Wall Street Journal Feb. 3rd Editorial: "Vladimir Putin Isn't Winning In Ukraine"

In a lead editorial dated February 3, 2026, the Wall Street Journal's editorial board torched Vladimir Putin - whom it referred to as 'the Russian dictator' - for his failing invasion in Ukraine and chided President Trump for not doing more to pressure 'a weakened' Putin into ending the conflict. 

The editorial quotes frequently from the recent Center For Strategic and International Studies report released last week (several aspects of which have been covered in this blog), that revealed, in devastating detail, the breadth and depth of the Kremlin's military and economic shortcomings. The reason for the the Journal, owned by Rupert Murdoch, to be sending this message clearly aimed at Trump, may simply be that the global oligarchical elite are beginning to feel this conflict has gone on too long, is advantaging China while beginning to hurt too many others, and that it is past time to put an end to it. The Murdoch media were early supporters of Trump and remain largely so, but have been increasingly critical of late. This is evidently part of that wave of warnings. If so, it is an interesting development. JL

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board comments:

Mr Putin isn’t the unstoppable man he wants Mr. Trump to think he is. Mr Putin isn't winning and isn't making territorial gains commensurate with his losses. Consider Mr. Putin’s struggle to take the city of Pokrovsk. Russian forces have advanced in the area on average 70 meters a day from late February 2024 to January of this year. That’s like starting the day on 42nd street in Manhattan and ending up on 43rd street. (And) Moscow doesn’t have the economic growth or dynamism to keep underwriting the misadventure for the long haul.  The Russian dictator is in a weakened position that Mr Trump could exploit. 

President Trump has his hands full in Venezuela while also pondering military action in Iran, but the Ukraine war is grinding on and Vladimir Putin wants the world to think he can’t be defeated. A new, detailed report on the war underscores that Mr. Putin isn’t winning, and Mr. Trump can still apply military and economic pressure to produce a peace that is honorable.

Russian forces have taken an astonishing 1.2 million casualties in Ukraine since 2022, according to estimates from Seth Jones and Riley McCabe of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The Russian death toll may be as high as 325,000—more than five times than in all Soviet and Russian conflicts combined since World War II. Some 36,000 Americans died in the grinding three-year Korean War.

 

The conventional wisdom is that Mr. Putin will eventually prevail because Russia is the larger power and Mr. Putin can keep throwing men into his human meat grinder. Yet Mr. Putin isn’t making territorial gains commensurate with his losses.

Consider Mr. Putin’s struggle to take the city of Pokrovsk. Russian forces have advanced in the area on average 70 meters a day from late February 2024 to January of this year. That’s like starting the day on 42nd street in Manhattan and ending up on 43rd street.

 

The Ukraine war draws comparisons to the trench warfare of World War I, but the Russian advance has been “slower than the most brutal offensive campaigns over the last century, including the notoriously bloody Battle of the Somme during World War I,” says the report. Ukraine has its own manpower shortages, but Russian casualties are two or 2.5 to one for Ukraine.

Meanwhile, half of Moscow’s budget is flowing to “the armed forces, the military-industrial complex, domestic security and debt service,” CSIS notes. Moscow doesn’t have the economic growth or dynamism to keep underwriting the misadventure for the long haul. One illustrative fact: Russia has “a grand total of zero companies in the top 100 list of technology companies as measured by market capitalization.”

All of this means Mr. Putin shouldn’t be able to wield a whip hand at the negotiating table. The Russian dictator is in a weakened position that Mr. Trump could exploit with tougher sanctions and more U.S. weapons, to at least force Mr. Putin to give up some stolen territory and tolerate real security guarantees.

The same Mr. Trump who arms his diplomacy with Iran to increase his leverage has been oddly unwilling to do the same with Mr. Putin. But a weak peace would let Mr. Putin “up off the mat,” as GOP Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker put it last year. The Russian would rearm with a renewed animus for NATO. 

Mr Putin isn’t the unstoppable man he wants Mr. Trump to think he is. The question of the past year has been whether President Trump will see this strategic opening to reduce the Russian threat to the U.S., and deter the world’s bad actors in Beijing and elsewhere, by driving a harder bargain in Ukraine.