Welcome to the president's inbox. I'm Jim Lindsay, the Mary and David Boy's Distinguished Senior Fellow

in U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. This week's topic is Donald Trump's

Russia ultimatum. With me to discuss the current status of fighting in Ukraine and the significance of President Trump's recent ultimatum to Russian President Vladimir Putin is Leanna Fix.

Leanna is a fellow for Europe at the Council. Her research focuses on European security, transatlantic relations in Russia.

She recently wrote an article for Internationalpolitik titled How the Berlin Bubble Failed in the Ukraine War.

It contributed to an article for foreign policy titled, Can NATO Keep It Together?

Leona, thank you for coming back on the president's inbox.

Thanks so much for the invite, Jim.

Leanna, let's start with sort of the current status of fighting on the battlefield.

The Russians seemingly are on the offensive, but they're not making a lot of progress,

and they're losing a lot of men immaterial along the way.

So help us understand where things stand with the fighting.

Yeah, absolutely. So there was indeed concern that Russia would launch a summer offensive this year.

There was concern that against the backdrop of limited support to Ukraine, especially from the United States,

this summer offensive could be dangerous for Ukraine.

But what we see right now is a confirmation of what we've seen before, that this war has

primarily become a defensive war.

And it is incredibly difficult to make major offensive gains if both sides are really

ducked in and have fortified the cities and the towns along the way.

So can we call it a war of attrition?

It is, there is some movement.

So if we compare it, for example, to last year, military analysts would say that Russia is gaining ground faster than last year.

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