Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s latest vow is not a strategy—it’s theater, the kind that ends with the curtain falling on Ukrainian sovereignty.

On the eve of the Trump–Putin summit in Alaska, Zelenskyy again rejected any settlement requiring the formal cession of territory.

Not Crimea. Not the Donbas. Not a single acre seized in 2014—or since 2022.

Zelenskyy insists Ukraine must be at the table and will not trade land for peace. Fine. 

But diplomacy is not magic—it is leverage, and after more than three years of war, Kyiv has none sufficient to force Moscow to surrender what it holds. Pretending otherwise is delusion.

Zelenskyy speaks like a man convinced he is winning—and as if Moscow were the one suing for peace. It is fantasy. Ukraine is not winning—nowhere close.

His demand for every inch of territory he cannot retake on the battlefield is proof enough.

Simply put, Ukraine is fighting bravely but losing—slowly, inexorably, irreversibly. Drag this war out, as some insist, and it will end with the fall of Kyiv—sooner than they dare admit.

Zelenskyy vows he will not cede territory, yet for approaching four years he has done precisely that—trading land and soldiers, acre by acre, village by village, unit by unit, for time. Time to pull America and Europe deeper into a war that serves no one’s strategic interests. Time to chase a NATO invitation and an EU flag that will not arrive in time to save him.

Russia is waging a war of attrition—true to its doctrine for generations. Trump and Putin meet because both see the battlefield for what it is: a slow-motion grind on Moscow’s terms, not Kyiv’s. Trump sees an opening for peace; Putin sees a path to victory.

That path has been paved in part by Russia’s ability to sidestep Western sanctions, using a web of BRICS partners to keep its war machine supplied and funded.

China funnels dual-use electronics and buys Russian oil by the tanker. India........

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