Though Russia's strategies keep failing, the war is far from over
The military operation against Iran is welcome news for Ukraine, though not a decisive shift. Iran has been one of Russia's most valuable partners: Shahed drones built on Iranian technology have systematically devastated Ukraine's energy infrastructure, while Tehran helped Moscow evade Western sanctions. The structural degradation of Iran's military capacity and its role as a regional enabler of Russian aggression is durable -- and that matters. The short-term impact of an oil price spike replenishing Russia's revenues is real, but likely temporary. Worth more concerted watching is the possible loosening of sanctions on Russian oil exports amid Persian Gulf disruptions, and a potential temporary shortage of Patriot PAC-3 interceptors, currently the only systems capable of stopping ballistic Iskander missiles. The broader geopolitical signal that members of the Russia-Iran-North Korea axis cannot count on each other when the chips are down should register with Russian elites, even if it won’t alter Moscow's fundamental determination.
On the battlefield in Ukraine, all of Russia's successive strategic bets have failed. The 2022 blitzkrieg collapsed. The gamble on outlasting Western support hasn’t paid off. And the winter 2025-2026 campaign — the most brutal yet, targeting civilian heating infrastructure in a deliberate attempt to break Ukrainian society by inflicting cold and darkness — has also fallen short. Ukraine has survived its worst winter of the war: though society is traumatized, it’s not broken. Polls show an overwhelming majority of citizens still rejecting territorial concessions. Ukraine will enter the next winter far better prepared.
None of this means that Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to stop. In Russia's black-and-white worldview, compromise is indistinguishable from defeat. Putin's current strategy is deliberate foot-dragging: performing willingness to negotiate for U.S. President Donald Trump's benefit, while waiting out Ukraine's exhaustion or the West's fatigue. No meaningful compromise is achievable until the West imposes sanctions severe enough to genuinely threaten the Russian regime.
Meanwhile, a self-inflicted institutional wound deserves attention. The IMF's quiet retreat on the VAT threshold for small businesses, driven by a poorly conceived proposal from Ukraine's own Ministry of Finance, has publicly damaged the credibility of reform conditionality. Ukrainian politicians have now seen that prior actions can be negotiated away under pressure. The bill for that lesson has not yet been fully presented.
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