Has the Russian offensive collapsed? We shall see

Michael Clarke, Director-General of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) from 2007 to 2015, says the Russian offensive has collapsed.

'All they can do is dig in and play for time, trying not to lose. Come the winter, Ukraine will have to assess its military progress and make political judgements from there.'

Who knows the truth?

Have both sides reached a stalemate? Or is Putin about to attack?

What people think will happen seems always linked to whether they think America is to blame in part at least for the invasion, but why is this?

Michael Clarke said last year that anyone who believes in democracy has to side with Ukraine. I believes in democracy and side with Ukraine, but democracy has nothing to with it - were Ukraine a dictatorship it would be just as wrong for Russia to invade Ukraine. Just as it was very wrong for Nehru to conquer Goa.

I heard him speak in Cluj a few years ago at the festival to mark the centenary if Ion Ratiu's birth. Michael Clarke, I mean, not Nehru. 

I liked him, think he is very intelligent though I disagreed with him on much. He said having Trump as president was like having a New York cab driver as a president, which is true but he said it as if it were a bad thing.

I just withdraw my great esteem and respect for him forever I'm afraid. I just read his penultimate tweet in which he says 

'Modern Russian imperialism is no longer just an academic conceit. And this is not just Putin's war; the present Russian elites really will go on to create Catherine's empire if we just step back from Ukraine.'

If one thing is obvious it is that the Russians are in no position to invade more countries. 

(Catherine's empire of course extended  to the Baltic States and eastern Poland.)