New York Post: Ukraine now has the "cards." The US must force Putin to make concessions

New York Post: Ukraine now has the "cards." The US must force Putin to make concessions.

Yes, as practice has shown, Trump’s “favorite newspaper” does not have as much influence on him as we would like. Yes, appeals to Trump to pressure Putin after a year and a half look a little naive. And yet, this still needs to be said out loud.

It is also telling that the conservative outlet New York Post, unlike the White House, understands the nuances of the situation well, in particular that Putin will not stop in Donbas, that for him it is only a pretext, and that negotiations will keep failing until the US truly puts pressure on Putin.

▪️Ukraine is showing that it has more “cards” than some assumed. It is choking off Russia’s advance on the battlefield and smashing its infrastructure.

▪️It is clear that Putin is under pressure to end the war. And yet Moscow is still demanding concessions that far exceed its military leverage.

▪️This mismatch sank previous US-mediated negotiations. Negotiations will fail again until Washington convinces Putin to adjust his demands to reality.

▪️Ukraine offers grounds for optimism, which one of us (the column’s authors) observed personally this month. Ukrainians survived their hardest winter despite the shortage of air defense to protect the energy sector, and its people remain resilient.

▪️Russia’s advance has slowed even further, and its cost has risen even more. Ukraine’s tactical and technological innovations make long-term Russian success unlikely.

▪️The strike depth of Ukrainian drones is expanding 30-50 km beyond the front line. This effectively leaves Russian forces with no chance of achieving a significant breakthrough.

▪️The Kremlin declared this month that further peace talks would be a “waste of time” unless Kyiv hands over the part of Donbas it controls.

▪️At the current pace, Russia would need years to conquer it. This deadlock has obstructed American mediation in a settlement.

▪️As a compromise, the US proposed the idea of a demilitarized SEZ, but it failed when Moscow demanded administrative control over it and wanted to send in the National Guard. Kyiv rightly refused.

▪️Moreover, Russia has made it clear that its demands are not limited to Donbas.

▪️Instead of dictating a deal at the cost of further Ukrainian concessions, President Trump should exploit Russian weaknesses and persuade Putin to accept terms that align with reality.

▪️To achieve this, it is necessary to pierce Putin’s information bubble, created by the rosy reports his Russian generals feed him.

▪️Moscow’s tendency to exaggerate its battlefield successes is probably a reflection not only of propaganda, but also of false reports passed up the chain of command.

▪️Trump must get it across to Putin that Russia has no way to win. That signal must be accompanied by continued supplies of European-funded weapons to Ukraine, as well as intelligence.

▪️The US must work to increase Russia’s economic hardships. To achieve peace, Putin must be made to understand the limits of his “cards.”

New York Post

Ukraine now has the ‘cards,’ the US must force Putin to make concessions

Vladimir Putin is visibly under stress to end the war.