Stanislav Krapivnik

Argues Trump had repeated chances to walk away from the confrontation with Iran and chose badly each time, leaving the United States boxed in with no good options left.

Reads Russian forces as winning decisively across the front, with Ukrainian fortified lines being cut off and collapsing one after another at the Zaporozhye approaches, at Kupyansk, at Sumy and on the Kharkov axis. Treats Sikorski's call for NATO drills near Kaliningrad as posturing: Poland's army is sizeable but not close to Russia's, and any real attempt on Kaliningrad would bring mass Polish casualties and Russian retaliation beyond Ukraine. "Russia is still got the gloves on for Ukraine. It's not going to have any gloves on for Poland or for Germany."

Reads Trump's Moscow diplomacy through Witkoff and Kushner as failing, with Putin treating the envoys dismissively, and sees no path to a win whether Trump invokes emergency powers or loses Congress. Does not expect the American economy to rebound.

Says Persian Gulf oil exports have been effectively shut off, with Saudi Arabia having halted exports of at least six million barrels a day, and Iranian and Qatari flows disrupted. The cushion of oil already on the water is gone, and in his reading the damage to the American economy is only beginning: "the oil shocks are just starting."