After his 4 July call with Donald Trump about the war in Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky projected only optimism. “There is a real prospect to put an end to this war,” he said in a statement posted on X.
He’s not alone in this assessment. For weeks, coverage of the war in the Western media has been celebratory, enthusiastically predicting that Ukraine has “turned the tide” and now has a real chance to force Vladimir Putin to settle the four-year conflict on terms favourable to Kyiv.
This new narrative, however, amounts to a mix of intentional propaganda and wishful thinking. To be sure, Ukraine’s deep strike campaign has created new economic and social pressures in Russia. But even if the war looks and feels different to outside observers, its trajectory is unchanged and its end no closer than it was a year ago.
Author
Events on Ukraine-Russia
