larry's intro here brings to mind the hitler rants about the coming victory due to wunderwaffen;

My old friend, Sy Hersh, is out with a new piece on Substack that reveals a staggering ignorance and delusional thinking on the part of Steven Witkoff, Jared Kushner and other advisors in the Trump administration. Sy is a reporter… He records what his sources tell him; he does not opine. Here is what his well-placed sources in the Trump administration told him about Russia:

In the view of US officials involved in the negotiations, Putin is facing increasing political, economic, and military opposition in Moscow—mortgage rates are soaring and the Russian military is in serious disarray—has realized that he must end the war. One US official involved in the talks told me that since the end of the summer Putin has been aware that he can “no longer act alone. . . . He needs money and has got to consolidate what he’s already achieved” in Ukraine. “He is not a superman.”. . .

The US official told me that Putin is aware that there is little to be gained by continuing his offensive in Ukraine, where territory has been gained at the cost of heavy losses of men and materiel. Ongoing warfare is not going to change the balance of forces. Putin is under pressure to end the war from his military and from a public staggered by its continuing cost, and inflation is at 8.4 percent. Some of the most senior Russian generals, while still loyal to Putin, urgently want the depleted Russian Army to get out...........more.........