War in the Rear. Novorossiysk Burns, Crimea Without Fuel: The Logic of Ukraine's Strikes. Romanenko

The central event of Yuriy Romanenko's broadcast was the exposure of Roman Abramovich's mission to Kyiv — an informal back-channel negotiation that had functioned throughout the war and was destroyed as a result of a deliberate public leak. Romanenko reconstructs the mechanism: Putin dropped a hint at the St. Petersburg forum, the Financial Times added details, and Zelensky was compelled to confirm the visit at a meeting in London. The analyst identifies Russia's security services as the initiators of the leak, acting in their institutional interest to eliminate a negotiating track that bypassed them. The substance of the talks is reconstructed from Zelensky's Sky News interview: Abramovich arrived with a proposal to establish what Ukraine was prepared to accept; he received a clear answer on Donbas — no concessions, all compromises only after a ceasefire.Romanenko explains the mission's failure with symmetrical logic: Putin inhabits a reality defined by battlefield dispatches that report only victories, while Zelensky, emboldened by recent military successes, has no incentive to yield ground. The security establishments on both sides are setting the direction — and that is precisely why the war continues.The second major storyline is the Ukrainian–Polish crisis over the special operations forces chevron bearing UPA insignia. Budanov's visit to Warsaw with a proposal to rename the unit was met with a cool response: Kosiniak-Kamysz made no effort to conceal his displeasure, while Tusk found himself in an uncomfortable position and publicly called on Zelensky to engage in direct dialogue, pointedly noting that the Ukrainian side had created the problem.Romanenko is sharply critical of Viatrovych, who continues to insist on the insignia without regard for the consequences: Ukraine's president is now flying not through Rzeszów but through Chișinău — a telling symptom of the chill whose principal beneficiary is Russia. In parallel, the analyst examines the logic of Ukraine's strikes against Russian infrastructure: fuel depots in Novorossiysk and the Volgograd region, a petrol shortage in Crimea, and Petraeus's assertion about 10,000 drones a day. The positional war has shifted to the rear — and it is there, not along the front line, that the outcome of the confrontation will ultimately be decided.In his closing remarks, Romanenko commented on Zelensky's conversation with Kushner, characterising the expression of gratitude for diplomatic activity as a pointed jab directed at the American intermediaries. #ukraine #russia #putin