons, but instinctively, he appears to understand that Putin is at an inflection point. He will either be stopped in Ukraine, or he will slowly gather his strength for the ultimate assault on NATO and the realization of the czarist dreams that he craves.

Trump also appears to have grasped, albeit reluctantly, that the Putin with whom he dealt in his first term is a different man. Russia has built alliances with China, Iran and North Korea that are instrumental to Putin’s ambitions. Alone, he may have prevailed for a period against a feckless Europe around NATO’s edges. But he could not have hoped to prevail against the United States in defense of the NATO alliance. He now has an axis behind him. Will they fight for Russia? Perhaps not all of them initially, but Kim Jong Un has given him reason to hope that ultimately they will if he really needs them.

For these reasons and more, Putin must be stopped at Ukraine, his ambitions decisively squashed, his vision diminished, and his reconstitution of empire stymied. How will that happen?

Much of the work is being done by Ukraine. For the United States, claiming to be weary of a war our men and women are not fighting is a joke. This conflict is being shouldered courageously by the people of Ukraine, with support from America and Europe, to be sure. But the death and destruction is being borne by Ukraine alone. That is why, as Trump has finally grasped, a strong Ukraine is critical to arresting Putin’s progress. They need both the defensive arms and the offensive capabilities the administration is quietly discussing with Kyiv.

What else is needed? An end to Russia’s ability to sell oil. The disgraceful arrangement that Joe Biden crafted to allow Russia to sell oil at a cut price in the vain hope that would depress global energy prices and ease his reelection has been the critical factor allowing Putin to continue prosecuting the war for more than three years now. Trump has threatened to sanction Putin’s customers (primarily China and India) with massive tariffs. Whatever it takes.

Similarly, Europe must wake from its long slumber. Again, Trump, in his way, has delivered the wake-up call that Europe has long ignored. The European Union and its hangers-on lack the means to defend themselves. They must spend more on defense. They must spend on defense, period. Absent Trump’s demands, Europe’s NATO members (minus the pathetic Spaniards) might never have agreed to up spending to 5 percent of GDP.

In addition, Europe must now confiscate the $250 billion in Russian sovereign assets sitting mostly in Belgium. The G7 has dithered repeatedly over whether the money should be taken from Russia and made available for Ukraine, as if somehow it would be morally defensible to restore the cash to Putin if only he would suspend his campaign of destruction in Ukraine. That ship sailed long ago, and Russia’s assets should be paying to arm and repair Ukraine. It’s that simple, and Europe is belatedly edging closer to a decision.

Finally, it seems that Donald Trump has had another epiphany: Foreign tyrants (Iran, Russia, China) don’t respect his person. They respect power and its exercise. Our colleagues who work Asia tell us Xi Jinping had concluded Trump was a paper tiger until they saw him order the bombing of Iran. Crushing Putin’s czarist ambitions will be the second scene in the rewriting of Donald Trump’s foreign policy, and will do more to deter Beijing than endless freedom of navigation displays in the South China Sea.

Is Donald Trump a new man? Maybe. He still gave Russia 50 days more of rope. He likely still has doubts about arming Ukraine. He still wants to negotiate personally with Vlad. But directionally, this is great.

We talked all these issues with Gen. Jack Keane, who has been instrumental in helping official Washington understand what is at stake in Ukraine. Listen to the whole, fantastic pod, or read the highlights below. Jack makes clear what’s at stake, and how we can stop the tyrants that threaten everything that America stands for in the world.

HIGHLIGHTS

Q: What’s the status of US military aid to Ukraine?

JK: Well, the weapons pause, I understand, was initiated by the Pentagon. I don't believe the president was advised of it. And when he was advised of it, he wanted to understand why that was taking place. And once he got into the why of it, he reversed the policy and committed himself to continue to provide Ukraine military aid. There's also some disputes about weapon systems and shortages and I'd like to avoid getting into specific weapon systems. And I don't think if we're short something that it's something that government officials should be discussing publicly. Obviously, our adversary is listening. And I don't think they need to know what shortages we may or may not have. But I will say this, that some of the shortages we think we have have been resolved.

And so, that's good news. And based on what I know, we're really quite capable of providing the assistance that Ukraine needs, particularly with air defense systems. And associated with that, our air defense systems are capable of dealing with ballistic missiles. In the most recent two attacks, there were over 500 things in the air. Overwhelming majority of those were drones, but 11 ballistic missiles in the last attack. Nothing on the scale of what we have seen by Iran going into Israel, certainly. But nonetheless, those ballistic missiles, they challenge Ukraine quite a bit. And as a result of that, I'm confident that we'll be getting them the Patriot PAC-3s to be able to assist them. And they also need anti-tank weapons and long-range offensive weapons as well to help sustain their effort.

Q: How does US military aid impact the war effort and Putin’s strategy?

JK: And so, our audience should understand when it comes to Ukraine, we're 40 plus months into this war. And while Putin has made some tactical gains in the last year plus, he hasn't made any operational breakthroughs whatsoever, hasn't taken a major provincial capital or a major city. And you look at a map, it really hasn't changed all that much. Although his narrative is that he's making major offensive gains and it's only a matter of time that Ukraine will indeed be defeated. That is the information campaign he's running domestically, but he's also running it in the United States. And to some degree of effectiveness among people, government officials and the media in the United States have bought into some of that narrative that Russia is succeeding and it's inevitable that they will defeat Ukraine.

So, our audience understands, if the United States is providing assistance to Ukraine in the ways that we have been and the Euros continue to provide their support, Putin cannot take Ukraine, period. That is a fact. If we expand what we're giving to Ukraine and put even more pressure on Putin and we add sanctions to that, the tough sanctions that Graham and Blumenthal and the Europeans are finally talking about, it is possible that he may come to the negotiating table. We don't know that. We have to wait and see. He may still be stubborn and willing to drag this thing out.

I think his strategy that he's had to frustrate the president by dragging out negotiations that have had no end, no positive end, has misfired. The president has manifested his impatience, his frustration. He believes, he said publicly today, that Putin is BS-ing him. And that's a fact. And he's given every indication that he intends to stick with Ukraine, which will be very frustrating to Putin because he really wants Trump to walk away. And that's kind of where his head is. And the evidence we have as of now is that's not happening.

Q: Has Putin’s calculus or motivation changed?

JK: Putin has a couple of objectives in mind. The overall objective is to take control of Ukraine. He has never given that up and put a stooge of his in power like he had once before with Yanukovych back in 2014. And the people ran Yanukovych out of the country into exile, into Russia, which began the annexation of Crimea and the invasion into Eastern Ukraine. So, he wants to return to that and he's dead set on it. And anybody that thinks that he's given up on this or it's taken too long doesn't understand Putin's motivation. He is staking his presidency on this.

Listen, this is the guy who thought he was going to do this in a couple of weeks, that once he brought the Russian army to bear on the capital city and presented it there, he believed that the Ukrainian military supported by their people, would submit and essentially surrender. And they fought like tigers instead, and they fought decentralized, and he was not able to take the capital city and was quite humiliated in conducting that withdrawal. So, they had to reassess as a result of all of that and commit a much larger force. He's got about 300,000 plus on the battlefield. Ukraine's got about 150,000 plus on the battlefield and he's taking significant amount of casualties, close to a million, over 300,000 dead, and then, the other seven or 800,000 have been wounded. Ukraine admits to about 30,000 dead. Institute for the Study of War estimates it's closer around 60 maybe to 70,000 KIA, but we don't know for a fact, but that's just tracking public sources.

Q: What is the state of the war on the ground?

JK: This is a bloody war for sure. And Putin is committed to wearing down Ukraine militarily, but also wearing down its people. So, he's brought in the war of attrition here. And drone warfare on the front lines is the dominating factor. So much so that the Ukrainians have built in the last year, close to 2 million drones. In this coming year, it'll likely be closer to three to four million. The Russians' numbers aren't as great, but nonetheless significant. And so our audience understands, the battalion has about 600 people in it, and on a given day, there could be 300 to 400 drones supporting that one organization. Quite remarkable in the change of character of war. And if you can be seen, if you are a soldier carrying an anti-tank shoulder weapon that could knock out a tank or an armored vehicle, if you can be seen like that soldier with that shoulder-fired weapon or an AK-47, you can be killed.

If you're a tank, you can be killed. If you're an artillery piece, you can be killed. If they find a command-and-control center, which is a headquarters where the officers and NCOs gather to make the plans and supervise the war, if they find that, it can be eliminated. So, that is how drone warfare has changed war. They have drones that go out and find things, and then, they have killer drones that they drive right into the whatever it is they're trying to destroy and it blows up. And some have larger explosives on it, medium-sized, small, depending on what they're targeting. So, the frontline battle is casualty-producing. Putin was averaging in the high 30,000s all of last year. He's now in the mid-range of 40,000 casualties. This is per month. Ukraine's numbers are considerably less, but nonetheless growing in size. And we don't talk about their numbers, but they're nowhere near what Putin's casualties are.

And a lot of that has to do with the Ukrainians being better trained, better disciplined. Although we are seeing now, soldiers coming to the front in Ukraine who have not had adequate basic training, the length of time to acquire all the necessary skill sets. And that is because of the pressure that they have on manpower and they need to get those soldiers to the front. So, on the front lines, it's a bloody war out there. Artillery still makes a big difference as well. When drones find a target, they can shoot it down with other drones or they can drop artillery on it. The Russians have more artillery than Ukraine has.

Q: How about the home front, what campaign is Putin running in Ukrainian society?

JK: As Dany mentioned, Putin has another objective, not just to wear down Ukraine's front-line forces, but to defeat the people at home in terms of their will, in terms of their will in supporting the war itself. And that is why he is committing a war crime by targeting civilians time and time again. And not only civilians. He knows there are emotional targets out there. And this is something he did in Syria, in Aleppo, when they killed literally hundreds of thousands of people. And they clearly went after emotional targets like hospitals and schools and they are purposely targeted.

If they get caught at it, they'll say, "Well, that was an accident. That was a misfire." That's nonsense. They're actually targeting that. They want to break the will of the Ukrainian people who are remarkably steadfast despite what has taken place in their everyday life.

Q: What do you think Trump’s thinking is on this?

JK: If Ukraine is lost because we pull away, obviously that outcome strategically would be a disaster for Europe and also it would significantly embolden our allies, particularly China, if the United States was to pull away. I think right now, the president has the wind at his back somewhat. Israel took the initiative to deal with the Iranians after they decimated Hezbollah and Hamas, and the United States pushed back on the Houthis and he felt the time was right. He had the military capability to go after their nuclear enterprise and their ballistic missile enterprise and President Trump made a decisive decision to help complete the destruction of their nuclear enterprise, which captured the imagination of the world given the types of weapons we were using to do that, the air stealth bombers that nobody else in the world owns, but the United States, in accomplishing that mission.

So, we have militarily defeated Iran, Israel-led, U.S.-supported operation, and Iran is back on its heels in a way they've never been since the regime was formed. And out of that came a deterrence, a return to deterrence for our adversaries, and I think the president has a wind at his back. I think he knows he made the right decision in supporting Israel, conducting that strike and was willing to overcome whatever fear or failure he may have had in his own mind about these operations. Those are the kind of things that have paralyzed his predecessors. Obama was always paralyzed by the fear of adverse consequence, and I think Biden, much the same. Trump was getting the same thing. Oh, if you support Israel and attack Iran, you're going to expand the war. This is going to become a regional war. Other people even went further to say, "This is going to be World War III."

Some people who were saying that were close to the President as a matter of fact, but he looked at all of that coldly and likely concluded, that's not realistic. There's a bad thing that's happening here. I intend to stop it. Much as he stopped the bad thing of Assad having chemical weapons or Qasem Soleimani death and destruction campaign that existed for multiple decades to include the United States killing of our people through multiple decades, stop those bad things, good things can come from it. And his instincts about that are correct and good things are coming from that very thing. We've got to stop Putin.

Q: What would the consequences of decreasing US support for Ukraine be?

JK: If Putin takes control of Ukraine, takes its resources, takes all of its modern technology that has made it up, there's not a country in Europe that could stand up against the Ukraine military machine today. None. Not one of them. In fact, if they formed together, they’d still have difficulty dealing with it.

That's how capable this military force is. You combine that capability with Russia and he will absolutely, after rebuilding and strengthening it, he would clearly expand. He would have the wind at his back after the United States pulls away and think he has a clear pathway to what he's always wanted. And that is to take back these countries who got under the umbrella of NATO, fearing that Russia at some point would come for them again to make them part of the Russian Empire. That was very good decisions on their part to become a part of NATO. But he wants to break NATO and he wants to take back some of those countries in doing that. So, that objective is phase two. Phase one is take control of Ukraine, its resources, its technology, its innovation and use that and its own military and what they've learned, to overwhelm these much smaller eastern European countries and put the existence of NATO at risk.

And he's hoping that the United States accommodates him by pulling away. I don't believe that's going to happen and it would be an absolute disaster.

Q: If the US walks away from Ukraine, what does that signal to Taiwan?

JK: President Xi, 12 years in the position, has said time and time again that they intend to take control of Taiwan. They've been using intimidation and coercion to get them to voluntarily submit. There's been no sign that they will and no sign now that they will. Quite the contrary, as a matter of fact. They are a thriving democratic capitalistic state that is empowered with technology and innovation. I've been there many times, provided some assistance to the president of Taiwan, President Tsai a number of years, found the culture to be fascinating and loved talking to the Taiwanese kids, the college kids and others who would go over to China to see it.

And they always loved coming home because right below the surface when they started to talk to... You know how the college kids are. They're all going to be honest with one another and after a drink or two, they would get unloaded on by these young people about what it was like living under surveillance, what it was like living under repression, what it was like listening to them whisper to them so nobody at another table could hear what they were saying about this communist regime and how much they were embedded in their lives and how it truncates them in terms of their future happiness and lack of freedom and how much they envy other countries who have it.

So, yeah, the Taiwanese, a fascinating people who live 100 miles away from an authoritarian repressive regime who has real designs on them. So, Xi has told his military to be ready by '27 to take the island by force. He's threatened it, so he's preparing his military for it and he's threatening to do it. I think, given what we know about history, when these dictators make statements like that, we should likely take them seriously. They have a tendency to follow through on. History tells us that. We have an erosion of our military capability there because of the atrophy associated with the 9/11 wars and the Obama budgets and the erosion that it cost us.

Q: What about on deterring China?

JK: We got a long way to go to rebuild that deterrence. We've taken a step a little bit psychologically for sure as a result of our success dealing with Iran, but materially, we have got to put it together and get real capability on the ground so that President Xi, when he sees it, that capability, and particularly as military people look at it, they see that the outcome would not be certain, that they're willing to get into this and take high casualties to people and to capital assets, ships, airplanes, missile batteries, and the like, likely willing to do that if they knew they were going to win and it was a certainty.

But if it's in doubt, because Taiwan is empowered significantly much more than they are today and there are some increases going on and the U.S. and ally capability has increased, we don't have to go platform to platform with these guys, but if we have enough capability to be credible and put the outcome in doubt, that's deterrence. But we're not there and we've got work to do in that sphere as well. And the people who argue that, well, Keane, you just made the argument why we got to get out of Ukraine, why China should be a major priority for us, why we shouldn't be given Ukraine weapons that we need to do in China. But you've got to see the relationship. The most fundamental change from Trump one to Trump two in the world is China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea collaborating, coordinating together as partners, not the strength as homogeneous allies that exist in NATO but as partners in a common purpose and a common objective.

And that is to change the United States and like-minded democracies' dominance in the world so they can accomplish their sphere of influence in the world for their own national interest. And that is a major geopolitical shift than anything we've seen and it presents danger to us on a scale we have not seen since World War II because we could be involved in war in multiple theaters as a result of it. So, you have to connect the dots. This is not all about China.

Q: How will Trump’s personal diplomacy fare moving forward with Putin?

JK: Well, in dealing with the president's emphasis on personal diplomacy, certainly the degree that he involves himself in that is probably a little disproportionate to many of his predecessors, but he believes strongly in it because he's negotiated so much in his own business life. He didn't delegate that a lot to others. He did it himself and he has a lot of confidence in himself. And I think in doing it, he felt establishing a relationship to begin with is important to getting a deal where both sides feel there is benefit to it. So, that is the going in premise that I want to have a good relationship with this person and that could possibly lead to a better deal or to a deal itself because of the relationship.

Countries have a tendency to operate in their own national interest primarily. And while relationships are important to leaders, certainly relationships with allies and partners and also with adversaries, so tough things can maybe be resolved. Most of them do not pursue it to the degree that President Trump does, and he's literally committed to it and that is who he is as President of the United States. And that is not going to change. It is a fact, in my view, in looking at this.

Q: How has the Trump-Putin relationship changed over the course of this war?

JK: As we can see, the relationship with Mr. Putin has soured and the president is very vocal about it. He always knew that Putin is a thug and a killer and he knows he's committed war crimes. He chooses not to talk about any of that. People think, well, what's going on? There's some special deal there? What's happened? Why did they have a relationship? Why doesn't he come out and call Putin the thug and killer? I get this when I make speeches. You call him a thug on a killer on a regular basis, Keane. Why doesn't the president see that? Well, of course he sees that. He does see it, but he believes that if he attacks him publicly, that will taint the ability of a positive relationship to get positive results. That is how he approaches it.

But this isn't open-ended, as we can see. I do think the president underestimated, and I think he would admit this himself, the challenge dealing with Mr. Putin. The Putin he dealt with in Trump one is different than the Putin he's dealing with in Trump two. Putin in Trump two is a wartime commander. His presidency is at risk here. His very life is likely at risk here if he fails. Making a deal, that would not necessarily be failure. But if he fails and the Russian army was destroyed as a result of that, Putin knows he has major, major challenges. So, he talks to the president about, “yes, Mr. President, I want the same thing you want. I want peace. I want this war to stop. I want the killing to stop just like you do. I want us to have the economic relationship we used to have, which is mutually benefited to both of our countries.”

This is kind of the talk and it's much more than that. And there's a bit of a friendship there in the relationship. But Putin's rope has run out with the president. He obviously knew he was being played, but he still thought that he could get him to the negotiating table and it has not worked.

Q: What about the possibility of tougher sanctions?

JK: I think where the president is, he knows he's got to help Ukraine defend itself, and he's got to impose some tough sanctions on Putin. I think he also understands the limitations that sanctions may have because Putin has always worked around them. They take a little longer to take effect, but nonetheless, they will hurt Putin and that puts additional pressure on them. Battlefield effects though, number one for Putin, what happens on the battlefield matters much more so than what's going on with him economically. He always believes he can handle that economic thing.And believe me, history is on his side in terms of the evidence of how he's handled it. Now, what they have in mind this time is much tougher in terms of sanctions and there's secondary sanctions in there as well for any country that's doing business with them, which would include China and India, and that would really matter. So, yeah, this relationship has taken a turn. You're absolutely right about that. There's a public display of it. And as a result of it, the president has a hardened position in my mind, is the way I would describe it, in supporting Ukraine and getting on with that, making certain that the weapons delivery is taking place, that the pause of the Pentagon had in mind because of significant shortages. I think those impediments have been removed. The Pentagon has been told to get on with it, and likely that's all happening as we speak.

Q: Do you think this is the end of Trump’s attempts to befriend adversaries’ leaders?

JK: Yeah, I don't think, Dany, he's going to give up on the personal diplomacy piece. He still talks about President Xi. “I've got a good relationship with him. He's my friend.” The same kind of narrative that he had with Putin because he's got economic tariffs to deal with and other things down the road to deal with, increasing support to Taiwan, working closer with our allies in the region, increasing military capabilities in the region, all of which have the potential to strain that relationship. So, I think he likely learned some things dealing with Putin, but I don't think it will fundamentally change his approach to personal diplomacy and how having a positive relationship with an adversary has a possibility and likelihood to contribute to a much better deal with that adversary.

Q: Is there a cohesive strategy for bringing Putin to the negotiation table within the Administration?

JK: I think what has to happen, the administration has got to arm wrestle among itself, among the key actors here in terms of what is a strategy going forward that would be favorable to the United States in terms of our interest and also Ukraine's interest? And after all, we used to criticize the Biden administration, you, me, and Dany, for not having a strategy. His strategy was as long as it takes, right? And then, he gave them, he metered the kinds of weapons going in because he feared escalation by Putin, which proved to be quite unfounded and detrimental to Ukraine. We'd be in a different situation if we had given Ukraine everything they needed when they needed it in terms of where we would be on the battlefield today. So, the administration has been in power now almost six months, and I think they really got to put together a strategy for themselves and get everybody in the administration on the same page. I don't think they're there with that. You have people that say, "Well, yeah, we got to help Ukraine, but also this is a European problem. China has to have a priority.”

There's different viewpoints in the administration and you can see it play out in the media as a result of it. I think what the President is doing as a result of this weapons pause... And actually the fact that it happened, I see it as a positive thing because it walked its way into the White House. What's going on here? The media's telling the president that the weapons have stopped flowing to Ukraine. And well, he didn't make that decision. What's happening? So, I think post-Iran, focus of the mind on Ukraine has taken place and also some kind of normalization deals in the Middle East. I think it's fertile ground for major strategic improvement in the Middle East. And as you know, the president’s ability to multitask is pretty significant for dealing with complicated things, but it has focused the mind on Ukraine where we were not a number of weeks ago.

Q: What would an ideal strategy look like?

JK: So, in my mind, what needs to take place is not just to continue to provide the weapons to Ukraine, but actually a strategic commitment to them, to make certain that Ukraine is capable of defending itself against Russia and actually capable of making some tactical gains. I'm not saying to drive the Russians all out of the Donbas region or to drive them out of Crimea, but give them the capability to get into better terrain and push the Russians off of terrain is very favorable to a long-term occupation for them. But it's a matter of making a commitment to them and the Ukrainians understand it, the Euros understand it, who will keep that, will obviously be encouraged by that and will keep providing assistance. And then, we obviously get the Congress to support it as well. The funding and drawdowns that are taking place now run out in August.

So, there is a policy decision coming into what to do about that. That's next month. So, meetings now taking place are important meetings, I think, in defining what is our strategy, what is the end state that we're looking for here, and getting the entire administration on the same page in doing that. Not just the military piece of it, but the economic piece of it, the diplomatic and the political piece of all of it in a coherent strategy going forward. I think that is really critical.

Q: What does winning look like for Ukraine and what does losing look like for Russia?

JK: Winning doesn't look like it would in a normal sense. It's still possible, but to drive them off their territory, that's obviously a battlefield win. I think that's unlikely, but possible. More realistically, what it looks like is Putin is denied the ability to win and it protracts the war for him. And he has issues coming with involuntary mobilization and he has industrial mobilization issues as well. And those two things are major factors for him. He is really counting on the fact that his progress will increase, Trump will pull away and he'll only have to deal with the Euro's military assistance. And over time, he can avoid the involuntary mobilization, which will cost him politically and also the industrial mobilization, which will, excuse me, hit him economically as well. So, he has headwinds in front of him, and that is why the pressure points make so much sense.

And that would force him to reassess his situation. Why would I continue to do this when I'm losing political support as a result of having the major mobilization of people on my hands to deal with the casualties? The North Koreans by themselves aren't going to solve this problem when they start to come again and the economic woes. Right now, the people are still supporting him, but he knows that that can change. Now, he's a student of what happened in the Afghanistan war, and he saw that happen when the people forced the government to change because it looked hopeless. And that's what we got to get to here, is that Putin, when he sees his goals not being achievable at all, he's not going to be able to take Ukraine because of the military support and the economic sanctions on him, the political opposition, the isolation he's suffering as a result of it, and also likely some sense of China starting to have problems here themselves dealing with Putin and the continued support that he demands from them because they are providing significant support to him.

Q: Can Putin be defeated? Will he ever cut a deal?

JK: So, it's something less than driving them out of there, although there is still that potential there that his forces could begin to break down as we know, because they're not properly trained, they're not properly led. And with increased equipment and capabilities, Ukraine may be able to make some tactical gains that could lead into operational gains. But I'm not optimistic about that. But it is possible. I wouldn't take it off the board. In other words, that they could drive all military out of Crimea just with long-range fires just as they destroyed in the Black Sea Navy and drove them out of the Black Sea. They could do the same and they could take significant portions of the Donbas region and start pushing the Russians back towards the sea. That is possible, but I think it's still unlikely given where we are in the war, but I wouldn't rule it out with expanded capability to Ukrainians and the long-term pressure on Russian troops, their leadership, their morale, and the high casualty rates and what that could do in terms of providing opportunities to the Ukrainians.

So, I think that's kind of where we are. And so, that would mean Putin has to make a choice. Does he continue to be part of this war of attrition and putting his presidency at stake, or does he cut a deal to take the pressure off of him, internal pressure off of him?

Full Transcript here

SHOWNOTES:

Statement by Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell on Ukraine Military Aid (U.S. Department of Defense, July 7, 2025)

Trump says US must send more weapons to Ukraine (Fox News Clip, July 8, 2025)

Inside Trump's Patriot missile plans for Ukraine (Axios, Marc Caputo and Barak Ravid, July 8, 2025)

Pentagon halts weapons shipment to Ukraine amid concerns over U.S. stockpile (NBC News, Courtney Kube, et.al, July 1, 2025)

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 6, 2025 (ISW Press, July 6, 2025)

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 5, 2025 (ISW Press, July 5, 2025)

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 4, 2025 (ISW Press, July 4, 2025)

Trump Hints At New Sanctions On Russia Amid Ongoing Fighting With Ukraine (RFE/RL, Ray Furlong, Zoriana Stepanenko, July 5, 2025)

Donald Trump Threatens Russia Tariffs as Relationship With Putin Worsens (Newsweek, Brendan Cole, July 7, 2025)

Trump envoy Steve Witkoff pushing to lift energy sanctions on Russia, Politico reports (Anna Fratsyvir, Kyiv Independent, July 4, 2025)

Trump suggests taking a step back from Ukraine peace talks (Fox & Friends Appearance, June 6, 2025)

Retired general: Putin will likely ‘wait out’ Trump term and take Ukraine (The Hill, Sarah Fortinsky, February 17, 2025)

U.S. Halts Key Weapons for Ukraine in New Sign of Weakening Support for Kyiv (Micheal Gordon and Alexander Ward, WSJ, July 2, 2025)