Most assessments of Vladimir Putin’s strategy suggest that he wants to keep the war going indefinitely, until the Ukrainians tire of the fight – or at least until their Western supporters decide to call it a day. In particular, so the logic goes, he is looking ahead to January 2025 when he hopes for Donald Trump’s return to the presidency.
There is a long way to go, and a number of trials, before Trump gets back to the White House, and even if he does, his priorities will be elsewhere and his policies unpredictable. For the moment there is still a bipartisan consensus supporting Ukraine, but since stories began to appear in the US press about the counteroffensive faltering there have been more questions about whether it is in American interests to support an indefinite war, and whether more effort needs to be made to find a diplomatic solution to bring it to a close.
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