Sometimes there are little things hidden inside of more sensationalized stories.

Though we haven’t seen as much about this recently — our American credentialed media were fixated on the election, and Israel’s war against the Palestinians — meaning that the Russo-Ukrainian War has somewhat faded into the background. Stories about foreign soldiers who traveled to Ukraine to fight the Russians? We heard a lot about them early on, though little recently. Yet this headline from the Associated Press might be seen as either misleading, or at least somewhat disingenuous clickbait.

Russia reportedly captures a Briton fighting for Ukraine as Russian troops advance

Monday, November 25, 2024 | 10:09 AM EST

Russia’s military captured a British national fighting with Ukrainian troops who have occupied part of Russia’s Kursk region, according to reports Monday, as Moscow began daylight drone attacks on civilian areas of Ukraine and its ground forces accelerated gains along parts of the front line.

If you had seen any of the recent stories about the United Kingdom and France having ‘discussions’ about deploying troops to Ukraine to fight the Soviets Russians, you might have wondered if that had already happened, and if a deployed British soldier had been captured.

No, that’s not what happened.

The Briton was identified by state news agency Tass and other media as James Scott Rhys Anderson. Tass quoted him as saying that he had served as a signalman in the British army for four years and then joined the International Legion of Ukraine, formed early on in Russia’s nearly 3-year-old war against its neighbor.

But here comes the money line:

On the battlefield, Ukrainian forces are straining to hold at bay a push by Russia’s bigger army at places in the eastern Donetsk region. Russian forces recently have gained ground at “a significantly quicker rate” than they did in the whole of last year, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank.

That’s the big news: after a year and a half of mostly stalemated war, Russian forces are at least temporarily breaking that stalemate. From the BBC:

Ukraine front could ‘collapse’ as Russia gains accelerate, experts warn

Matt Murphy, Paul Brown, Olga Robinson, Thomas Spencer & Alex Murray | Tuesday, November 19, 2024

President Biden’s decision to provide anti-personnel mines to Ukraine, and allow the use of long-range missiles on Russian territory comes as the Russian military is accelerating its gains along the front line.

Data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) shows that Russia has gained almost six times as much territory in 2024 as it did in 2023, and is advancing towards key Ukrainian logistical hubs in the eastern Donbas region.

I have said it before: it doesn’t matter how much money and military aid we send to Ukraine, they cannot defeat Russia absent the US and NATO sending actual ground troops to fight Russia, and fighter aircraft and pilots to gain air superiority.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region is faltering. Russian troops have pushed Kyiv’s offensive backwards. Experts have questioned the success of the offensive, with one calling it a “strategic catastrophe” given manpower shortages faced by Ukraine.

It was a brave effort, even if it was a foolish one. And realistically, it reeks of desperation on the part of Volodymyr Zelenskyy: the surprise attack certainly caught the Russians off guard, but the Ukrainians could not somehow mount a march on Moscow. Adolf Hitler couldn’t do it, with an army of three million men. Napoleon Bonaparte’s Grande Armée actually made it to Moscow, but Russian Field Marshall Prince Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov had opted to evacuate the city, and his harassing tactics and the long, indefensible French supply lines forced a disastrous retreat.

These developments come at a time of heightened uncertainty with a second Donald Trump administration looming. The US president-elect has vowed to bring the war to a close when he takes office in January, with some fearing he could cut future military aid to Ukraine.

In the first few months of the war the front line moved quickly, with Russia gaining ground quickly before being pushed back by a Ukrainian counteroffensive. But in 2023 neither side made any major gains – with the conflict largely sliding into a stalemate.

But new ISW figures suggest the story in 2024 is more favourable for Russia. The ISW bases its analysis on confirmed social media footage and reports of troop movements.

The ISW data shows Moscow’s forces have seized around 2,700 sq km of Ukrainian territory so far this year, compared with just 465 sq km in the whole of 2023, a near six-fold increase.

Former and future President Trump really doesn’t like wars, or at least doesn’t like US involvement in wars. More, most of Mr Trump’s 2024 voters — a group which includes me — are tired of the continual drain of American taxpayer dollars and military equipment headed to Ukraine to support what had been a long-stalemated war. We are running trillion-dollar deficits, and have pressing needs at home, all while President Joe Biden has been sending Ukraine as much money and equipment as he can. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, after the election, “President Biden has committed to making sure that every dollar we have at our disposal will be pushed out the door between now and January 20.” Thousands of Americans are homeless in western North Carolina, two months after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene, and whatever the federal government has been doing, it hasn’t kept many people in that area from still living in tents, as winter approaches, yet our government is spending “every dollar we have at our disposal” to bolster Ukraine.

Now we have the specter of supposedly serious foreign policy talking heads musing about the possibility of nuclear war over Ukraine.

Well, our good friends across the pond can send troops to Ukraine if they wish: the President of the United States doesn’t have the direct authority to stop them. But, at the very least, President Trump needs to do whatever he can to stop that war, and absent being able to negotiate some sort of end to it, end American involvement in it.