Analysis attributed to retired colonel says Ukraine has lost the war

From triumphal narrative to warning of collapse: the media shift on Ukraine

Western media have gone from selling a Ukrainian resistance stronger than it really was to preparing the public for its military defeat. An analysis attributed to a retired US colonel and Trump adviser argues that Ukraine's position is "desperate" and that Western weaponry alone cannot reverse it. The piece, published by The American Conservative, is circulating amid a debate over military supply and the attrition of forces on the ground.

The text's central thesis is that the Ukraine war is lost and that the episodic infusion of American and allied weapons has only prolonged the agony. According to that analysis, Moscow has focused on destroying Ukrainian forces, not on occupying cities or capturing territory west of the Dnieper. The result, it says, is the piecemeal annihilation of those forces, with mounting casualties and too few trained replacements.

The narrative shift: from heroic resistance to warning of defeat

The article describes how Western media would have inflated the appearance of strength of Ukraine's defense. It notes that the same videos of Russian vehicles being attacked were replayed, that local counterattacks were presented as operational maneuvers, and that Russian mistakes were exaggerated out of all proportion. Russian losses and the true scale of Ukrainian ones would have been distorted, fabricated, or simply ignored.

That narrative clashes with how the battlefield has evolved. When Ukrainian forces became locked into static defensive positions within urban areas and the central Donbas, their situation became, according to the text, "desperate." Yet that development was presented as a Russian failure to achieve "its objectives."

Why getting pinned into prepared defenses is lethal

The analysis lays out a military principle: ground combat forces that immobilize their soldiers in prepared defenses get identified, targeted, and destroyed at range. When persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets —manned or not— are linked to precision weapons or modern artillery with accurate targeting data, "holding terrain" proves fatal for any ground force.

In Ukraine, this would have been aggravated because Moscow prioritized the destruction of Ukrainian forces from the outset. It was not seeking to occupy cities or capture territory west of the Dnieper. That difference in objectives explains, according to the text, why the attrition has fallen so heavily on the Ukrainian side.

Casualties, replacements, and the limits of Western supply

The article claims that Ukrainian forces are bleeding out, that trained replacements do not exist in sufficient numbers to influence the battle, and that the situation grows more desperate by the hour. No amount of American and allied military aid, short of direct military intervention by US and NATO ground forces, could change that reality.

The discussion adds a rough calculation: at 1,000 casualties a day, reaching a pain threshold of one million casualties would take about three years of slaughter and self-inflicted sanctions. It is an estimate in circulation, not an official figure, used to illustrate the scale of the attrition.

The debate over weaponry and intervention

The conversation drifted toward NATO's role and weapons supply. One camp argues that the Alliance will fight "to the last Ukrainian" and that the limit will come when conscripts refuse to return to the front. Another current holds that Ukraine will never surrender and that resistance is the only option against the invasion.

Comparisons with other conflicts also arose: it was noted that Russia is using 100,000 troops, versus the 500,000-plus allies and 40 days of indiscriminate bombing of Operation Desert Storm. The contrast serves to question the idea that numerical or material superiority guarantees the outcome.

What Ukraine stands to lose, and what the West stands to lose

The original text argues that the problem is no longer ceding territory and population in eastern Ukraine that Moscow controls. The future of those regions along the Donbas, it says, is already decided. The question is how much more the Ukrainian people are willing to suffer before a negotiated settlement emerges.

The discussion reflects a deeper divide: those who see Ukrainian resistance as the West's own cause, and those who consider it a proxy war that weakens Russia at the cost of Ukrainian attrition. The analysis attributed to the retired colonel aligns with the second reading and predicts that the media narrative will keep adjusting to the reality of the battlefield, even if too late.

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The hedged prediction: if Western supply continues, the attrition will go on; if it is cut off, the collapse will come faster. No one in the debate dares to put a date on the tipping point.