This was Russia today Wednesday, February 25, 2026
Howdy, folks. Today I’m looking at two recent interviews conducted by Meduza’s podcast maestro, Vladislav Gorin. First, a conversation with Ukrainian political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko, who challenges reporting by the Associated Press and The Guardian on Zelensky’s handling of the war. Second, an interview with Russia scholar and defense analyst Michael Kofman about the Kremlin’s commitment to a stalled invasion. Yours, Kevin.
Ukraine is under strain, not coming apart — and Kyiv political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko says the West keeps confusing the two
Ahead of the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, two stories in the Western press reignited debate over whether Ukraine’s democratic institutions are holding up under the strain of war. On February 18, the Associated Press ran an interview with Valery Zaluzhnyi in which the former military commander “revealed a rift” with President Zelensky. Two days later, The Guardian published a reconstruction by Shaun Walker detailing how Zelensky responded to American and British warnings of an imminent Russian invasion in early 2022.
In a February 24 interview with Meduza journalist Vladislav Gorin, political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko, who heads Kyiv’s Penta Center for Political Studies, challenged the prevailing conclusions drawn from both stories. He pushed back on several fronts, arguing that Zaluzhnyi was defending his military record rather than signaling presidential ambition, that Zelensky’s pre-war hesitancy has been misread, that Ukrainian public opinion remains far from broken despite war fatigue, and that the country’s democratic instincts are still holding.
What Zelensky knew (and when): Fesenko acknowledged Zelensky’s public skepticism about a Russian invasion in early 2022 but justified his decision not to declare martial law as a calculated effort to prevent economic panic at a moment when foreign embassies were already evacuating their Kyiv offices. According to this logic, Zelensky understood that a Russian invasion was a real possibility but chose to manage public fear rather than inflame it.
And what of Walker’s claim that “the Ukrainian government was thoroughly unprepared for the oncoming assault” and that the country withstood Russia’s early onslaught thanks largely to military leaders “preparing behind [zelensky’s] back”? “Let me be clear,” Fesenko told Meduza. “The argument that the absence of martial law impeded the redeployment of forces does not hold up.” He noted that Zaluzhnyi repositioned and scattered military assets to deny the enemy easy targets, explaining: “If there had been no preparation, we would have lost the war in a few days.” While Walker largely credited this feat to Zaluzhnyi’s unsanctioned actions, Fesenko argued that the facts do not support a linear narrative in which Zelensky denied the threat while Zaluzhnyi alone prepared for it.
War fatigue (and its limits): There has been a shift in Ukrainian public opinion, and most of the country now favors a negotiated end to the war along today’s front lines. But Fesenko emphasized that Russian strikes on energy infrastructure this winter have hardened public resolve rather than breaking it. Polls suggest the cold “hasn’t worn people down — it’s just made them angry,” he explained, adding that Ukrainians want peace but not capitulation. They would accept a ceasefire, but only in exchange for Western security guarantees.
Democracy under fire (but holding): Fesenko acknowledged that martial law has suppressed opposition activity and consolidated presidential power, though he traced the consolidation of power to Zelensky’s 2019 victory and his party’s 2020 parliamentary sweep, not to Russia’s invasion. But he insisted that Ukraine’s democratic instincts remain alive, citing mass protests last summer that pressured Zelensky to abandon an attempt to curtail the independence of Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies. “He knows how to listen to public opinion,” Fesenko said. The tensions between democratic accountability and the concentration of wartime power, he argued, won’t be resolved until the war ends and may intensify once it does.
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Kofman explains why the Kremlin won’t end a war it objectively can’t win, and what it expects to happen next
Michael Kofman, a military analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, also spoke this week with Meduza’s Vladislav Gorin. The two covered frontline logistics, the heavy reliance on drones, Kyiv’s Black Sea victory, and more — but the exchange worth highlighting is Kofman’s analysis of the Kremlin’s “waiting game” and its conviction that the invasion remains worthwhile.
A leap of faith: From a strictly military perspective, Kofman argues, continuing the war makes little strategic sense for Moscow at present. Even if Russian forces capture the remaining 20 percent of Donetsk, that would not resolve the conflict. The war, he notes, is not fundamentally about Donetsk, and Russia has not demonstrated the military capacity to achieve its grander political objectives. Faced with this stalemate, the conditions for a ceasefire (or a frozen conflict) are in place, simply because further offensives offer diminishing returns.
The problem, however, is that the Kremlin rejects this “objective” assessment. Moscow is convinced that continued fighting serves Russian interests and that time is on its side. The Putin administration clings to the belief that the Ukrainian front will eventually collapse. More important, Moscow believes it can wage a war of attrition longer than the West is willing — or politically able — to keep funding Kyiv. Ukraine’s primary military strategy is to make the war so costly for Russia that the Kremlin halts its invasion, but as Kofman points out, it is difficult to deter an adversary that does not accept the futility of its actions.
Grinding away: This mindset fuels what Kofman calls Russia’s “creeping offensive.” Rather than attempting decisive operational breakthroughs — which Russian forces cannot currently achieve — Moscow relies on constant small-scale infantry assaults across a broad front. This grinding pressure does not pause for the winter; it is a year-round tactic designed to erode Ukrainian defenses over time.
External shocks: Finally, Kofman warns that observers often miss the global vulnerabilities that could benefit Moscow. He points to what he calls the “horizontal escalation” of the conflict: Russian airspace violations in NATO countries and a widening “tanker war” in which strikes against commercial shipping have increased. Kofman notes that other crises around the world — whether a potential U.S. conflict with Iran or a Chinese move against Taiwan — will not politely wait for the war in Ukraine to end. Such external shocks could quickly divert Washington’s attention and drain the very resources Kyiv needs to survive, potentially validating Vladimir Putin’s long-term wager.
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