Donald Trump will be entering office at a most opportune time to negotiate some kind of ceasefire or peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.
Domestic support for a military victory by Ukraine has dropped below 40% (38%), according to a recent Gallup poll. And 52% of the country wants a negotiated end to the war as soon as possible.
These numbers represent a decisive shift in attitudes toward the war in late February 2022 when Russia invaded with 73% willing to fight until victorious.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's "victory plan" to end the war presented last month, which includes joining NATO and using Western long-range missiles against Russian territory, did not impress too many decision-makers in Washington, including many Democrats. Ever since Ukraine's failed summer offensive in 2023 that was supposed to employ all the U.S. and NATO modern, sophisticated weapons they've been given sputtered and died, Kyiv has had no hope of achieving a military victory.
The people's attitudes toward the war reflect that reality.
These changing attitudes have come after Russia reclaimed the initiative this past summer and is slowly grinding Ukraine's armed forces to powder. Moscow is losing an extraordinary number of soldiers dead and wounded. Exactly how many is a state secret, but some enterprising Russian milbloggers believe they've hit upon a way to count the dead: reading obituaries.
They say that the number of Russian dead has passed 78,000 while Ukraine's dead (using the same technique) has passed 65,000. The number of wounded is even harder to ascertain given that many of the wounded can return to their units in a few days or weeks. The seriously injured soldiers who will never be back at the front lines are harder to count.
After estimating the number of dead Russian soldiers, journalists from the BBC, Mediazona and Meduza collaborated on the next task: quantifying Russia’s severe battlefield injuries.
They consulted military experts, analyzed leaked personnel lists and looked at statistics on veterans’ compensation payments. They concluded that for every dead Russian soldier, about two more were seriously injured.
That ratio is a rough approximation, they cautioned. It will fluctuate throughout the same war, as weapons, medical equipment, weather and tactics change.
The estimated number of dead and seriously wounded using the methodology used by the BC, Mediazona, and Meduza, the Russians have lost about 405,000 soldiers. Other estimates put the number above 600,000.
Russian losses have become so serious that Russian President Vladimir Putin has hired 100,000 North Korean mercenaries to serve as cannon fodder for his war. They are just now moving into the line in Eastern Ukraine, so their fighting abilities have yet to be seen.
Russian losses are immaterial to Putin. He is fighting to win regardless of the cost. That attitude will bring him a grinding victory or a ceasefire on his terms.
This is the situation Trump will walk into on day one of his presidency. As a U.S. president who has already made it clear that he wants to end the war, Trump is in a better position than any European government to affect the outcome of negotiations.
“If anyone in Europe thinks they can sell Moscow Ukraine or any other country like the Baltic states or the Balkans, Georgia, Moldova, and gain something in return, let them remember this simple truth: No one can enjoy calm water amid a storm," President Zelenskyy said in a recorded message to a meeting of the EU parliament.
Zelenskyy was referring to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz whose governing coalition just collapsed and is now preparing for a snap election. Scholz called up Putin to chat as an election gimmick and was promptly chastised for it across the continent.
“While some European leaders think about, you know, some elections or something like this at Ukraine’s expense, Putin is focused on winning this war. He will not stop on his own,” he warned.
With the will to fight waning in Ukraine, Trump will have to find some way to reach Putin and get him to stand down. It won't be easy. It will be difficult to get Putin to stop a war that he's in the process of winning.
But Ukraine can continue to inflict massive casualties on the Russian attacker for another year or two at least. Perhaps Putin will agree to a ceasefire before the winter sets in.
