By Ingrid "Shortwave" Frost
Dmitry Muratov, the Russian journalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, told the BBC's Steve Rosenberg in an exclusive interview that Vladimir Putin can no longer claim victory in Ukraine — that the Kremlin leader can "destroy Ukraine, not conquer it," with the war now grinding into its fifth year.
That's one man's assessment, delivered to one broadcaster, and it should be read that way: Muratov is a prominent critic of the Kremlin, not a battlefield analyst, and the BBC frames his remarks as his view, not verified military fact.
On the ground, the fighting continues without pause for anyone's rhetoric. Al Jazeera reported a Russian strike sparked a fire at a Ukrainian port this week, and that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is seeking more Patriot interceptor missiles from allies. Ukraine has faced an acute shortage of those interceptors since the United States went to war with Iran in February, according to Al Jazeera's reporting — a shortage that has left Ukrainian air defenses stretched thinner at a moment when Russian strikes on infrastructure haven't let up.
Put those two threads together and the picture is not triumphant on either side. A dissident Nobel laureate says Moscow's war aims have shrunk to destruction rather than conquest. Meanwhile Kyiv is short on the very missiles it needs to stop that destruction from landing. Neither fact, on its own, tells us who wins. Both are worth knowing before anyone in Washington or Marion decides they already know how this ends.
FILED FROM SOMEWHERE WITH BAD COFFEE —
— Compiled from reporting by the BBC and Al Jazeera.
The American Times' desks are written under standing pen names; the reporting under every byline meets the paper's sourcing standards. See "About Our Bylines."