If Russia has been badly bled and Ukraine has suffered irretrievable losses of land and soldiers, who then are the winners? And who benefits from a continuation of this war, which will bring thousands more dead and wounded Russians and Ukrainians?
“There never was a good war or a bad peace,” wrote Ben Franklin at the end of the American Revolution.
But that depends on the war-makers and the causes for which they fight.
Six months into the war in Ukraine, launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Feb. 24, when he could not get the U.S. or Kyiv to rule out admission of Ukraine to a NATO alliance aimed against Russia, who appear to be the winners and who the losers?
While Russia has made gains in the east of Ukraine, the Donbas and in the South adjacent to Crimea, captured Mariupol, and turned the Sea of Azov into a Russian lake, its losses have been massive.
The invading Russian army of February was stopped in its tracks outside Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv. That a...