Will Trump brace or blink when Vladimir Putin escalates?

The rationale behind this growing escalation is clear: Putin is slowly losing the war in Ukraine and desperately wants the West to end its support for the victim of this war. On the battlefield, Russian forces in southeastern and eastern Ukraine are now locked out of the Starlink satellite communications network and increasingly denied access to the Telegram messaging app. Their already feeble command and control structures are thus in disarray. Ukrainian drones have also turned both front lines and rear logistics lines into killing fields, deterring and depleting Russian offensive action. Making matters worse, Russia has lost nearly 500,000…