His point is that Minsk didn't fail slowly, it failed over 8 years. This one took 8 days.
Trump admitted it himself when he brought up the petroleum reserves. Nobody sat across a table and worked through the root causes. It was a courier service between Pakistan and Qatar passing messages back and forth, and now the technical talks keep getting canceled before they even start.
Meanwhile both sides are moving. U.S. air logistics across West Asia surged between June 18th and 25th. Iran's military spokesperson is publicly talking about procuring more advanced systems from friendly countries, in days, not months.
On Ukraine he was grimmer. Putin used the word Novorossiya, which Medvedev says, which analysts say, which Putin almost never says. That means Odessa. That potentially means Kyiv if Russia takes Sumy.
The Kursk operation cost Ukraine 80-90,000 casualties and accomplished nothing except giving Russia justification for a larger buffer zone.
Then Trump went to the G7, Zelensky showed him drone footage and smoke, Trump said hit them harder, and whatever was left of Russian diplomatic patience ended there.
Alex's closing thought: pushing the most restrained version of Putin you're ever going to get until he has nothing left to restrain is the biggest strategic error the West has made in this entire war.
Thank you @AXChristoforou for the interview
