Kyiv is running out of money and men to defend itself, just as surely as it has already run out of Patriot interceptors to defend its skies against the Kremlin’s barrages.

Perhaps the most important strategic crisis for Ukraine is a triple failure on the part of its European allies. First, the UK and Europe have talked up sanctions while in practice sending far more money to Moscow in payment for oil and gas than they have given Kyiv in military aid. Second, fear of escalation and prioritizing their own defense over Kyiv’s has prevented Europeans from sending offensive missiles (such as Germany’s Taurus) for use against Russian targets or from sharing their supplies of precious Patriot missile defense batteries. But the third and most serious failure is a refusal to countenance seriously engaging the Kremlin in peace talks, and a stubbornly fixed idea that encouraging Ukraine to fight and fight forever will somehow magically lead to victory.

August polls by SOCIS show that a majority of Ukrainians consider corruption a more serious threat to their state than Russia – and that nearly 57 percent of Ukrainians blame Zelensky for the prevalence of corruption, nearly double the number in a similar poll from April 2025.

According to Iuliia Mendel, Zelensky’s press secretary from 2019 to 2021, “new forces are rising, and they are getting stronger” which represent “our only chance for peaceful Europe… More weapons will not save us. They never have.”