Russia Can’t Win in Ukraine, But Does Putin Realize it?

Kyiv Post’s Jason Jay Smart speaks with former Navy SEAL Squadron Leader Chuck Pfarrer about why the Kremlin keeps paying a heavier price for smaller results. Russia’s latest push in southern Ukraine is running into the same hard truth again: more losses, less ground, no breakthrough. Kyiv Post’s Jason Jay Smart speaks with former Navy SEAL Squadron Leader Chuck Pfarrer about why the expected Russian surge near Hulyaipole, Orikhiv, and Robotyne is stalling, and why the Kremlin keeps paying a heavier price for smaller results. Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official . At the center of this fight is Ukraine’s drone wall. Pfarrer explains how Russian assault groups can now be found and hit before they reach the line, turning tanks, infantry vehicles, and troop trucks into exposed targets long before they can force a gap. The old Russian formula of massing men and armor still creates movement on a map, but it no longer creates momentum. It creates losses. That is the shift driving this whole conversation. The interview also looks at the pressure behind the battlefield. Russia is trying to replace men it is losing at a punishing rate while its war budget, internal criticism, and strategic options keep tightening. There is also a serious discussion of Black Sea drone defense, Baltic risk, and why Moscow may keep escalating even as the basic military math gets worse. Pfarrer tells Jason Smart that the central question now is no longer whether Russia can keep fighting. It is whether it can still turn those losses into anything that looks like progress.