US Decision to Abandon Peace Talks and Align with Ukraine Signals a Green Light for Russia to Launch Massive New Offensive

Putin was hoping that Trump would pressure Zelensky to negotiate a peace deal with Moscow, but Trump failed, giving Russia no choice but to end the war through decisive military action.

Russian tank company advancing across the plains of eastern Ukraine. Russia has had the military ability to conquer most or all of Ukraine for sometime and nearly forced Ukraine to capitulate in March-April 2022, but Putin decided it would be more trouble than it was worth and tried to end the war diplomatically with comparatively minimal Russian territorial gains. Now that a peace deal is effectively off the table, Russia will likely succeed in conquering nearly half of Ukraine’s territory.

Today marks the 80^th anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany which marked the end of the most terrible and one of the most easily preventable major wars in world history—World War Two, during which the US and UK engaged in an unholy alliance with the Soviet Union, an anniversary which Russia celebrates on May 9^th. During the war, the US, UK and USSR served as close military allies and divided the spoils of their European conquests with the Yalta sphere of influence agreement which kept the nuclear and great power peace and was honored by both sides for over half a century. Some national security experts including myself have called for the US to negotiate a new sphere of influence agreement with Russia to ensure a just and lasting peace that might last another half century or more.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared a three day cease fire in honor of Victory Day from midnight this morning to midnight on May 11th. However, Zelensky has been violating Russia’s three-day truce with massive drone attacks with Russian air defenses reportedly shooting down 524 Ukrainian drones in a twenty-four hour period in an attempt disrupt Moscow’s airports and force the cancellation of flights of various foreign dignitaries ahead of the Victory Day military parade causing Russia to threaten counterstrikes. As I noted in my last article, Zelensky made a veiled threat that Ukraine might engage in drone and missile strikes on Russia's May 9th Victory Day Parade in Moscow causing Russia to take extraordinary precautions deploying a huge number of air defenses to ensure the security of Russian leaders and the leaders of twenty-nine countries who will be in attendance.

The Kremlin has reportedly issued a special order for Russian military forces to finish taking control of the city of Pokrovsk or to capture some territory in the region of Dnipropetrovsk with Russian troops reported to have advanced within two kilometers of the region from Donetsk oblast before Russia’s Victory Day parade tomorrow. It’s possible that this report may be misleading given that MSN is known for being the biggest culprit in the US media when it comes to parroting Ukrainian propaganda, but it seems credible given that Putin would like to have a breaking military victory to celebrate given that twenty-nine foreign heads of state will be present including Chinese President Xi Jinping.

This year’s Russian Victory Day military parade which will be held in Moscow tomorrow is expected to be a much bigger production than last year’s and will reportedly feature at least a company of new Russian T-90M tanks as well as up to 100 PLA troops and twelve other countries likely North Korean troops in what is likely to be the greatest showcase of Sino-Russian military alliance strength and solidarity the world has witnessed since the 1960s. It’s possible, though perhaps unlikely, that Russian President Vladimir Putin could use Friday’s Victory Day celebration to formally declare war on Ukraine, citing Ukraine’s rain of drone attacks on Moscow and continued border incursions in Kursk and Belgorod as a justification and proclaim a Second Great Patriotic War to further mobilize Russia’s reserves to conquer most of Ukraine and be ready to defeat NATO if it attempts to intervene militarily to prevent Russian forces from capturing Kyiv. However, Putin seems to believe that the 600,000-700,000 troops that Russia currently has deployed in Ukraine are sufficient to crush the Ukrainian army which has been reduced to half that number.

Amateur actors reenact the historic meeting of US and Soviet troops along the Elbe River on April 16, 1945, a few weeks prior to Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender. While post Soviet-Russia, has repeatedly tried to invoke “the Spirit of the Elbe” in encouraging post-Cold War US-Russian cooperation, US leaders have rebuffed their attempts to forge closer ties as strategic partners for peace, instead attempting to push the boundaries of NATO 1,100 miles eastward into Ukraine, predictably leading to the outbreak of this unnecessary war.

It has now been over thirty-eight months since the Russo-Ukrainian War began. What was expected to be a war that lasted a few weeks has lasted a few years with no end in sight. It seems ironic that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine to rollback NATO troops and bases out of the former Soviet republic and partially demilitarize Ukraine following fifteen years of failed attempts to resolve the Ukraine in NATO crisis diplomatically, but immediately after the invasion began negotiating a peace deal with Ukraine in which he committed to withdraw all Russian troops from Ukraine’s prewar territory. The New York Times quoted one senior US official that it appeared that Putin was “salivating for peace” and even unilaterally withdrew all Russian troops from over thirty percent of Russian occupied Ukrainian territory including Kyiv from March 26^th-April 4^th, 2022, in the ultimately mistaken hope that the Istanbul Agreement negotiated with Ukraine would be signed in early April. In the process, he proved that he was no “modern day Adolf Hitler” as some neocon pundits have alleged but rather resembled a Bismarckian statesman with the surprisingly limited aim of attempting to revert Ukraine to its pre-February 2014 neutral status quo.

Unfortunately for Ukraine, former President Joe Biden and former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson successfully pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky not to sign the agreement as scheduled on April 9, 2022 in Istanbul and the war has continued for over three years since with devastating consequences for Ukraine. Putin found out the hard way that you can win a war, and you can even offer to unilaterally withdraw all your troops from enemy territory, but you can’t end a war until your enemy admits defeat and agrees to end it. Sadly, Russia has had no choice but to continue fighting while Putin has remained open to a diplomatic resolution of the conflict that incorporated the terms agreed to by both Russia and Ukraine under the Istanbul Agreement along with the US and Ukraine’s recognition of de facto Russian control over the five annexed regions of Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea. Russia’s peace terms, which were eminently reasonable in the first several months of the war, have become progressively less reasonable since.

Ukraine’s Demands for a Peace Agreement are ‘Maximalist’ but Russia’s Are Not

Following three and a half months of failed diplomatic efforts, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has yet to make even the slightest concession from his maximalist demands for peace with Russia. In fact in October 2022, Zelensky signed a decree banning any Ukrainian officials from negotiating a peace agreement with Russia so long as Putin remained as its president which Trump has insisted he rescind unsuccessfully. Those demands include either immediate NATO membership for Ukraine and/or the deployment of a least 200,000 NATO troops to defend Ukraine’s borders against potential future Russian aggression and for Russian troops to be withdrawn from all of Russia’s internationally recognized territory, including Crimea which was annexed over a decade ago. Zelensky is also demanding Russia provide Ukraine with $300 billion in reparations and for Putin to surrender to the International Criminal Court at the Hague to stand trial before a war crimes tribunal for the alleged crime of kidnapping tens of thousands of Ukrainian children for which there is no evidence that Russia ever committed.

President Donald Trump meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky back in 2019. The Trump administration trained and armed the Ukrainian army to pose a threat to Russia during its first term. After heavily criticizing Zelensky for refusing to make any concessions for peace, Trump unexpectedly decided to demonstrate weakness by appeasing “the dictator without elections” and signing a minerals deal last week that gave Zelensky everything he wanted including dropping Trump’s demand that he hold a democratic election. This agreement will likely ensure continued US military support for Ukraine until its military collapses and it is overrun by Russian forces later this year.

During House Intelligence Committee hearings on March 26^th, CIA Director John Ratcliffe stated Trump understands the risk of accepting Russia's “maximalist aims” in a peace agreement. What risk is there in agreeing to the US proposal to agree to recognize de facto Russian control over its annexed territories in exchange for a full Russian withdrawal from the small amount of territory it controls in Kharkiv and Mykolaiv oblasts, which Trump has suggested Russia has accepted? I see zero risk in an independent, sovereign and secure Ukraine at peace and in control of eighty-seven percent of its prewar territory. I see a much greater threat to Ukraine in rejecting Russia's peace terms and thus allowing them to seize control of four additional oblasts including Odessa and very possibly Kyiv, more than doubling the amount of formerly Ukrainian territory under their control and leaving Ukraine a land-locked country in control of a little more than half of its internationally recognized territory.

Asked what concessions Russia has made towards peace, President Trump said, "stopping from taking the whole country--pretty big concession." He's not wrong. Russian military forces are strong enough to surround Kyiv and force Ukraine to capitulate and accept peace on Russian terms as Russian forces nearly succeeded in doing in March 2022. Now that Russian forces enjoy two to one numerical superiority in troops in Ukraine, Putin could conquer half or perhaps even all of Ukraine if he wanted to. If it were true that Putin had maximalist demands, then he would have either demanded control of all of Ukraine’s territory or minimally the replacement of Zelensky by a Russian puppet leader and Ukraine’s transformation not to a neutral state but rather to a Russian-aligned satellite state with permanent Russian military bases in central and western Ukraine.

Russia’s demands on the other hand, often falsely described as “maximalist” by the liberal media, have been, in many ways, surprisingly reasonable to date. Whereas, Putin had been demanding Ukraine cede all the territory in the four Russian annexed oblasts that remains under Ukrainian control from June 14, 2024 onward, on April 11^th, he reportedly offered to drop his demand for any additional Ukrainian territory in exchange for recognition of Russian control of five oblasts it annexed three years ago along the current line of control and US agreement to Russia’s other key terms. This represented a monumental concession proving Putin’s desire for peace. While Russia originally demanded Zelensky’s ouster as the price of peace in the first two weeks after they invaded, Russia dropped that demand on March 8, 2022. Now, Russia is only calling for Zelensky hold a new, free and fair democratic presidential election (which Zelensky, though trailing in the polls, could potentially still win). The Kremlin’s demand to restore democracy to Ukraine was something the Trump administration had also been demanding up until last week when it agreed to drop it in exchange for Ukraine signing a minerals deal with the US, the terms of which would not repay the US for any of the $350 billion in aid that Biden and Trump sent Ukraine to help them continue fighting Russia.

Without this US aid, Ukraine would have been forced to sign the Istanbul Agreement, and the war would have ended with a full Russian military withdrawal over three years ago. Russia has also demanded that Ukraine honor the terms of the Istanbul Agreement initialed by the head of the Ukrainian delegation on March 29, 2022, including a return to Ukrainian permanent neutrality outside of NATO in accordance with its Declaration of Independence and its pre-2019 constitution. That agreement also included provisions in which Ukraine agreed to the partial demilitarization of the Ukrainian armed forces along “the Swedish model” with a modest-sized active-duty force and much larger reserve forces that could be mobilized to successfully counter any future Russian aggression.

Vice President JD Vance, a staunch America First conservative who has been highly critical of Zelensky’s refusal to agree to peace with Russia and has sought to advise President Trump to extricate the US from continued involvement in its unnecessary war in Ukraine.

On May 7^th, during a press conference, Trump was asked about Vice President Vance’s statement that morning at the Munich Security Conference that “we think Russia is asking for too much” in peace negotiations. "When did he say that? Well it's possible that it's right. He may know some things because I've been dealing with this and some other things." Trump’s statements seem to suggest he thought Russia’s proposed peace terms were reasonable and that Zelensky was more of the problem. As I predicted, Russia’s demand for partial demilitarization of Ukraine has proven the biggest obstacle to reaching a peace agreement between the US and Russia. The Russians consider it to be their third most important demand after Ukraine’s neutrality (including the expulsion of all foreign troops and bases) and their demands for recognition of continued Russian control of the four oblasts. The Witkoff peace plan, which was adopted by President Trump in November, modified somewhat after he became President, called for there to be no reductions in the size and capabilities of the Ukrainian armed forces, which guaranteed Russia would reject Trump’s peace plan unless he was willing to compromise with them on this issue, which he was not.

The Straits Times reported that the US demanded Russia accept a peace deal in which Ukraine retained a large and robust military capable of defending itself against potential future Russian attacks.

The United States will demand that Russia recognize Ukraine's sovereign right to maintain adequately equipped armed forces and a defense industry as part of any peace agreement, Bloomberg reported on April 24, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter. The issue is expected to be raised by U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on April 25. The demand would directly challenge one of the Kremlin's war aims — Ukraine's demilitarization — and is part of a broader push to secure guarantees for Kyiv.

Ukraine agreed to partial demilitarization under the Istanbul Agreement which they initiated on March 29, 2022, but which Zelensky quickly reneged on in April 2022, subsequently banning any peace discussions with Ukraine in September. That agreement called for Ukraine’s military to be reduced to half its pre-war size with strict limits on the numbers of heavy weapons and particularly strike weapons that Ukraine’s military could possess limiting their ranges to no more than forty kilometers. While Russia is likely willing to compromise somewhat on this issue, the Trump administration needs to realize that they will not agree to any limits on the size and capabilities of the Ukrainian military above that which Ukraine previously agreed in March 2022.

As I have written, Ukraine would be much safer and more secure from future Russian aggression if it were to accept these limits because if Russia was pressured to accept a large Ukrainian military on its borders it would guarantee it would invade Ukraine again to force its partial demilitarization whereas it if it accepted those limits it would have no reason to ever attack Ukraine again. Accordingly, the ball is in Trump’s court to decide whether he wants to prolong the war in Ukraine unnecessarily over his ongoing dispute with Moscow over the size of the postwar Ukrainian army. Ukraine has suffered two million military casualties to date and has lost one fifth of its territory while Russia has threatened to seize control of over 42% of Ukraine if it continues to reject its peace terms which include Ukraine recognizing de facto Russian control of the five annexed Russian oblasts.

What might have been Trump’s historic diplomatic triumph in negotiating a landmark peace deal ending the war between Russia and Ukraine has instead become his greatest diplomatic failure. President Donald Trump campaigned on ending the war in Ukraine in twenty-four hours and made a brief abortive attempt to negotiate a peace deal with Russia (which Ukraine rejected but Russia mostly accepted) to make good on his campaign promise last month. However, as I noted in my last article, President Trump has since prioritized working hard to placate and appease Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who exercises outside influence inside White House policymaking circles only exceeded by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and America’s EU partners. He gave up on his attempts to mediate a peace deal with Russia scarcely more than two weeks after he declared his first peace offer America’s last and final offer for Russia and Ukraine. Nearly three months after his promising first phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 12^th to normalize relations with Moscow after which he stated he would follow up with a summit meeting in Riyadh, he has neglected to even schedule a meeting with Putin since he became President having not met in person with him in nearly half a dozen years despite repeated Russian offers to do so.

Nor has Trump selected a US Special Envoy to Russia since his original pick LTG Keith Kellogg was declared persona non-grata by Moscow for his family business ties to Ukraine. In addition, he has not even nominated a US ambassador to Russia relying instead on Biden’s ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracey who, for obvious reasons, cannot be trusted to advance Trump’s agenda of peace with Russia. The only US official he sent to meet with Putin was Steve Witkoff in a breach of unstated diplomatic protocol which postulates that major country foreign heads of state only meet with US cabinet officials or above. All of this suggests that despite his very sincere desires for peace with Russia, he made very little serious effort to achieve his objective before he settled into his current policy of continuing Biden’s policy of indefinite US military involvement and arms shipments to Ukraine. Consequently, it is evident that Putin has decided the only way he can end the war is to implement a military solution to conquer vast swaths of additional Ukrainian territory so that no one will be able to question that Ukraine has been decisively defeated, forcing Zelensky to either accept a conditional surrender or flee the country. This even though Putin’s preferred was clearly a negotiated diplomatic settlement mediated by the United States.

Trump Predicts Ukraine “Will Be Crushed Very Shortly”

MSN reported that on April 23rd, President Trump warned Zelensky will lose all of Ukraine in a few years if he refuses to negotiate a peace deal with Russia.

Trump said Zelensky is "boasting on the front page of The Wall Street Journal" saying "'there's nothing to talk about here.'" "Nobody is asking Zelenskyy to recognize Crimea as Russian Territory but, if he wants Crimea, why didn't they fight for it eleven years ago when it was handed over to Russia without a shot being fired?" he added. Trump went on to say that "it's inflammatory statements like Zelenskyy's that makes it so difficult to settle this War." "He has nothing to boast about! The situation for Ukraine is dire — He can have Peace or, he can fight for another three years before losing the whole Country. The president ended the post saying that Zelensky's reluctance will "do nothing but prolong the 'killing field'" and that officials are "very close to a Deal, but the man with 'no cards to play' should now, finally, GET IT DONE." "I look forward to being able to help Ukraine, and Russia, get out of this Complete and Total MESS, that would have never started if I were President!" Trump concluded.

Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting with Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Garasimov. Putin stated late last month that Russia’s goal has shifted to “the destruction of the Kyiv regime.”

The next day, during an interview with The Atlantic magazine, President Trump was even more emphatic expressing his belief that Ukraine "will be crushed very shortly" by Russia's "big war machine" if Zelensky continues to refuse to lift his ban on peace negotiations with Moscow and fails to agree to a peace deal ending the war with Russia. A week later, the Trump administration announced it was giving up on mediating a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. Accordingly, if Zelensky does not accept Russia's peace terms very soon, Ukraine likely will be crushed by a massive Russian spring/summer offensive as Trump has predicted. Accordingly, the longer it waits to make peace with Russia the worse off it will be especially if Ukrainian warnings of a massive Russian spring offensive are proven correct.

"I think I'm saving that nation," Trump said, referring to Ukraine. "I think that nation will be crushed very shortly. It's a big war machine. ... I think I'm doing a great service to Ukraine. I believe that." Trump claimed he was "on Ukraine's side" but drew a distinction between supporting Ukraine and supporting President Volodymyr Zelensky. "I've had a hard time with Zelensky," Trump said, bringing up the leaders' infamous Oval Office argument ."

I strongly suspect Trump will be proven right and that Russia will crush Ukraine within the next five months or so forcing Zelensky to capitulate on Russian terms.

On May 5^th, Ukraine launched a new offensive with thousands of troops to try to retake some territory in the Kursk region to try to retake territory there but they have been suffering heavy losses both in terms of troops and armored vehicles because, unlike their first Kursk offensive back in August which cost them 70,000 soldiers killed in action, Russian troops have been heavily reinforced there and are reportedly massing for a new Russian offensive in the Sumy region. It’s possible that the abortive Ukrainian offensive may have been launched in part in an attempt to try to pre-empt Russian preparations for that offensive though the scale of Ukraine’s offensive suggests it is insufficiently large for that purpose. North Korean troops may well end up joining Russia’s Sumy offensive and if Zelensky is foolish enough to fire drones at the Victory Parade while Chinese President Xi Jinping is present, we might see PLA divisions sent to help Russia deliver the coup de grace to Ukraine this summer as well.

During Ukraine’s September-November 2022 Kharkiv and Kherson counteroffensives, Ukrainian troops outnumbered the Russians by three to one in Ukraine, but now Russian troops outnumber Ukraine’s by two to one. During this period, Russia has approximately tripled the size of its ground forces while the overall size of its military has been increased to Soviet-era Cold War levels while Russian defense spending, as a percentage of GDP, has also increased to Soviet-era levels. Russia now has anywhere from 600,000-700,000 troops in Ukraine whereas Ukraine’s military has been reduced from a high of 1.2 million troops in November 2022 down to 300,000-350,000 troops today. Russian troops outnumber Ukraine by five to one along most sections of the Eastern Front.

Back in March, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Dmitri Peskov declared that if Russia’s minimum demand of the four oblasts along their constitutional borders is not met, Russia will demand four additional oblasts as well including Kharkiv, Odessa, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk and continue the war indefinitely until it obtains control of those territories by whatever means possible.

Russia’s Demands for the Annexation of four additional Ukrainian regions if its far more modest demands for de facto recognition of Russian control of the four annexed territories along the current line of control are not met. If a massive Russian offensive succeeded in occupying much of Sumy and Chernihv in northern Ukraine while partially surrounded Kyiv, Moscow might agree to withdraw from those Ukrainian regions in exchange for a peace deal recognizing its continued control of the nine oblasts shown here in red.

During a televised meeting on April 25th with General Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of the Russian General Staff, Putin said that the liberation of Kursk and Belgorod regions by Russian forces and the creature of a security zone in Sumy “has set the conditions for the destruction of the Kyiv regime.” This suggests that, with the collapse of peace talks which had been sponsored by the Trump administration, a massive Russian offensive is being planned aimed at collapsing the Ukrainian military that could begin as early as later this month with the Russian army potentially arriving once again at the gates of Kyiv just as they did mere days after the war began coming within ten miles of the city center before Putin decided to unilaterally withdrawn them when Russia was on the verge of victory before Russian troops had suffered a single defeat.

Putin also called for his troops to press their advantage on the battlefield and step up their attacks, even as he says Moscow has halted its strikes on Ukrainian energy targets. “I was saying not so long ago: ‘We will finish them off.’ There are reasons to believe that we will finish them off,” Putin said. “We are gradually, not as fast as some would like, but nevertheless persistently and confidently moving toward achieving all the goals stated at the beginning of the special operation,” the Kremlin leader added, using his term for the offensive.

One analyst summarized Russia’s strategic objectives for the war in Ukraine and predicted the Russians will win the war militarily within months if a peace deal is not signed. “Russia could achieve its territorial and local political goals in a relatively short time. The territorial goals are already spelled out by Russia. The political goal is to force NATO out of Ukraine and changeover the Ukrainian government to one friendly to Russia.”

Over the past few months or so, Russia has been preparing for a massive Russian spring/summer offensive to in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s words “bring the war to its logical confusion” ending it Russia’s annexation of four additional Ukrainian oblasts which Russia considers to be part of Novorossiya. But Putin was willing to not only drop his plans for the offensive but to drop his demand for Russian control of the remainder of the four annexed Ukrainian regions so long as he believed peace talks being mediated by the US had a high chance of producing a negotiated peace settlement which included Russia’s main peace terms.

However, now that the Trump administration has officially abandoned its efforts to negotiate a peace deal and has concluded a new agreement committing the US to sell arms to Kyiv for the next decade, Russian preparations for launching the offensive are likely being finalized to begin in June or possibly even later this month. This planned Russian offensive will likely include a second attempt to partially surround Kyiv to force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to capitulate. Britain and France may very well respond by asking for US no fly zone to send tens of thousands of troops to the Dnipro River Line to prevent Russia from capturing central and western Ukraine. As George Beebe, Director of Grand Strategy for the Quincy Center for Responsible Statecraft recently warned during a C-SPAN interview last week, Russia would be virtually guaranteed to immediately attempt to target and destroy and NATO combat forces that entered Ukraine which could potentially start a world war in Eastern Europe despite Defense Secretary Hegseth’s statement that such Russian attacks on NATO troops in Ukraine would not invoke Article V and thus the US would not be pulled into such a war.

Ukraine Predicts Russia Will Launch a Massive, New Offensive

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has indicated he believes that Russia has at least an additional 150,000 reserve troops deployed along Ukraine’s borders that could be utilized in a massive, new Russian multi-pronged spring/summer offensive in northern Ukraine or perhaps even in a new invasion of Kyiv from Belarus that could begin as soon as mid-May.

"Ukrainian officials suspects that Russian forces will imminently launch a months-long fresh military offensive to weaken Kyiv ahead of ceasefire talks. The move could allow Moscow to make more land gains, strengthening the Kremlin's position during ceasefire negotiations. The analysts believe that Russian forces will launch a multi-pronged offensive across the 621-mile-long (1,000km) front line amid its third year of fighting. Ukrainian military analyst Oleksii Hetman, with ties to the military's general staff, warned: "[Russia is] preparing offensive actions on the front that should last from six to nine months, almost all of 2025." Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky provided intelligence reports detailing Russia's plan to start battles in the northeast Sumy, Kharkiv and Zaporizizhia regions."

Recent news article warning that a double-axis Russian military offensive could lead to the collapse of Ukraine’s Eastern Front.

Russia's strategy is to engage in minor offensive breakthroughs to force Ukraine to use up all of its reserves to plug gaps in their frontline. Once Ukraine's reserves have been expanded then a massive Russian offensive will begin. That may be mere weeks away. A Ukraine War blogger who goes by the name of Simplicius posted more about this:

Russian command would logically wait for such time when Ukrainian reserves have thinned, and the Russian ‘death by a thousand cuts’ strategy has begun overwhelming Ukrainian lines all across the front, forcing Ukraine into a desperate defensive strategy of ‘plugging gaps’ like never before. It is only then, with Kherson’s defenses thinned out, that Russia could attempt a mass storming across many different points of the Dnieper—which is the only way such an operation could feasibly work. Both the lower and upper Dnieper would likely be crossed in the same fashion as the Oskil has been in the north.

For the past few years, I have been giving public presentations showing how Russia could launch offensives from Sumy and Zaporizhia to roll up all Ukrainian military forces on the left bank of Dnipro River. Now, the Ukrainian MoD appears to be predicting that is exactly what Russia is planning on doing in furtherance of Putin’s directive to “finish off” Ukrainian troops. A Russian double axis pincer offensive from Sumy in the north and from Zaporizhia or Kherson in the south, where Russia has reportedly massed 300 boats for multiple Dnipro River crossings, would threaten to surround Ukrainian forces on the left bank of the Dnipro River and potentially take control of all of Eastern and Southern Ukraine from Chernihiv in the north to Odessa in the southwest.

As I noted above, Russia reportedly has 150,000 troops massed and ready to invade northeast Sumy and drive south. That would give Russia anywhere from 750,000-850,000 troops in combat against no more than 350,000 troops for Ukraine. If the Russians succeeded in capturing a lot of territory, Ukrainian forces would be under significant pressure to retreat from western Donestsk and the surrounding regions entirely to avoid potential encirclement. If they didn’t Ukraine would not have sufficient troops to defend Kyiv and central Ukraine from a potential Russian invasion and occupation. Then the war would likely be over by summer even in the absence of a negotiated peace settlement as Ukraine would likely be forced to sue for peace on much harsher Russian terms.

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov meeting with then Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin

Alexander Mercouris, who serves as the Co-Host of the Duran reported on his May 6^th podcast that the Russians preparing a new Ukrainian government led by former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, who was the last elected Prime Minister before the CIA-backed Maidan coup. Russian Politnavigator agency is also claiming that Azarov is being ‘prepared’ by both US and Russia as a kind of compromise figure to head the new Ukrainian rump state at the end of the SMO. This was revealed by Alexander Kazakov—ex-advisor to the head of the DPR—on a Krym 24 TV channel interview. However, the idea that the US would support Azarov as Ukraine’s new President seems unlikely in the extreme since he would be Russia’s choice to replace Zelensky not a compromise choice like former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. That said, it if it’s true that Russia is preparing Azarov to replace Zelensky, this strongly suggests Russia’s massive planned military offensive is likely to include capturing Kyiv as one of its objectives and not just the four additional Ukrainian oblasts of Novorossiya which together would give Russia control of roughly half of Ukraine though its possible that Russian objectives might be even more grandiose than that.

A renewed Russian Kyiv offensive would be the easiest and quickest way to force Ukraine to surrender just as it was in 2022 both because Russia would not have to cross the Dnipro River from Belarus and because Ukraine is desperately short of troops so it would have to withdraw its troops from the left bank of the Dnipro to defend the capital. That would be the easiest way for Russia to capture the eastern half of Ukraine. However, Ukraine is warning of Russian offensives in Sumy and Zaporizhia that would seek to partially surround Ukrainian troops in southeast Ukraine and pressure them to retreat to the right bank of the Dnipro River.

The Ukrainian Post-War Germany Partition Option

It is possible that the Russians might agree to NATO troops in Western and central Ukraine if they agreed to expand the zone of Russian control to include the entire left bank of the Dnipro River. During an interview hosted by the Washington Post on April 4, 2024, Admiral James Stavridis, a former NATO commander, made the startling assertion that in his view even if Ukraine was forced to withdraw from all of the territory east of the Dnipro River totaling forty-five percent of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory, amounting to two and a half times more Ukrainian territory than Russia already controls, there is no way Russia could succeed in crossing the Dnipro River line so in his opinion even if Ukraine loses nearly half its territory it would still a victory for Kyiv because Russia couldn't conquer all of Ukraine. Western leaders might find this proposal attractive if a massive Russian spring/summer offensive threatens to create a bridgehead across the Dnipro River threatening Kyiv and the rest of central Ukraine with Russian military occupation.

Three weeks later, Russia expert Alexander Mercouris on the Duran podcast followed up on Stavridis’ statement by suggesting that the US fallback “Plan B” would be to react to a massive Russian offensive and a Ukrainian military collapse by signing an armistice with Russia to partition Ukraine along the Dnipro River and let Russia control eastern Ukraine in exchange for Russian approval to allow western Ukraine including Kyiv to become part of NATO. This arrangement would, like Kellogg’s proposal, be based on Cold War German model in which Germany was partitioned between the Western powers and the Russians at the end of World War Two. It is possible that Russia might agree to allow a West Ukrainian rump state to join NATO in exchange for a Russian occupation or even an outright annexation of eastern Ukraine. However, if the plan is to try to compel Russia to agree to it with a direct NATO military intervention, it would likely provoke Russia to attack and attempt to destroy NATO forces in Ukraine, which would prevent such a peace plan from being realized and leave Ukraine vulnerable to a complete takeover by Russia threatening its very existence. If Russia’s offensive is successful in breaking through Ukrainian lines across the front, I will publish a proposal for the division of Ukraine along the Dnipro River that might be acceptable to the Kremlin.

© David T. Pyne 2025

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He is the former President and current Deputy Executive Director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security. He recently served as Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. He has also co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster” and his new book “Restoring Strategic Deterrence” will be published in July 2025. He serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and previously served as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He also posts multiple times a day on X at @AmericaFirstCon. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.

Recent Interviews

April 8th—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast to discuss why he started a new war with the Houthis, how a US decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites could give China an opportunity to blockade Taiwan as well as why Trump has been unsuccessful in negotiating an end to Biden’s war with Russia in Ukraine.

April 8th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss the recent revelation that the second Trump shooter Ryan Routh, who served as a recruiter for the Ukrainian Foreign Legion asked the Ukrainian military to provide him with a Stinger missile to shoot down Trump Force One during the 2024 presidential campaign.

April 9th—Interview on Main Street Radio on the “Dan the Eagle” show to discuss the importance of Trump’s reciprocal tariffs in restoring America’s economic independence from Communist China, reshoring our Defense Industrial Base and preventing the PRC from blackmailing US leaders into doing their bidding.

April 15th—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell to discuss the latest developments with regards to Trump’s drive to end the war in Ukraine, his threats to bomb a nuclear-armed Iran and potentially start World War Three and the chances that China will blockade Taiwan in April.

April 17th-Interview with Paul Mills on his Off-Grid Desert Farming Podcast to discuss the latest developments regarding the potential outbreak of World War Three with Russia over Ukraine, with China over Taiwan, and with Iran over its continued nuclear weapons production.

April 17th-Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss the recent revelation that JD Vance, Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Hegseth succeeding in persuading President Trump to call off plans for a joint US-Israeli air and missile strike on Iranian nuclear missile sites to avert World War Three.

April 21st—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss ongoing attempts to isolate Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth by firing three of his top loyalists on false charges and try to get Trump to fire him for refusing to support a joint US-Israeli military strikes on a nuclear-armed Iran.

April 28th—Interview with Dr. Maria to discuss the latest updates with regards to Trump’s US peace framework to end the war in Ukraine, whether Putin supports it and the ramifications of Zelensky’s continued refusal to make any concessions likely to result in a permanent cut off of all US military aid to Ukraine.

April 28th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss Trump’s ten-day ultimatum for Zelensky to accept the US peace framework, the likely cause of the power outages in France, Spain and Portugal, Trump’s threats to bomb Iranian nuclear missile sites and the likelihood of China blockading Taiwan later this year.

May 1st—Interview with LTC Sargis Sangari (USA Ret.) to discuss President Trump’s top trade and foreign policy accomplishments during his first 100 days and potential pitfalls for his policies later this year particularly with regards to a potential war with Iran, ending the war in Ukraine, forming a geostrategic partnership with Russia and hopefully avoiding a complete Chinese takeover of Taiwan.

May 2nd—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss the Trump administration’s decision to end its attempts to mediate peace between Russia and Ukraine, to sign a minerals deal with Ukraine on Zelensky’s terms and to commit to sell arms to Ukraine for the next decade. We will also discuss Trump’s firing of Mike Waltz as National Security Advisor as well and who he will choose to replace him.

May 5th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss President Trump’s statement that the number of casualties is far greater than what has been reported and the estimates of the Jamestown Center that Ukraine has suffered over two million casualties. We will also discuss Russia’s planned spring/summer offensive and the increasing chances that Trump will bomb Iran.

May 6th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss President Trump’s announcement of a cease-fire with the Houthis, the Indian missile strikes on Pakistan, the Israeli announcement that they plan to “flatten” and occupy all of Gaza and deport all the Palestinians, Hegseth’s announced retirements of US Army tanks, AFVs, gunships and SP artillery systems and the irrationality of Trump’s planned strikes on Iran.

May 7th—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast to discuss Israel’s plan to permanently occupy all of Gaza and deport 2.3 million Palestinians from their ancestral homeland as well as the signing of Trump’s mineral deal/security pact with Ukraine and his decision to end all US attempts to negotiate peace likely to provoke a massive Russian offensive in Ukraine.

May 7th—Interview with COL Rob Maness (USAF Ret.) on the Rob Maness show to discuss the latest developments regarding Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine with a new US peace framework, the signing of the new US-Ukraine minerals deal, US war plans against Iran, a potential Chinese blockade of Taiwan and the latest Trump cabinet re-shuffle.

Upcoming Interview

May 20th—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell to discuss the latest developments with regards to Trump’s drive to end the war in Ukraine, his threats to bomb a nuclear-armed Iran and potentially start World War Three and the chances that China will blockade Taiwan early this fall.