The Puzzle Of The Continuing Ukraine War

In the second half of 2025, and continuing into February of this year, Trump sponsored a major effort to settle the Ukrane war:

Since mid-November 2025, there has been a renewed diplomatic push to secure a peace agreement in Ukraine.

Fresh rounds of talks were prompted by reports that US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and his Russian counterpart, Kirill Dmitriev, had been working on a 28-point peace plan.

. . . Many of the proposals outlined in the plan are not new. They prompted concern among Ukraine and its European allies that the plan was overly favourable to Russia and that it reiterated Russia’s maximalist demands for resolving the conflict, including the ceding of territory.

Following talks in Geneva between the US, Ukraine and European allies on 23 and 24 November 2025, a new deal was reported to be on the table. Details of that revised plan have not been made public, but it is thought to be based on European counterproposals that limit Russian gains.

. . . Three rounds of talks between US, Ukrainian and Russian officials, held in the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland in late January/ February 2026, did not achieve a breakthrough. Further talks in the United Arab Emirates, scheduled for early March 2026, have been postponed because of US/Israeli military action against Iran.

As of a couple of years ago, Ukraine seemed to be on the ropes, but especially over the past several months, as US attention has shifted to Iran, Ukraine's fortunes have improved:

Last week, Moscow residents looked up at black smoke hanging over the city as Ukrainian drones buzzed overhead.

It was Ukraine's largest drone attack on the Russian capital since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. Hundreds of flights were delayed or cancelled, while a major oil refinery on the city's outskirts was repeatedly struck and set ablaze. "If Ukraine is going to burn, your Moscow will burn too," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

. . . The latest wave of strikes has brought the war much closer to home for many Russians, disrupting daily life and eroding their sense of safety.

Analysts say the attacks may deepen domestic anxieties as the war drags on. But whether that discontent will loosen Russian President Vladimir Putin's grip on power — or provoke him into escalating further — remains unclear.

And things have changed in Crimea. Hot Air quotes the New York Times behind a paywall:

The authorities in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula controlled by Russia, declared a state of emergency on Friday after weeks of intense air attacks by Ukraine, including a wave of drone strikes overnight that appears to have been one of the largest since the war began...

Ukraine’s assaults on Crimea, meant to isolate the strategic Black Sea peninsula, have rattled everyday life there to an extent unseen since Russia illegally annexed the region in 2014. Gas stations in Crimea have run out of fuel, with local officials banning sales last Sunday. Summer camps have been canceled and children have been evacuated. Rolling power outages have crippled the territory, disrupting water supplies that rely on electric pumps.

Many Russians who had planned to spend their summer vacations in Crimea, a favorite holiday destination, changed their plans. Bookings in Crimea for July and August fell by over 30 percent compared to a year ago, and by 43 percent in Sevastopol, Crimea’s largest city, according to the Russian business daily Kommersant.

Tourists who had already arrived in Crimea were leaving. On Friday, thousands of cars were lined up on the Crimean side of the bridge linking it to the Russian mainland, with none on the other side waiting to enter, officials said.

These advances seem to be based on advances in drone technology:

In the four years since the large-scale Russian invasion began on February 24, 2022, the Ukrainian military has repeatedly introduced a host of aerial, ground, surface, and undersea drones. The greatest emphasis has been on its aerial drones, which have distinguished themselves in audacious operations like the “Operation Spiderweb” strikes deep inside Russia in June 2025. As the Triton shows, Ukraine is broadening its drone armada to the sea as well.

From David Strom at Hot Air, normally a tepid backwater in the Salem Media empire:

I've been writing a few posts recently about the dramatic shift in Russia's fortunes in the war, and many of my commenters have scoffed. I was being a "homer," rooting too hard for Ukraine and buying their propaganda.

No. I, too, thought that Russia would be able to maintain enough of a stalemate in the war that it could never lose. That is why I was critical of Western policies to "fight to the last Ukrainian." I believed that Ukraine should cut a deal with Russia and end the war because it was bloody and useless. Russia was there to stay.

But a funny thing happened when Trump decided to change US support for Ukraine, not that I am suggesting that he intended this outcome: by making Ukraine have to rely more on an indigenous arms industry and less on American supplies, Ukraine dramatically reformed its military, became nimble and entrepreneurial, and is now outclassing not just Russia, but most countries in military technology and tactics.

Odd -- Zelensky somehow cleaned up his act.