Anne Applebaum

And that's, I guess, that's killed and wounded.

But that's still 15,000 to 20,000 soldiers being knocked out every month in order to conquer this piece of territory that they can't conquer.

And what they want is they want the Trump administration to intervene and give them this territory for free.

And this is not only controversial because it rewards the Russians for nothing, but also it's probably politically impossible.

I don't think President Zelensky could stay in office.

He can't stay in office and just turn over this piece of land.

It's right now very heavily fortified land.

It's not especially, you know, populated anymore.

Most people have left that part of Ukraine, but it's very heavily fortified.

And so the Ukrainians would be giving up this fortified territory and that would allow the Russians then to set up.

presumably to make another attempt to conquer central Ukraine later on.

And that's what it looks like to the Ukrainians.

You know, so the Russians haven't been able to win the war militarily.

Now they're trying to win it through bribing the Americans, promising things to the Americans, and then, you know, getting the Americans to pressure the Ukrainians to give up this territory supposedly in the name of peace.

So that's probably the most controversial

piece of the deal.

And that seems to be something that Putin himself thought up.

And it's been kicking around for a while.

And in fact, when I first saw this document, I didn't think, I didn't make that much of it because it's been, some of the points have been around for a long time.

And it was only when, you'll remember a couple of weeks ago, the president said, Ukrainians have to sign this by Thanksgiving, that suddenly this became salient and relevant and