Anne Applebaum

It undermines the project, even the project of Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to create some reliable system.

I mean, even that is being undermined by the things that Trump says.

The main problem with the negotiations, as far as I can see, is that the Russians have never said that they want to end the war.

Not once.

Putin has never said the war is over.

He has never said he wants a ceasefire.

He's never talked about ending the war in public.

And that makes me think that he doesn't want to end the war.

And so you have the specter of the US and Europe and Ukraine coming to some kind of agreement that they're going to present to Putin and Putin will turn down.

And maybe there's something that will happen that will change that.

I mean, eventually it will change because I don't think Putin can fight this war forever.

He's losing a thousand people every day, every day.

Think about that.

Think about the United States lost 60 to 65,000 people during Vietnam.

And this was a national trauma that went on for decades.

We made movies about it.

We wrote songs about it.

And it went on and on.

And in Russia, they've lost a million people.

And they're losing the equivalent of Vietnam every two months.