[Jan_Sobieski]

Conclusion: Russian forces today stand significantly closer to victory in the Donbas than they did one year ago, and the AFU has been decisively defeated in Kursk. They are poised to make further progress towards the limits of the Donbas in 2025, with an increasingly threadbare AFU straining to stay in the field. This is what Ukraine asked for, when they willingly eschewed the opportunity to negotiate in 2022. So for all the diplomatic cinema, the brute reality of the battlefield remains the same. The battlefield is the first principle, and the ultimate repository of political power. The diplomat is a servant of the warrior, and Russia takes recourse to the fist and the boot and the bullet.

[silent majority rising]

The vaunted General Milley said it wouldn’t last 3 weeks. What a genius he was.

[tlozo]

Russian "Big Serge" is propaganda, and has been wrong many times.

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/17wrd3z/ua_pov_analyzing_big_serge_who_is_of_course_ru/

[frithguild]

Zeeper (not you Mr. Jan_Sobiesli)topic selection is becoming interesting. Their posts are becoming thin in content - as if they they are being stretched as a resource.

[hardspunned]

Trump had one card to play with Putin. That card was saving the 1000 Russian soldiers from dying each week the war continued. If Trump would have forced Z to actually negotiate in good faith, Russia might have slightly backed off of its LEGITIMATE demands to end the war. Trump has proven to not be serious in his efforts. Trump traffics completely wrong neocon disinfo about the battlefield and incredibly seems to believe it. Trump has proven that he can’t control his CIA or his neocon buddies like Lindsey Graham, let alone Z. The Trump peace negotiations have proven to be a farce of US disinfo and BS. The Russians have had enough. On to the Dnieper. Trump has blown his opportunity. Trump could have saved hundreds of thousands of additional Slavs had he carried through on his pledge of ending this war immediately.

Thanks to Trump bumbling his relationship with Z we are now closer to nuclear war with Russia than we ever were under the dementia patient’s leadership.

[rdcbn1]

A generally decent analysis of the situation.

I give President Trump a lot more credit for what he has been able to accomplish and I think the foundation for a peace process he has laid down is eventually going to pay off with a deal to end the war.

The author seems to deride Trump for his focus on the personal politics of the situation but given the personalities involved the solution to ending the war is all about managing the personal politics between the key players - Putin and Zelensky. And the network of peace process players President Trump has forged in the last few months of negotiations will greatly facilitate a rapid and rational resolution to the war when both sides have finally decided it's time to end the war.

If you watch closely , President Trump is carefully managing expectations of what that eventual agreement will be and what "winning" looks like.

One reasonable aspect of this authors analysis is the focus on how fast the Russians could potentially break through Ukrainian static lines of defense, collapse Ukrainian resistance and break through to end the stalemate and make rapid advances that the overstretched and under equipped Ukrainian forces cannot halt.

They demonstrated this in Kursk and they are repeating this in the Sumy region right now.

This could happen rapidly enough that the US cannot effect timely resupply the Ukrainian forces regardless of our desires or capacity to do so and , even if we could, the Ukrainian forces would not have the ability to distribute them effectively to the soldiers that need them.

My opinion is that President Trump was very forward looking in his drafting of the Ukrainian Minerals Deal. He is way ahead of the curve in anticipating where this thing is headed and that foresight is reflected in the deal his team negotiated.

Suspect that the significance of the Minerals Deal will become more obvious as events unfold.

Most likely outcome is President Trump suspends direct US participation in peace talks and tells the Ukrainians , the Russians and the EU players like Merz, Macron and Starmer to continue on their terms with their assets to get a result consistent with their vision which is totally at odds with the Trump Administration's vision of what a just , lasting peace looks like.

At the same time, the Trump Team is letting all sides know that the US will continue to support peace at some level and is always ready to step back and take a lead in facilitating talks if and when people finally get seriously interested in ending the conflict

Realistic scenario - President Trump walks away from negotiations

The Russians will go on the offensive and make significant gains at a very high cost to both the Russian and Ukrainian forces. This will put an end to the game playing and phony posturing and force the Zelensky government and Macron, Starmer and Merz to demand direct NATO and US intervention to halt the Russian offensive.

This intervention will be denied but there may be some intervention by the UK , France or Poland.

President Trump will step in and negotiate a peace agreement with the revised definition of "success" being stopping an impending and potential nuclear escalation to WWIII and the Russians not taking over all of Ukraine and withdrawing back to previous lines and " settling" for what they have been asking for all along plus a buffer zone in Eastern Ukraine

Hope I'm wrong on this one but we shall see.