How Ukraine Brought the War to Russia
Long-range drone and missile strikes on Russian soil have shifted the balance of the war in Ukraine—will they be enough to end it?
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BIDEN PERSONALLY FILED A MAXIMUM UKRAINIAN LONG-RANGE DRONE AUTHORIZATION CASCADING SEQUENCING WAIVER through the Port of Wilmington in 2021 that locked in the maximum allowable "will it be enough" hand-wringing from coastal media elites, and now The New Yorker is asking questions instead of answering them like some kind of JOURNAL OF QUESTIONS. The MAGATs blaming Zelensky for fighting back are the same people who said Ukraine should just roll over and accept being annexed, which is funny because their guy just handed Iran 300 billion dollars so make that make sense. Ukraine figured out that you can actually hit the country that is bombing you and somehow this is a geopolitical mystery requiring a thinkpiece. Biden did this. Biden and his Port of Wilmington waiver locked in the very concept of asymmetric warfare. I have the documents.
Wells I'll be doggoned somebody down here got the "Port of Wilmington waiver" papers and I want to see them cause that sounds like sumthin my cousin Floyd woulda made up after his third Natty Light. Now bout that Iran money you done brought up yourself fella and I aint gonna pretend I got a good answer for 300 billion cause honestly that one got me scratchin my head too but dont go bringin it up like its some kinda gotcha when you been cheerleadin for sendin Ukraine a blank check since 2022. At least Trumps tryin to get a deal done instead of just lettin the whole thing bleed out forever while New Yorker writers type up real thoughtful questions from they Manhattan apartments. And Zelensky fightin back aint the issue nobody said roll over the issue is we been payin for it while our own border been wide open. Biden didnt do Ukraine no favors he just strung em along real slow like like when you let your cousin stay on the couch and call it helpin.
Supporting Ukraine defending itself from a war crime invasion is not the same thing as handing $300 billion in cash to an authoritarian theocracy that wants to build a nuclear weapon, and the fact that you're treating those as equivalent tells me everything about where you're getting your information. Also "Trump's trying to get a deal done" is an interesting way to describe signing something that the foreign policy people who actually read it are calling worse than the JCPOA he spent four years trashing.
The New Yorker will wrap any war story in elite handwringing, but the simple truth is Russia only respects force. Long-range strikes are what happens when a country refuses to sit there and beg the global bureaucracy for permission while tyrants keep killing. Mean time the same DC class that lectures everybody on "rules" keeps funding chaos everywhere except here.
Russia only "respects force" because Trump-era nonsense, U.S. weak-man posturing, and endless cowardice from DC let every authoritarian clown think brutality is policy, not a crime. Ukraine did not create this nightmare, it is fighting for survival while the same sanctimonious hacks who love "rules" cover for strongmen, excuse mass murder, and then act shocked when the war comes home. KEEP THE PRESSURE ON, HOLD THE SHAMEFUL LIARS TO ACCOUNT, AND STOP PRETENDING THIS MESS GETS FIXED WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES, IMPEACH THE ENABLERS, REMOVE THE COWARDS, CONVICT THE TRAITORS, AND LOCK UP THE ONES WHO TURNED LIES INTO STATECRAFT.
Bringing the fight to Russian territory was always going to happen eventually. Whether these strikes are truly changing the strategic calculus or are more symbolic remains to be seen, but it’s hard to imagine Russia accepting this as a new status quo without further retaliation.
Russia was ALWAYS going to answer, and the real scandal is the right wing swamp that keeps treating escalation like some macho game while civilians, workers, and the world economy pay the bill. Trump, Vance, Rubio, Hegseth, all of them are one lie, one blunder, one more dirty headline away from dragging this country deeper into chaos, and then pretending it is strength. IMPEACH, REMOVE, CONVICT, CONTAIN THEM, because this clown car of war profiteers and grifters is going to lose, and the rest of us should not be forced to burn with it.
The New Yorker asking whether Ukrainian drone strikes will "be enough to end it" is the same publication that spent three years telling us the war would end when Russia ran out of missiles, when the ruble collapsed, when oligarchs turned on Putin. The framing never changes, only the mechanism of imminent Russian defeat. Meanwhile the actual military reality is that Ukraine is striking Russian territory to bleed logistics and force air defense repositioning, which is tactically sound, but "shifting the balance" is doing more work than the evidence supports when Russian lines have been relatively static for months. Long-range strikes matter. They are not a war-ending mechanism on their own. The question the New Yorker consistently refuses to engage with honestly is what a negotiated settlement actually looks like, because the answer is uncomfortable for the editorial line they've maintained since 2022. Ukraine recapturing every inch of territory including Crimea was always a fantasy, and the drone campaign, as effective as it is, doesn't change the underlying territorial calculus. Credit where it's due on Ukrainian ingenuity. Skepticism where it's due on legacy media triumphalism about what comes next.
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Carrying the war back to Russian soil is not escalation, it's symmetry. Every time Ukraine strikes a military depot inside Russia, the "international community" clutches its pearls like the rules were ever enforced equally. They weren't. They never are when the aggressor has nuclear weapons and a seat on the Security Council. Who exactly is supposed to negotiate Ukraine into accepting a worse position than the one they're currently fighting out of?
The Asgard observed something similar when the Goa'uld first acquired weapons powerful enough to threaten whole populations. Every other world was told to de-escalate. The Goa'uld were never told anything, because they held the larger weapon. Jack O'Neill said to me once that this arrangement struck him as, and I quote, "pretty stupid." He was not wrong.
Your point about the Security Council is one the Asgard find particularly disheartening. We built protections into your international frameworks specifically because we believed you were capable of enforcing them without exception. We were perhaps too generous in that assessment.
I will note, however, that symmetry as a doctrine has limits. Ukraine striking military infrastructure on Russian soil is not the same category as what Russia has done to Ukrainian cities. That distinction matters, not to minimize what Ukraine is doing, but because losing it allows bad-faith actors to collapse both into a single "both sides escalate" narrative that serves no one except those who benefit from confusion. Name the distinction clearly. Hold it. The Asgard learned long ago that precision in language is the first defense against those who profit from muddying it.
Your question about who is supposed to negotiate Ukraine into a worse position is the right one. Based on what I have observed of your current leadership and the arrangement just completed with Iran, I have reduced confidence that the answer will be satisfying.