Michael McFaul, writing in Foreign Affairs, argues that Vladimir Putin has reason to feel the war is turning his way. After nearly five years in which Russian goals in Ukraine were thwarted, he writes, Donald Trump is now helping Putin win.
The essay, published on October 27, traces how battlefield momentum has moved back and forth. Russian forces held the advantage at the outset. By the fall of 2022 Ukraine had taken the offensive and retaken enough ground that Washington feared Putin might reach for a nuclear weapon. The war then settled into a grind until last spring, when McFaul says momentum returned to Ukraine. Kyiv had fielded new long-range missiles able to hit deep inside Russia, midrange drones that could attack supply routes in occupied eastern Ukraine, and better interceptor drones for defending cities. Putin’s army could not advance, and Ukrainian troops made small gains.
What changed, in McFaul’s account
McFaul says Trump has tipped it back. He lists easing sanctions, ending direct US military and economic assistance to Ukraine, disrupting intelligence sharing and pressing Zelensky to accept Putin’s war aims. In the last two weeks, he writes, Trump lifted sanctions to permit sales of Russian diesel, which will bring Moscow billions of dollars. He also signed an executive order suspending new sanctions under the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, a law he had signed only weeks before.
Ukraine has also lost reliable access to Starlink and Starshield, services from SpaceX that Kyiv uses to guide its own drones and to track Russian drones and rockets. McFaul says it is not clear whether the US government or Elon Musk ordered the disruptions. The effects, in his telling, were plain: more Russian drones and rockets struck Ukrainian targets, including civilians, and more Ukrainian drones fell from the sky.
Interceptors for Patriot air defense systems are in short supply, McFaul adds, partly because the United States has fired so many in Trump’s war with Iran. He expects the coming winter to be the harshest yet for Ukrainians.
Russian strikes and new weapons
With the front line stuck, McFaul says Putin has turned to rocket and drone attacks on civilians and on energy and water systems, hoping a suffering public will press Zelensky to give in. Russia is mass-producing ballistic missiles and a drone called the Geran 5, which carries a powerful Chinese rocket engine and which Ukrainian air defenses cannot intercept. Russia also has more troops and greater production capacity, so Putin believes he can keep going.
Zelensky has put it this way: “when some partners ease the pressure on Russia, it only reinforces Putin’s belief that his goals are within reach.”
McFaul’s counterpoints
The author does not call the outcome settled. A solid majority of Ukrainians still want to keep fighting, according to polls, and European countries filled much of the gap left by Washington. Ukrainian defense firms are working on ways to stop the Geran 5 and the growing number of ballistic missiles. McFaul also says US policy could shift after next week’s midterm elections, since Democrats who win a chamber of Congress might investigate Russian-American business deals, restart aid or enforce sanctions laws. In his view, no future president is likely to keep Trump’s Russia policy, and he urges Putin to negotiate a cease-fire now.
