2025 Pax Russica And The Last Year For Ukraine

By the end of 2024, Kiev has been put in a zugzwang position: it is useless to raise the stakes, and peace talks are unlikely. The Ukrainian Army is entering 2025 without strength. Huge losses on the frontline, Russia’s superiority in weaponry, dependence on American military aid, and the election of Donald Trump – it all looks like a vortex of catastrophes for Kiev. Breakthroughs in peace talks are unlikely, as Washington and Brussels have declared a “holy war” on Russia, to which they did not appear, setting Kiev up for a showdown. Each side realizes that any compromise and freezing the conflict now is only a prerequisite for a new phase of bloodshed. At the same time, many have already understood that Ukraine as a state will perish if it does not quickly end the war. In its turn, Moscow has long ago admitted a hard truth: the Russian army is incapable of accomplishing the military tasks that the Soviet Union set for itself, that is, conducting rapid and decisive strategic ground offensives on the western front. Yet why has Russia, after three years of warfare, not concentrated its efforts in just one or two directions to guarantee quick success on the battlefield? Obviously, Ukraine is not seen by the Russian authorities and its people as an enemy to be defeated. The goal is different. Moscow intends to bring most of the lands with Russian populations back into its sphere of influence, no matter how long it takes. It is unlikely that anything will change with Donald Trump coming to power in the United States. First of all, the politician’s hands are tied. He will have to throw his main efforts into internal purges of government agencies from representatives of the US deep state. Second, the outgoing Biden administration, like Zelensky’s team in its time, tried to burn all bridges and prevent future negotiations with Moscow. Third, Trump, as his first term demonstrated, uses his usual scheme of business deals to solve any problem, but in the case of the Ukrainian conflict, the seduction method will not work. This is not a “win-win” economic strategy, but a political “zero-sum game”, when the victory of one actor can only be ensured by the loss of another. To sum up, Russia’s main tasks in 2025 will be to inflict the largest possible defeat on Kiev, avoid serious problems in its own economy, and continue internal purges of national traitors, corrupt military officers, and incompetent civil servants. As for Ukraine, in the New Year of the Snake, Moscow will slowly but surely suffocate the Kiev regime, as the U.S. has been doing it with Russia for the past 30 years as part of its “Anaconda Loop” strategy.