Illia Kabachynskyi

After several rounds of talks in Abu Dhabi, two key issues remain unresolved: territory in Ukraine’s Donetsk region and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine is ready for further talks and has reached an understanding with the United States on other points. The only exception: not in Russia or Belarus.

Since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has been bleeding manpower—losing 900 to 1,000 soldiers killed or wounded every day. By historical standards, the scale is catastrophic. In past Soviet and Russian campaigns, even a few thousand casualties could shake the regime.

Russia is demanding that Ukraine withdraw from parts of the Donetsk region in exchange for a ceasefire—while seeking to hold on to as much occupied Ukrainian land as possible, refusing to retreat from occupied areas in other regions. The issue is not merely the 6,000 square kilometers still under Ukrainian control, but rather Putin’s broader ambition to seize all of Ukraine. For Kyiv, conceding territory would only set the stage for future aggression—hence its firm stance that certain lines cannot be crossed.

As trilateral ceasefire talks continue in the UAE, the Kremlin ordered an attack on Kyiv using all available types of missiles, including Zircon and even the little-known Kh-32.

Russian air defense is often described as one of the strongest in the world—but largely because it has never truly been tested in combat. Historically, Russia has waged offensive wars against far weaker adversaries. Ukraine’s drone campaign has exposed it as largely a paper shield, untested against modern warfare.