Ukraine Has a Plan for Victory. Its Allies Don’t.
The first turbine built after Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine at the Tyligulska wind farm, Mykolaiv region.
Photographer: Julia Kochetova/Bloomberg
Ukraine is about to suffer its most brutal winter since Russia invaded in 2022. That isn’t a risk but a certainty as both sides sense they’re blocked on the ground and focus on the long-range air war. Russia has a plan for victory and the Ukrainians have one for survival. The question is whether Kyiv’s allies have a plan at all. The short answer is no, or at least not yet.
President Donald Trump’s decision to sanction Russia’s two largest oil producers, Rosneft JSC and Lukoil PJSC, has offered a ray of hope — but that’s all. It’s unclear whether Trump is willing to endure the costs involved in enforcing those sanctions hard or long enough to change Vladimir Putin’s calculations. Worse, US-Ukraine policy remains self-contradictory, because the Trump administration has at the same time pushed the entire financial burden for arming and aiding Ukraine onto a cash-strapped Europe.