The Ukraine war has settled into a bloody stalemate with no plan for peace or victory on the Western side, which is bad for Ukraine, bad for gas and food prices worldwide, and increasingly a political problem for Trump.

• Ukraine hit Moscow with a big drone attack targeting diesel refineries, and Trump reportedly pressed Zelensky to stop, because hits on Russian oil push up diesel and gas prices for his base in the Midwest.
• The air war is roughly even, but on the ground Russia keeps grinding forward in the Donbas and will not stop until it holds all of it.
• Russia's economy has gotten stronger under a war footing, while Ukraine's has gone backwards and has now lost its steel industry to Russian strikes, with a shortage of workers and soldiers its biggest problem.
• Europe is egging Ukraine on but will not send troops or enough money because the EU budget is strained, France's deficit is far over the limit, and leaders like Macron and Merz are using war talk to cover domestic political and industrial failures.
• The war is also driving up fertilizer, food, and energy prices for poor countries, and the Fed raising rates will not fix inflation caused by blown-up refineries.

Outlook: Yanis Varoufakis expects the war to drag on until Russia takes the whole Donbas and possibly declares a ceasefire on its own terms, unless Europe opens talks with Putin on a broad NATO–Russia security deal with a Northern Ireland–style shared arrangement for the Donbas.