Is Putin Finally Getting Smart About His Ukraine Disaster?
Ukraine faces its own tough decision: push the offensive or rearm and risk losing momentum.
Wising up?
Photographer: Sergei Bobylyov/AFP/Getty Images
The Ukrainian winter will be brutal, but it won’t bring the war to a freezing halt. Ukraine and Russia both face key decisions that could reshape the conflict diplomatically and militarily. Perhaps the most worrying possibility for Ukraine, and for the US, is that Russian President Vladimir Putin will finally start showing the strategic smarts he has demonstrated in the past.
US officials believe Putin is belatedly realizing something that has been blindingly obvious those outside the cocoon of sycophancy in the Kremlin: Russia lacks the military means to accomplish its political ends in Ukraine.