Reprinted from John’s Substack:
On 9 December 2025, I was on the “Deep Dive” with Lt. Col. (ret.) Danny Davis talking mainly about the Ukrainian war. My central point to Danny is that there is virtually no reason to think that a peace agreement can be struck to end the war, despite all the diplomatic maneuvering that has been taking place in recent months. For sure, diplomacy is a good thing in principle, but in practice it is going nowhere in this case. Russian demands are completely at odds with Ukrainian and European demands. And neither side is willing to budge an inch. Moreover, many seem to think that the proposal the Trump administration is pushing is a joint US-Russian plan — one that both Moscow and Washington support — when in fact there is no evidence that the Russians have accepted Trump’s 27-point plan. Indeed, that proposal is unacceptable to the Russians as they made clear on December 4th. Diplomacy will only become relevant when there is a major development on the battlefield that tells both sides that it is time to negotiate an armistice, turning the hot war into a frozen conflict.
