A week after CIA director John Ratcliffe paid a secret visit to Moscow, and as Chinese, Russian and Iranian leaders met at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) Bishkek Summit, U.S. President Donald Trump’s diplomatic envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, arrived in both Russia and Ukraine. Received by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the delegation described the visits as encouraging, positive and constructive. Still, far more questions than answers remain concerning the true nature of the Witkoff-Kushner mission.
At first glance, this diplomacy appears to be an attempt to gauge whether both warring parties are determined to sustain full-scale combat through the coming winter. Now increasingly unavoidable, this winter campaign will be remarkably tough for both sides for much the same reasons. The ongoing war of attrition is reaching its structural limits; Moscow and Kyiv urgently require robust air defenses, anti-drone systems, troop replacements and energy security to maintain their campaigns during the winter months. Despite these severe constraints, neither party is close to ending the conflict before fully realizing its core war objectives.
