WeeklyWorker

28.05.2026
Trump and Zelenskyy: a few more cards now

Notes on the war

All of a sudden, it is Russia which is said to be on the back foot militarily, its economy facing ruin and its supply of manpower reaching exhaustion point. In reality, argues Jack Conrad, the stalemate continues

Just a few months ago Russia was pictured making a slow, steady, grinding advance that would, so it was said, eventually overwhelm poor little Ukraine. After all, reckoned the armchair generals, including those on the pro-Kremlin Z left, it was nothing more than a matter of simple arithmetic. Russia has a population three or four times bigger than Ukraine and a considerable military-industrial complex besides. Ukraine can therefore, ran the argument, only but lose.

True, given the rate of advance seen in 2025 - barring a political earthquake, such as the withdrawal of western support - it would still take Russia over a hundred years and millions of casualties before its forces could capture the whole of Ukraine. Eg, Russia gained 0.77% of Ukraine’s existing territory in 2025, so we can then easily arrive at a neatly rounded 130-year result.1 Even to take the entirety of the four oblasts - Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia - which were formally annexed in October 2022, would take six or seven more years by the same calculation.

However, all of that ignores little matters like fortress belts, wide, fast-flowing rivers, marshes, etc … and, at a higher level of abstraction, the fact that war is not linear. It involves both quantitative and qualitative development and intangibles such as morale.

Showing it, today, almost across the entire mainstream bourgeois media we now have excited stories of Russia being edged back, of Ukraine more than holding its own, of Russia suffering unsustainable manpower losses, of its economy being at near breaking point.

Note, in April, according to the Institute for the Study of War, Russia lost control of 45 square miles. The first time Russia had suffered a net loss of territory since August 2024 (the month of Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk oblast).2 That came in the wake of negligible Russian gains in February and March. So there is, arguably, a trend.

Hence, the Financial Times reports Xi Jinping telling Donald Trump at their Beijing summit that Putin “might end up regretting” his invasion (subsequently flatly denied).3 The Guardian’s Dan Sabbagh, its defence editor, writes in the same spirit about how drone strikes, mounting casualties and a distracted US president means not only putting “a slow-motion victory … in doubt”, but has Putin himself talking about how the war in Ukraine is “coming to an end”.4 As for radical journalist Patrick Cockburn, he paints Putin as an abject failure, who has to all intents and purposes already lost the Ukraine war and ruined Russia in the process. Putin, he says, “must win a decisive military victory to achieve his war aims, while Ukraine needs only to avoid defeat”. Cockburn therefore states, rightly in my opinion, that the idea that Russia is set on invading Europe, beginning with the Baltic states, is “absurd”.5

Meanwhile, it needs stressing, there has been virtually no change on the front line. More than that, though the US administration is focused on negotiations with Iran, the fact remains that the standing American position is to force Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Ukraine into agreeing Donald Trump’s 28-point peace plan first mooted back in November 2025.6 If, and it is a big ‘if’, there is some sort of deal with Iran, attention in the White House will doubtless quickly shift back to Ukraine.

So it is worth revisiting Trump’s 28-point plan. What under Biden were red lines have been unceremoniously rubbed out. No regaining every inch of lost territory. No departure of every last Russian soldier.

Trump’s plan

In return, Russia is expected not to invade “neighbouring countries” (point 3) and Ukraine will get “security guarantees” (point 5). There will too be an international recovery fund to help get Ukraine back onto its feet economically (point 12). But there will be no Nato expansion, no Nato troops in Ukraine and no Ukrainian Nato membership (points 3, 7 and 8). Indeed Ukraine is obliged to limit its army to 600,000 (point 6) and relocate its European fighter jets to Poland (point 9). Ukraine is also expected to concede what territory Russia holds in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, withdraw from its 20% of Donbas and accept some sort of free economic zone (point 21).

On top of all that, Zelenskyy must allow presidential and Rada elections within a 100 days of an agreement (point 25). Long overdue because of the war, Zelenskyy and his Servants of the People party are widely thought to be in a weak position and are expected to lose in any free and fair election.

As Trump bluntly told Zelenskyy just 15 months ago in their heated Oval Office exchange, “You’re not in a good position. You don’t have the cards right now.”7 Hence Zelenskyy has been doing his best to be seen to agree … but meanwhile carry on with the fighting.

He says he supports elections and would put a Ukrainian withdrawal from Donbas to a national referendum. How the question is worded would doubtless play a deciding role. To ask ‘Do you support dismembering the country?’ is to invite rejection. But recommending a ‘Do you support peace and a demilitarised buffer zone’ question might just do the trick. Whatever the wording, one could though easily imagine the Ukrainian-Ukrainian population rejecting what will be branded, not least by the far right, as ‘national betrayal’. Who knows what would happen then? Regime collapse, an Azov coup, a show trial of Zelenskyy and his corrupt cronies?

However, over the last year it seems that Zelenskyy has found himself some cards to play, both through Ukraine upping the scale of domestic drone production and putting into effect domestic advances in drone technology (discussed below). That - and with elections in Hungary seeing the back of Viktor Orbán - Ukraine is expecting, in June, the first tranche of its massive €90 billion loan package from the EU for 2026-27. The EU will supposedly be repaid by reparations due to Ukraine from Russia (so do not hold your breath on that one).8

Some €60 billion of that package will be for arms purchases from within and without the EU. Ukraine is thereby expecting to renew its stock of artillery shells and obtain ammunition and spare parts for its F-16 fleet. Besides that Kyiv has its eyes set on Swedish Gripen fighter jets, British Storm Shadows and more and more American Patriot missiles.

As an additional bonus for Zelenskyy, in February 2026, SpaceX imposed stricter verification and whitelist controls on its Starlink satellite internet service that disabled unauthorized terminals believed to be used by Russian military units in Ukraine. Battlefield communications, including with drones, have thereby been made significantly harder.

Russia’s economy is also said to be faltering. However, that should come with a health warning. After all, we have heard it many times before. Moreover, Russia has a war-orientated economy, not a total war economy. Note, while Russia devotes some 6.3% to 7.5% of its GDP to ‘defence’, during World War II British war spending reached a 62% high in 1944-45.9

Moreover, as far as the lives of the mass of the Russian population is concerned, the war in Ukraine hardly touches them. Even those whose fathers, sons or partners have been killed are supposed to have their grief assuaged by compensation payments and other additional benefits worth up to $68,000. And, needless to say, the shops are full and real wages continue to rise (in fact, to a 16-year high).10 There is no rationing, no long snaking queues, no rows of empty shelves.

Nonetheless, Russia’s GDP experienced a 1.8% contraction during the first two months of this year. There is, then, a danger that the country could, with the next set of figures, formally enter a recession. Inflation is roaring too and the central bank has set high interest rates accordingly. Russia is also experiencing a chronic labour shortage. In part this is accounted for by the demands of the war industry, in part by those sent to fight in Ukraine and in part by those fleeing abroad (since the beginning of the ‘special military operation’ more than half a million conscription-age men have left the country11).

Such cards put Ukraine in a much stronger position (despite higher oil and gas prices caused by the Iran war, which has handed Moscow a $40 billion windfall). So, when the Trump administration once again focuses on dealing with the Ukraine question, expect slightly less onerous terms for Ukraine and slightly less favourable terms for Russia. In part at least, because Trump despises weakness and admires strength. For him it really is the strong who shall inherit the earth.

Energy war

No surprise, Ukraine is surviving Russia’s drone and missile war against its energy sector. As we have argued, leave aside the extraordinary vulnerability of nuclear power plants, Ukraine’s energy sector, is, in fact, noticeably robust.

During Soviet times it was deliberately grown oversized to help cope with bureaucratic socialism’s inefficiencies, low productivity and permanent shortages. There has, moreover, been a drive towards decentralisation and diversification: solar panels, wind turbines, small gas modular turbines, old coal plants recommissioned, etc. That meant that during the June-September 2025 period Ukraine became a “net electricity exporter”.12

But it was massive electricity imports from the EU that saved Ukraine from a winter shutdown in 2025-26. In other words, the Russo-Ukraine war is not just between those two countries. Behind Ukraine lies the diplomatic, economic and military strength of Europe. Using the ENTSO-E network that links together European grids, Ukraine was thereby able to import up to 42 GWh daily (most of it originating in neighbouring Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, and Romania). That amounts to between 13% and 15% of the country’s peak electricity needs, this is what kept the lights on over the cruel winter months … and this summer Ukraine can once again be expected to become a net energy exporter.

It is certainly the case that a good number of Russian drones and ballistic missiles are shot down through ack-ack, SAMs, fighter jets and attack drones. Zelenskyy boasts that some 94% of Russian drones are intercepted and some 73% of its ballistic missiles.13 But, of course, though the hit rate is constantly increasing (eg, it was 54% last year), so has the sheer volume of Russian launches. From the tens and twenties monthly, numbers grew to well over 5,000 monthly in 2026.14

So enough get through to cause considerable damage15 - especially the case with ballistic and hypersonic missiles, which are far harder to intercept. Note, ballistic missiles reach speeds of Mach 20+ by soaring into near space, while hypersonic missiles keep within the atmosphere and fly at speeds exceeding Mach 5, but are able to follow unpredictable flightpaths.

The limited availability of US-supplied Patriots has been a real headache in this context (exacerbated no end by the Iran war16). Nonetheless, Politico recently reported that Ukraine has successfully developed a “cheaper alternative”. Namely the Lima electronic warfare system, which at the cost of just a few million dollars interferes with satellite navigation signals and thereby diverts the course of Russian drones, missiles and glide bombs by a few degrees and thus causes them to miss their intended targets.17 Of course, the nature of warfare is that one innovation produces the next. Ukrainian jamming will, it is easy to predict, see Russian countermeasures. And so it will go on and on.

Despite Ukraine’s growing success in hitting, or diverting, Russian drones and missiles, power cuts are a regular occurrence. Over the winter of 2025-26 emergency rolling blackouts lasted some 12-18 hours. Not only a form of psychological warfare, but emergency repairs for the energy sector are hugely costly and constant outages disrupt domestic heating, water supplies, healthcare and industrial (eg, arms) production too.

Of course, Ukraine is conducting its own energy war deep into Russian territory. Ports, oil tankers, pipelines, oil and gas refineries and storage tanks are the main targets. With western targeting support, more than 50% of Russia’s refineries have reportedly been hit more than once.18 Exports have had to be correspondingly scaled back and refining capacity is much reduced (reportedly by some 15%).

Fortress war

Russian forces continue to advance here and there: eg, in the Kostyantynivka-Druzhkivka and Dobropillya tactical areas. However, they are also being forced to retreat here and there; eg, in the Kostyantynivka-Druzhkivka tactical area and in the western Zaporizhzhia oblast.19 It is no longer an almost unremitting story of slow, steady, grinding Russian advance. Hence the triumphant tone of much of the mainstream bourgeois media coverage.

But there has been no strategic breakthrough by either side ... and nor should one be expected any time soon. Once it was claimed that Russia capturing Pokrovsk, because of its E-50 highway and rail line, would mark a strategic defeat for Ukraine. Logistical supply lines feeding the rest of the Donetsk front would allegedly be lost and allow Russia to rapidly advance on Dnipro. Always a dubious proposition.

Well, although the town fell in early 2026, Russian forces have made no noticeable advances. Ukraine has its ‘fortress belt’ in place. Centring on four large towns in Donetsk oblast and their satellite settlements, it runs north to south along the H-20 Kostyantynivka-Slovyansk highway. The Institute for the Study of War reports that Ukraine put much money and effort into this 31 miles of strongpoints, bunkers, trenches, minefields, dragon’s teeth, anti-tank ditches and razor wire. The fortress belt is specifically designed with the topography in mind: “The terrain is fairly defensible, particularly the Chasiv Yar height, which has been underpinning the Ukrainian line,” says Nick Reynolds of the Royal United Services Institute.20

It is a similar story along the whole 600-mile long line of conflict. Both sides have chosen defensible positions, established strong points, dug ditches, poured concrete and planted mines. No wonder Russian advances have proved so costly. Attacks by large formations amount to slaughter. For a few yards of sod, thousands die. Instead Russian generals have turned to infiltration by small groups of two or three men. They exploit natural defensive gaps, use the cover provided by fog and rain, hide in woods, even crawl through disused gas and oil pipelines. Having established a sufficiently strong force, they strike from the rear.

As we have remarked many times before, the defensive lines of the Ukraine war are remarkably similar to those of World War I. Having been forced onto the defensive in 1915, the Germans responded by fortifying their front: trenches, barbed wire, machine guns, concrete bunkers. To have any hope of breaching such awesome defences required the delivery, via rail and lorry, of huge quantities of artillery shells, prolonged bombardments and then hugely costly infantry assaults (artillery conquered and infantry held any territorial gains).

Given the advantage of hindsight, it is now crystal-clear that the decision by Russia’s high command to withdraw from Kherson, Izyum, Lyman and the environs of Kharkiv in the autumn of 2022 was no rout, as claimed by a jubilant Zelenskyy - but, yes, a repositioning, a reset, to secure their forces behind the strongest, most advantageous defensive positions.

True, a hyperbolic storm of protest erupted from Chechnya’s warlord, Ramzan Kadyrov, and Yevgeny Prigozhin of Wagner. Defence minister Sergei Shoigu and top military commanders were branded cowards, traitors and incompetents who deserved to be stripped of medals and sent barefoot into battle. Given that Russia had banned any criticism of the conduct of the Ukraine war by making it illegal to “discredit the armed forces”, such language was highly significant. The Wagner coup happened a few months later, in June 2023, and shook the whole of Russia. Vladimir Putin was humiliated, but survived, and - surprise, surprise - successfully won a fifth presidential term in March 2024.

That aside, strategically, it is now obvious that the Russian high command took a German turn in 2022-23. Instead of pursuing the quixotic aim of “de-Nazifying” Ukraine (a euphemism for decapitating the Kyiv regime), Putin was forced to settle on keeping what Russia has got in Ukraine and pursuing a war of attrition in the hope of eventually securing all of the four oblasts annexed in October 2022: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. The final outcome will therefore depend on who can produce, or obtain, the most artillery shells, drones, missiles and sustain the accompanying losses in manpower ... and which side can innovate the fastest.

Drone war

Of course, Ukraine is no rerun of the western front. There are drones, drones, drones. Battlefield skies are thick with them and the logistical and the strategic war is more and more reliant on them.

Modern Ukrainian drones started with Mavic scouts adapted to drop grenades. Then came FPV drones: first 7-inch frames, then 10, then 12. Then came 1kg payloads, 1.5kg and then bigger and bigger. Ukraine’s heavy bomber drones nowadays carry 5-10kg payloads. Other battlefield drones supply much needed water, food and munitions to the front line. There are also medium and deep-strike drones. Medium-strike drones have a range of around 200km and are designed to stymy Russia’s ability to conduct offensive and defensive operations: hitting air defence systems, radar, warehouses, command posts, logistics, and oil and energy infrastructure. Deep-strike drones are capable of reaching targets as far away as Moscow.

Scout drones now often come equipped with nano night-vision cameras or thermal detectors. Attack drones come preprogrammed, others are controlled by radio signal or impossible to jam fibre-optic cable. There are now interceptor drones too.

These interceptor drones are small, fast and very cheap to make - costing between as little as $1,000 and $2,500. A snip when compared even to a Russian Shahed ($35,000 to $100,000 each). Some are conventionally manufactured, other are 3-D printed. They are designed to hone in on and destroy incoming attack drones either by ramming them or by exploding alongside them.

Compact enough to fit inside a soldier’s backpack, Ukraine’s drone interceptors - Sting, P1-SUN, Bolt, Octopus 100, etc - fly at between 195 and 280mph. More than needed to catch up with a Shahed 136 (known in Russia as a Geran-2). Most “combine thermal imaging with radar tracking and AI-assisted guidance, with a human operator taking manual control for the final seconds of the intercept.” Ukraine now has “more than 20 companies producing them”, its National Security and Defence Council announced in January.21

Indeed such has been the success of these interceptor drones that Ukraine has begun exporting them to eager buyers in the Arab world … and has even sold licences to manufacture them to other countries, including Poland, France, Germany, Italy and Great Britain. Russia has, of course, countered Ukraine’s interceptor drones with its feared Geran-5, which can reach speeds of 370mph. So in a chase it can outrun anything Ukraine has in service … for the moment.

Either way, drones have created a 20-30km-wide ‘kill zone’ along each side of the front line. Trenches therefore go unmanned. The wounded are left to die in no-man’s land, so risky is it to rescue them. Moving supplies to fighting troops by lorry has become almost impossible. Even using armoured vehicles is to invite a deadly drone strike. Fixed artillery positions have had to be abandoned too. Easy targets.

Rotating troops has become hellishly difficult. According to a report in Politico, “Most soldiers currently die during rotation.” They are therefore forced to spend weeks at the front. A recent BBC news item told of a poor Ukrainian grunt, code name ‘Kenya’, confined to a fox hole for 225 days before he got himself back to his unit: he was suffering from extreme muscle weakness.22

When they are eventually rotated, the soldiers have to duck and dive through the kill zone before being picked up by a waiting car. “That,” we are reliably told, “creates a problem with morale.”23 And morale matters. It is far more important than all those Leopard II tanks, F-16s and Storm Shadows put together. As Napoleon Bonaparte famously remarked, “In war, three-quarters turns on personal character and relations; the balance of manpower and materials counts only for the remaining quarter.”24

Wounded soldiers face their own particular nightmare. Sometimes they have to wait for days before getting any kind of proper treatment. Getting them to a medically equipped armoured personnel carrier means hobbling, crawling or being carried. No wonder so many die. Not that they are safe anywhere near the front line. Drones hover above tracks and roads. Ukraine has, as a result, turned to robotic surgery and virtual treatment by doctors. And, of course, drones deliver medical equipment, drugs and PPE to the front line.

Ironically, Ukraine’s surging production of drones relies heavily (80%) on Chinese components (navigation systems, chips, magnets and composites). Eg, Ukraine’s Motor-G plant, Europe’s largest producer of drone motors, turns out about 100,000 units per month. “But it still buys its high-grade magnets and copper wire from China.”25 Not surprisingly, because it is such good business, the same pattern applies to Russia’s drones. Roughly 80% of Russia’s drone electronics, motors, fibre optic cables, etc come from companies of “Chinese origin” - often via Russian fronts (operating under the cover of producing refrigeration units).26

Grand strategy

Whatever the exact terms of any Ukraine settlement might be in the future, it is vital to understand what the Trump administration is attempting to achieve. Dismissing him and his entire cabinet as nothing more than a bunch of half-wits is in itself half-witted. Getting behind Trump’s hectoring and often ranting and raving style is best done by putting Ukraine into the context of the National Security Strategy (published in November 2025).27 This remains the fullest statement of what “putting America first in everything” means, when it comes to foreign policy.

The Trump administration has unceremoniously dumped the post-World War II so-called law-based international order. That is for sure. Yet, shorn of the Trumpite braggadocio, what is being re-established is the ‘might is right’ transactional politics of 19th century imperialism. American hegemony will take a new/old form: territorial ambition, naked force, protectionism, resource control, colonies.

NSS promises to assert a “Trump corollary” to the Munroe doctrine: America will be “pre-eminent” in the western hemisphere. In Latin America that first of all means dealing with Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua - the “sordid cradle of communism in the western hemisphere”. Well, the Chavista regime in Caracas has already bent the knee, leaving Cuba isolated, blockaded and suffering prolonged power blackouts. After Cuba, Nicaragua will be next. There is also Canada as the 51st state and Greenland as some kind of US territory (along the lines of Puerto Rico).

Previous approaches to China are rejected as deluded. American trade with China must be “rebalanced” and allies such as Europe, Japan, Mexico, Canada and South Korea are expected to cooperate in achieving that aim (ie, reversing the “inexorable” rise of China).

NSS repudiates the interventionist policy of strongarming other countries into adopting “democratic or other social change that differs widely from their traditions and histories”. According to The Economist, that is welcome news for “Russia, China and the monarchies of the Middle East”.28 Yet, when it comes to Europe, NSS bluntly declares that “our goal should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory”. It stresses America’s “sentimental attachment” to Europe, especially “Britain and Ireland”, but ominously warns that “European states cannot reform themselves if they are trapped in political crisis”.

“American diplomacy” will therefore “continue to stand up” for what NSS calls “genuine democracy, freedom of expression, and unapologetic celebrations of European nations’ individual character and history”. In other words, America will “promote” the growing influence of “patriotic European parties”: good news for Reform UK, AfD, National Rally, Brotherhood of Italy, Vox, etc.

When applied to Ukraine, NSS draws conclusions that mainstream conservatives, liberals and social-imperialists call “appeasement”,29 the “spirit of 1938”30 or “end the war by giving Putin everything he wants”.31 Such types cannot think about today’s Russia outside the Third Reich box.

Anyway, NSS envisages an “expeditious cessation” of the war in Ukraine to prevent further escalation. Evidently, Trump is wagering on cleaving Russia away from the embrace of China by offering an expanded sphere of influence and a revived G8 (point 13 of Trump’s 28-point Ukraine plan). That, or even establishing a G5 … the US, China, Japan, India and, flatteringly, Russia. (Why ‘flatteringly’? Because despite its 150 million population and nuclear weapons, economically it ranks roughly on a par with Italy and Canada.)

Though, frustratingly, Putin failed to get his second pipeline deal agreed on his latest Beijing visit - following hot on the heels of Trump - a deepened Sino-Russian bloc is a much more likely scenario than a G8 American-European-Russian bloc. As for a G5, it is for the birds … it will never fly.

  1. A linear calculation based on data collected by the hawkish Institute for the Study of War. Eg, it reckons that Russia took just 0.77% of Ukraine’s total area in 2025 (www.lvivherald.com/post/how-long-would-it-take-russia-to-occupy-all-ukraine).↩︎

  2. understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-2-2026.↩︎

  3. Financial Times May 19 2026.↩︎

  4. The Guardian May 11 2026.↩︎

  5. The i paper May 25 2026.↩︎

  6. www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11/21/trumps-28-point-ukraine-plan-in-full-what-it-means-could-it-work.↩︎

  7. www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-trump-and-zelenskyy-said-during-their-heated-argument-in-the-oval-office.↩︎

  8. www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2026/04/23/council-finalises-90-billion-support-loan-to-ukraine.↩︎

  9. articles.obr.uk/300-years-of-uk-public-finance-data/index.html.↩︎

  10. www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/01/27/russias-wage-race-nears-end-as-growth-slows-analysts-say-a91788.↩︎

  11. uawire.org/up-to-540-000-conscription-age-men-have-left-ukraine-since-the-full-scale-invasion.↩︎

  12. Ibid.↩︎

  13. www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1k2lmmjvzxo.↩︎

  14. isis-online.org/isis-reports/monthly-analysis-of-russian-shahed-136-deployment-against-ukraine.↩︎

  15. abcnews.go.com/International/ukraines-interception-rates-russias-drones-missiles-slipping-data/story?id=127216305.↩︎

  16. During the US-Israeli war Iran fired over 500 ballistic missiles and nearly 2,000 drones against Israel and American bases and allies. This cost roughly $4 billion and saw over 800 Patriots burnt through in just three days - more than Ukraine received throughout four years of war.↩︎

  17. www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-lima-electronic-warfare-system-jam-russian-ballistics.↩︎

  18. www.chathamhouse.org/2025/11/ukraines-best-defence-against-putins-energy-war-more-attacks-russias-oil-refining-sector.↩︎

  19. understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-25-2026.↩︎

  20. www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj6yd4d5zj6o.↩︎

  21. www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2026/03/11/these-are-ukraines-1000-interceptor-drones-the-pentagon-wants-to-buy.↩︎

  22. www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3w2xqj9x13o.↩︎

  23. www.politico.eu/article/surviving-the-killzone-how-drones-erased-frontline-and-changed-war-in-ukraine.↩︎

  24. E Knowles (ed) The Oxford dictionary of quotations Oxford 1999, p538.↩︎

  25. www.politico.com/newsletters/global-security/2025/10/08/ukraines-made-in-china-problem-00596483.↩︎

  26. monitoring.bbc.co.uk/product/b0004f1y.↩︎

  27. www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf.↩︎

  28. The Economist December 5 2025.↩︎

  29. The Independent November 22 2025.↩︎

  30. C Carly ‘Don’t call this a “Peace Plan”’ Foreign Policy November 24 2025.↩︎

  31. J Denham ‘End the war? By giving Putin what he wants?’ Solidarity December 3 2025. The author has taken the liberty of removing the question mark when quoting the social-imperialist Jim Denham.↩︎