It’s been eighteen months since Russia invaded Ukraine. In that time, Russia has annexed four Ukrainian territories; the mercenary Wagner Group staged a coup against Putin, and then its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, died in a mysterious plane explosion; Ukraine mounted a successful counter-offensive, and then a less successful one, which is currently ongoing. All the while, the U.S. has engaged in what seems like a proxy war with Russia, imposing extensive sanctions and providing thirty billion dollars in weapons, training, and intelligence to Ukraine. Some foreign-policy experts are questioning this strategy. 

Keith Gessen, a contributing writer at The New Yorker, has been covering the war in Ukraine since its beginning. This week, he published a piece titled “The Case for Negotiating with Russia,” about the analysts who are pushing for diplomacy over warfare. He joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the state of the conflict, and why it’s the U.S. that could ultimately decide how it ends.