Key Points – Despite President Trump’s stalled efforts to broker peace and Russia’s planned summer offensive, analysis by Michael Kimmage (Kennan Institute) suggests the military tide in Ukraine may be turning against Moscow.
-Russia faces stalled battlefield momentum despite catastrophic casualties (nearing 1 million total), a faltering economy, and no coherent political promise beyond “endless Putinism.”
-Furthermore, Russia is seen as having mismanaged its diplomacy with the Trump administration, failing to capitalize on initial pro-Russian leanings by continuing aggressive actions.
-While Ukraine endures significant hardship and relies on Western support, its continued resistance and Russia’s mounting problems indicate Russia is “starting to lose the war.”
Is Ukraine making a comeback?
The war between Russia and Ukraine, now more than three years old, has entered a strange phase.
Donald Trump, who had vowed on the campaign trail to end the war his first day in office, not only failed to do so, but seems to have persuaded neither side. Trump has, most recently, pushed for the Vatican to host peace talks between the parties, something the new pope has been receptive to.
However, the Kremlin said Thursday that no peace talks between the parties are scheduled, after they recently held their first face-to-face talks, which resulted in prisoner releases but did not result in agreement on any other major points.
“There is no concrete agreement about the next meetings,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, according to the Associated Press. “They are yet to be agreed upon.”
Rather than looking to end the war, Russia is reportedly planning a summer offensive, aimed at gaining more territory in Ukraine. Putin, however, has said that the Kremlin would “propose and is ready to work with” Ukraine on “a possible future peace treaty.”
However, despite all that, there may be some good news for Ukraine.
A Ukrainian Comeback?
In an op-ed published this week in Foreign Policy, Michael Kimmage, director of the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, wrote that there are reasons to believe that the “military tide’ may have turned against the Russians.
Kimmage notes that while Putin, throughout his nearly quarter-century run as Russia’s leader, has become “skilled at escaping the optics of defeat.” In the battles in Chechnya, Georgia, and multiple invasions of Ukraine, and even when Russia intervened in Syria in 2015.
“In none of these theaters has Putin notched a lasting success. Georgia is up for grabs, and Russia’s presence in fading away in Syria, but Putin will accept no responsibility for setbacks on the global stage,” Kimmage writes. “He always acts the victor.”
While conventional wisdom says that things are looking up for Russia, especially now that the Putin-admiring Donald Trump is back in the White House and taking the Russian line that NATO has gone too far, Kimmage writes that it’s not quite that simple.
Two Dilemmas
“In Ukraine, Russia’s military is stalled while deaths and casualties mount. Putin has no way out of the war—other than to admit a version of defeat. The Kremlin can try to hide the war’s misery from Russians, but only to the extent that it can tell the war’s story,” he writes. “Putin cannot as effectively erase evidence of a faltering economy. Nor can he offer Russians any coherent political promise other than endless Putinism. Slowly and not yet suddenly, Russia is starting to lose the war.”
According to this argument, Russia is facing “two serious military dilemmas.”
One is that the Russians have taken small areas of territory, but it hasn’t gotten any momentum, and has taken huge losses in the process of doing so. Russia is on pace, by the end of this year, if the war continues to reach over a million casualties.
The other is that Ukraine hasn’t yet given up.
“The brutality of the Russian occupation, coupled with countless assaults on civilians and civilian infrastructure, convinced most Ukrainians that they had to fight. Ukraine is poorer and smaller than Russia, not ideally suited to a war of attrition, and on the battlefield, Ukraine is acting alone,” he writes.
Squandering Trump
Many assumed that Trump would return to office and then, essentially, hand Ukraine over to Putin, and the war would end that way. But it hasn’t worked out that way.
“Russia has mismanaged its diplomacy with the West. It squandered the opportunities presented by an avowedly pro-Russian Trump administration in February, March, and April, bombing its way past multiple cease-fires. This has pushed Trump toward Ukraine and Europe, and Moscow has found no way to separate Europe from Ukraine,” Kimmage writes.
About the Author
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
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Mike Sunday
May 23, 2025 at 1:40 pm
Thank you for a VERY well written journal. After the cold war America assumed the Totalitarian regimes would “Fade” to capitalism. America is now in the “pain” business… With neighbors like Canada and Mexico, who needs enemies. There is obviously an American cartel. Colorado is up-to-their eyeballs is drug addict judges, sheriffs, governors, county commissioners, prosecutors, etc. WE HAVE TO HAVE THE DEATH PENALTY… Putin/Trump/Biden/Clinton are obviously “meth” sleeping pill addicts. Bring on the SAM-e.