Stevenson’s army, June 4

– Fred Kaplan sees a long struggle.

– In the FT, UK’s Lawrence Freedman says time is on Ukraine’s side.

– I’m more dubious, because —

-WaPo reports lower troop morale among Ukrainians.

– WaPo says Putin expects Ukraine support to weaken.

– And this from WSJ:

The problem for Kyiv—and for Western European governments proposing a cease-fire—is that Russia has seized much of the industrial heartlands of Ukraine’s east and vast tracts of its fertile agricultural land, while blocking Ukraine’s access to the sea, needed for exports.

That threatens to leave Ukraine as a barely viable state surviving on Western giving. Ukraine needs roughly $5 billion every month to cover essential government services and keep its battered economy functioning, officials in Kyiv have said, in addition to humanitarian aid and armaments.

– Estonia’s government has collapsed, in part because of Russia issues.

– Bloomberg says US is still revising National Security Strategy to account for Russian threat.

My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).