Frontline: The War in Ukraine and Global Security

“It demonstrates that the Russians really are powerless to really do anything about this.”Trump is “finally enforcing sanctions” as he seizes a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the Atlantic, says Lieutenant General Ben Hodges.

“Is anything really unravelling at a speed on the Ukrainian side, with such significance on the Russian side that we’re likely to get to some point where either Ukraine collapses or Russia collapses. The answer to that is no.”Putin’s belief that he is “operating at pace” is far fetched as the small Russian advances fail to make any major breakthroughs, says Major General Chip Chapman.

“The Russian people have a high degree of apathy when it comes to Putin.”Putin’s grip on the Russian people is vulnerable to just “snapping” as they wake up to impacts of oil shortages, says former US special envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker.

“One by one we can take you out.”Ukraine is “causing Putin pain” by taking out Russia’s oil infrastructure and strategic bomber fleet, says former Air Vice Marshal Sean Bell.

“They’re time limited.”Putin has failed to gain more than 0.9 per cent of Ukrainian territory this year, but has lost 400,000 Russians in the process, says Scott Lucas.

Russia's attempt to surge to put pressure on Kyiv over peace talks is coming at a high casualty cost, says Maxim Tucker the Times' Ukraine correspondent.

“The frontline has not collapsed, despite what they want us to believe.”Ukraine’s MOD says they have taken back about 20 per cent of Pokrovsk, says former British Army Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon.

"Russia have to reckon with the fact that Donald Trump has three more years in the white House. Is he going to be a lame duck president in a year's time?"Putin's scepticism for Trump's appeal to Russia and favourable peace deals is based in his mistrust of MAGA's ability to avoid collapse, warns John Lough, Head of Foreign Policy at the New Eurasian Strategies Centre.