For years now, the war in Ukraine has strongly resembled the stalemate halfway through the World War I. From 1914 to 1917, there was a hopeless trench war that was only broken when, in 1918, the Americans threw their weight into the fight. I do not see how the current stalemate can be broken. America could do it but does not want to. Because Trump has more sympathy for the aggressor Putin than for the victim Zelensky.
The stalemate has existed since the end of 2022, when Ukraine successfully drove the Russians out of the north and parts of the southern front. Since then, the front has shifted so little in Russia’s favor that it is barely visible on the map. At this pace, it will take until the second half of next year before the last piece of the Donbas becomes Russian.
Whether that will truly succeed is doubtful. What began as a traditional war of maneuver, with Russia invading Ukraine using large, mechanized units, ended in late 2022 in a static war in which the parties entrenched themselves in trenches and behind minefields. In 2023, drones appeared on the battlefield, but the real revolution took place in 2024, when Ukraine introduced drones controlled via kilometers-long fiber-optic cables and applied AI to guide them independently to their targets. As a result, their drones became immune to electronic warfare. Ukraine has partly lost this advantage.
What is certain is that drones represent a revolution. Small drones are an alternative to scarce ammunition and compensate for Ukraine’s shortage of manpower. At the same time, drones are not, as is commonly thought, a game changer. Like the machine gun or the tank, they are the product of an industrial revolution. We are in the midst of a revolution of rapid data transmission, AI, 3D printing, advanced chips, miniaturization, and robotization.
So far, however, the parties have been unable to use this new technology to force breakthroughs and achieve their war aims. On the contrary, the front has remained static. I do not speak to a single military expert who thinks this will change anytime soon. The reason is that drones have turned the front into a kill zone of 10 to more than 20 kilometers in which everything that can be observed is destroyed. Large-scale operations then become suicidal.
Last Tuesday evening, during an impressive event organized by Protect Ukraine at the Amsterdam venue Paradiso, front-line soldier Vadim Bryginets explained that months can pass without a single enemy soldier being seen—only drones.
Because Putin cannot break through this way, from his point of view it is a good tactic to gain control of the rest of the Donbas by having Trump exert pressure on Zelensky to relinquish that territory without a fight.
And so, we are entering the fifth year of war, with no prospect of military breakthroughs unless a miracle happens. According to the American research institute CSIS, Russian casualties have now reached 1.2 million, including 325,000 killed. On the Ukrainian side, the figures stand at five to six hundred thousand and one hundred to one hundred forty thousand respectively.
Nothing is to be expected from America. Because Trump likes Putin and now sees the war as a revenue model to supply Ukraine with weapons using European money.
Source: Trouw, Rob de Wijk, 1 maart 2026
Experts
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