Did Xi Jinping really warn Donald Trump that Vladimir Putin may regret invading Ukraine? In this video, we break down the explosive Financial Times report, Brett McGurk’s CNN analysis, and the latest battlefield trends shaping the war From Ukraine’s growing drone campaign to Russia’s mounting economic pressure and shifting front lines, we examine whether Moscow is losing momentum—and how Trump could use Russia’s vulnerability to push for a diplomatic settlement that reshapes future of Europe
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00:00On Tuesday, the Financial Times published a report that made the whole world sit up
00:04and take notice. President Donald Trump had just returned from a high-profile trip to China,
00:10where he held extensive talks with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. During those talks,
00:15FT claimed that Xi Jinping had remarked that Russian President Vladimir Putin
00:19might end up regretting his invasion of Ukraine. That's a sensational statement.
00:24Understandably, it made headlines around the world and provoked a flurry of analysis and commentary.
00:29In an op-ed for CNN, Brett H. McGurk made the case that new trends on the battlefield suggest
00:35that Xi is right, and that his revelation offers a new chance for Trump's diplomacy to end the war,
00:41but with a different approach than what he's tried before.
00:44Let's unpack McGurk's argument and what it suggests about where the war is headed.
00:48If you've been following US politics for the last couple of decades, McGurk should be no stranger.
00:52He's a prominent American diplomat and attorney who has held senior national security positions
00:57under four presidents, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden.
01:02He most recently served as deputy assistant to President Biden and as national security
01:06council coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa. In that role, he led complex diplomatic
01:11efforts, including negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages held by Hamas.
01:17Previously, he served as the special presidential envoy for the global coalition to counter
01:22ISIL under Presidents Obama and Trump, leading an international coalition that played a key role
01:26in the territorial defeat of ISIL in Iraq and Syria. Further back, he was a key architect of the 2007
01:32Iraq surge strategy under President Bush and helped negotiate the US-Iraq security agreement.
01:38So although his expertise is primarily in the Middle East theater, he's certainly extremely well-versed in
01:43complex negotiations and what it takes to conclude them from a strong position. In his op-ed for CNN,
01:48where he's a regular global affairs analyst, he makes the case that Xi's comments present an opportunity
01:53for Trump to pressure Russia into cutting a deal and why new realities on the battlefield should
01:58swing the terms of the deal firmly in Ukraine's favor. Now, it's worth noting that both Trump and
02:03senior Chinese officials have flatly denied that Xi said anything of the sort. FT says Xi's comments were
02:10reported by several people familiar with the US assessment of the Beijing summit. It doesn't name them.
02:15However, in the same article, it also notes that the Chinese Foreign Ministry had called the report
02:20completely false and that Trump had told reporters, no, he never said that. The White House's fact
02:25sheet on the Beijing summit also contained no reference to conversations about Putin or the war
02:30in Ukraine. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Guojia Kun, later doubled down on the denial,
02:35telling reporters that, the information you mentioned does not match the facts and is completely
02:39fabricated out of thin air. Indeed, it's rare to see such a blunt statement from the Chinese leader,
02:44who is typically much more cautious with his words. The FT article admits that, according to its
02:49sources, the comment goes much further than any he made about the situation in Ukraine during Xi's
02:53conversations with Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden. Then again, Trump has also stated that during the
02:58same summit, Xi had told him that the US was a nation in decline, a statement that Trump says he
03:02agreed with, that would also be uncharacteristically blunt of Xi, adding credence to FT's report.
03:07On the other hand, such a comment would almost certainly have created some awkwardness when Putin
03:11landed in Beijing this week for his own summit with Xi. No such awkwardness was visible. Instead,
03:17Russian and Chinese social media have been crowing about the fact that Putin took his jacket off
03:22during the proceedings. In Russian culture, this is apparently a sign that someone feels secure and
03:27at ease. So, who really knows whether Xi actually said it or not? McGurk treats it as fact. More
03:33importantly, he says that current trends in the war support the statement. Putin had hoped that 2026 would
03:38be the year his forces, enabled by his advantage in mass and manpower, would break through the front
03:43lines and seize the contested regions in eastern Ukraine. But that has not happened, at least not
03:48yet. In fact, Russia appears to be going backwards. An assessment by the Institute for the Study of
03:53War or ISW reveals that in April, Ukraine enjoyed a net territorial gain and Russia net territorial losses,
04:00the first time since Ukraine's incursion into Russia's Kursk region in 2024. Around 45 square miles of
04:06territory had been reclaimed, according to the report. The Economist's war tracker also notes
04:11that from 2026 to date, Ukraine has enjoyed small but significant territorial gains for the first time
04:17since 2023. Those reports contrast sharply with what the Russian side says happened during the same period.
04:24Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov recently claimed that Russian forces had seized about
04:29656 square miles of territory, captured 80 settlements, and liberated the last remaining
04:35settlements in Luhansk Oblast during 2026. Geolocated footage released by the Russians seems
04:41to corroborate at least the last part of that statement. Call it the fog of war, call it propaganda,
04:46but there's another, more gruesome statistic that supports net Ukrainian advances – exchanges of the
04:51dead between the two sides. The number of dead soldiers exchanged between the two sides has long
04:56been a challenge to Western and Ukrainian assertions that Russia's manpower losses far exceed Ukraine's.
05:01In some areas, those estimates have reached brain-melting proportions. For example,
05:06Ukrainian intelligence assessments in late 2025 estimated that as many as 27 Russian soldiers
05:11were killed for every Ukrainian lost during the slow capture of the city of Kupyansk,
05:16although Reuters was unable to verify that number. This week, the Commander-in-Chief of the
05:20Ukrainian Armed Forces Alexander Siersky placed the overall loss ratio significantly lower.
05:26In terms of those killed, depending on the day, the ratio reaches seven or nine times.
05:30That is the ratio of fatalities, he said. That may be three times lower than the figure
05:34claimed for Kupyansk, but it's still extreme. A military rule of thumb is that an attacking force
05:39typically needs a manpower advantage of three to one to have a good chance of succeeding in an offensive.
05:44That estimate rises to five to one when an area is heavily fortified.
05:48These ratios imply that an attacking force suffers more casualties than defenders,
05:52and that's typically the case. So seven or nine to one would represent appalling losses for the Russians.
05:59Independent Western analysts are usually more restrained in their estimates.
06:03Sources like the Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS,
06:06puts the number at around two and a half to one in Russia's favor for total casualties,
06:10including killed, wounded, and missing, with a higher ratio in Ukraine's favor for fatalities alone.
06:15The problem is that exchanges of dead between the two sides have been heavily stacked in the other
06:19direction. Regular exchanges of the dead have been taking place since Russia's invasion in 2022,
06:25according to data compiled from official sources by the Russian war loss tracker Lost Armor.
06:30In total, Russia has returned 24,955 Ukrainian bodies and received 3,450 in return.
06:38That's a total exchange ratio of 7.23 dead Ukrainians for each Russian dead.
06:43In 2026 to date, 3,528 Ukrainians have been returned in exchange for 155 Russians,
06:50a ratio of 22.76 to 1. That's significantly lower than the numbers exchanged in 2025,
06:55where 16,304 Ukrainians were exchanged for 439 Russians, a ratio of 37.14 to 1.
07:03Most pertinently, in the latest exchange which took place last week, 526 Ukrainians were exchanged for
07:0941 Russians. That's still a ratio of 12.8 to 1. But the more or less monthly exchanges have been
07:14hovering around the 1,000 to 10 to 20 mark for some time. The Ukrainian side has long claimed that
07:20the
07:20reason for the great disparity is twofold. Firstly, they have claimed that the Russians are inflating
07:24the numbers by including some of their own dead or body parts of previously partially returned fallen
07:29soldiers. But their main claim has been that since the Russians have been advancing, they have been
07:34able to collect the fallen and captured positions while Ukraine hasn't had the same opportunity,
07:38thereby artificially increasing the ratio. In the latest exchange, the number of Russians
07:42doubled from recent months while the number of Ukrainians practically halved. Using Ukraine's
07:46arguments, this suggests that Ukraine is indeed starting to advance on the battlefield,
07:50collecting dead Russians as it moves into their formerly held positions.
07:54McGurk argues that as a result of the stalled Russian offensive and Ukrainian gains,
07:58the pressure is becoming visible inside Russia itself. In fact, there is now open grumbling
08:03about the cost of the war. In recent days, in a rare display of public dissent, Russian
08:08parliamentarian Renat Suleymanov warned that Russia's economy cannot sustain a prolonged war in Ukraine.
08:14He noted that 40% of the federal budget is now allocated to defense and security,
08:19one and a half times more than total social spending. Suleymanov argued that this massive spending
08:24fuels inflation, crowds out investment and social programs and creates long-term economic distortions,
08:29noting that tanks and shells have no consumer value. It's these types of comments that usually
08:35result in someone accidentally falling from a 24th floor window. It's brave of Suleymanov to make them
08:40so publicly and a sure sign of the increasing pressure on the Russian economy as a result of the prolonged
08:46war. Another clear sign is Putin's plummeting approval rating. Russian state pollster VTSIOM reports that
08:53Putin's approval rating fell to 65.6% in late April 2026, the lowest level recorded since the beginning
09:00of the war against Ukraine. That's a significant decline of over 12 percentage points from December
09:052025, which prompted the state-controlled polling agency to revise its survey methodology for future
09:10narrative control. McGurk argues that a key factor in this pressure is Ukraine's drones, which he calls
09:16the force multiplier. Ukraine today does not look like a defending state trying to survive, but a military
09:22innovator reshaping the nature of warfare through mass-produced autonomous systems, he writes.
09:27This has flipped the assumption from the start that Russia's manpower advantage alone would be
09:31decisive. Along the front lines, Ukraine has now established a 10 to 15 kilometer kill zone,
09:38where Russia is unable to advance without exposure to constant drone attacks.
09:42That's true, but it's not necessarily a compelling argument.
09:45According to the Pentagon Inspector General's latest quarterly report on Operation Atlantic Resolve,
09:50Russia has achieved relative parity in tactical drone deployment. The report also states that Russia
09:56almost certainly retains a higher ability to conduct persistent, high-tempo offensive maneuvers,
10:01and holds the advantage in direct fires, logistics, force generation, and force protection.
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10:20Bottom line, Russia has established the same kill zones across the front lines, and it's just as
10:24difficult and costly for Ukrainian forces to advance through them as it is for the Russians. But while the
10:30front lines might be somewhat of a stalemate in terms of drone warfare, Ukraine's long-range strikes deep
10:34inside Russia are certainly escalating and taking an increasingly heavy toll.
10:39To use McGuck's words, Ukrainian drones are now routinely striking deep into Russia,
10:44targeting military airfields, factories, energy infrastructure, ammunition depots, and logistics
10:48hubs. The ability of Ukrainian drones to reach Moscow reportedly contributed to Putin's interest in
10:53a temporary ceasefire during Victory Day commemorations in the capital, allowing a parade without
10:58threats of drones appearing from nowhere and ruining the spectacle. If anything, he's downplaying
11:02just how much of a problem these Ukrainian drone strikes have become in recent times.
11:06Over the past two years, the number of Ukrainian long-range drone launches has been steadily increasing,
11:12and in recent months it's gone through the roof. That's both figuratively and, in the case of many
11:16Russian facilities being struck, quite literally. From 110 UAVs in January 2024, the figure rose to more
11:23than 7,000 in March 2026, with the total number of launches multiplying five-fold over the course of
11:292025 alone. In March, Ukraine overtook Russia in the number of long-range drones launched in a month
11:34for the first time. Recently, Russian officials reported the largest attack on the capital in more
11:39than a year, with air defenses intercepting more than 550 drones. Over 1,000 drones were launched in
11:45that single wave, targeting the Moscow region and other areas deep inside Russia. As McGurk correctly notes,
11:52these attacks are now forcing Russia to disperse air defenses, relocate aircraft,
11:56harden infrastructure, and devote increasing resources to homeland defense. In military terms,
12:01Ukraine is expanding the battlespace and raising the costs of the war for Moscow. At the same time,
12:05Moscow is struggling to gain any territory on the battlefield in Ukraine. Putin, McGurk says,
12:09is being forced to confront a strategic defeat. Offensive wars are ultimately judged not by lines
12:15on a map, but on whether they meet the political aims for which they were launched in the first place,
12:18he writes. Putin's war aims at the time of the invasion included the full subordination of Ukraine,
12:23weakening NATO as an alliance and restoring Russia as a dominant Eurasian power. Those aims are
12:28increasingly out of reach for Moscow. In terms of subordinating Ukraine entirely, McGurk says,
12:33the battlefield and outcome of the war is now focused on the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine,
12:38with no chance for Russian forces to seize Kyiv, Putin's initial objective. While the frontlines are
12:43brutally active way beyond the Donbass, in Kharkiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts,
12:49the basic sentiment is correct. Unless Russia mobilizes a massive reserve army and embarks
12:54on a major new offensive through Belarus, an event both Zelensky and Siersky have been warning
12:59about in recent days, there is little evidence that Russia has the capabilities to attempt to take
13:03Kyiv. So can Russia re-establish itself as a dominant Eurasian power? It depends on who you ask.
13:09While some like McGurk say such a prospect is increasingly out of reach, at their recently
13:14concluded summit in Beijing, Putin and Xi both seem to have missed the memo. During the summit,
13:19the two sign a joint declaration on the formation of a multi-polar world, which Russia and China
13:24intend to spearhead. The 47-page policy document was signed at the Great Hall of People, alongside
13:29approximately 40 other cooperation agreements. It calls for a world order based on respect for
13:34sovereignty, equal state relations, and opposition to expanding military alliances like NATO and AUKUS,
13:40which it likens to the law of the jungle. The leaders position their strategic partnership
13:45as a model for major powers and a counterweight to what they described as US unilateral and hegemonic
13:50counter-currents. In terms of weakening NATO, there is a case to be made that in some sense,
13:54the alliance has been weakened in recent times, although it's highly debatable whether Russia
13:58has had anything to do with that. Trump has never been a particularly big fan of NATO. He and senior
14:03members of his administration, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth,
14:08have made a number of statements calling into question what they see as the US's oversized
14:12contributions to the alliance. Trump was particularly unhappy about the unwillingness
14:16of the US's European NATO partners to join his conflict with Iran and his efforts to unblock the
14:21Strait of Hormuz, which Iran closed in retaliation for the US and Israel's attacks. In April,
14:26Trump threatened to reduce the US role in NATO or even withdraw from the alliance if its members did
14:30not help to reopen the strait. Then again, there's an even stronger case to be made that Putin's invasion
14:35of Ukraine has actually strengthened the alliance, not weakened it. As McGurk writes,
14:40The NATO alliance, despite rhetorical critiques from Trump, is larger today than when Russia invaded.
14:44Finland and Sweden have joined the alliance, and arguably stronger, with increases in defense
14:49spending throughout NATO's European capitals. Thus, despite enormous and mounting losses for Russia,
14:54Putin has little to show for his war in Ukraine, and the trends appear only to be worsening month
14:58by month, he concludes. Having detailed why he believes Russia is in a weak position and thus
15:03vulnerable to a disadvantageous war settlement, McGurk then gets into the meat of his argument.
15:08What it means for China, and how Trump could leverage this to force a settlement on Putin.
15:12While Xi has ordered the People's Liberation Army to be ready for an operation to seize
15:16Taiwan by 2027, he writes. His military remains untested by combat, and Ukraine is proving the
15:22difficulty of achieving rapid political collapse against a determined defender. Over the next six
15:27months, Xi will be examining these trends and sizing up advantages and disadvantages when it comes to
15:32his ultimate designs on Taiwan. McGurk feels that this provides the US with a golden opportunity to
15:38reinforce Xi's caution and stamp the boot down hard on Putin's throat. The smart move right now is to
15:43reinforce NATO and its support for Ukraine, to demonstrate to Putin that he has no chance to
15:48regain momentum, and to Xi that moves on Taiwan will be met with a coordinated response. As he
15:53correctly points out, Trump's stated objective on Ukraine is to end the war through a diplomatic
15:57settlement, which would likely require Ukraine to accept land concessions in exchange for security
16:01guarantees. He also correctly notes that diplomacy has floundered because Ukraine has been unwilling to
16:06give up land that it believes it can defend militarily, while Russia still believes it can seize the
16:11land militarily. Displaying all his experience as a seasoned negotiator, he succinctly notes that
16:16breakthrough negotiations rarely succeed when both sides feel equally confident and with time
16:21favoring their longer-term objectives. But now, with trends turning in Ukraine's favor,
16:26McGurk feels that the underlying assumptions behind this deadlock no longer apply.
16:30The assumption underlining Trump's diplomacy, based on his own statements, has been that Ukraine,
16:34as the smaller power, must make concessions at the table or else it will lose the war on the
16:38battlefield. That assumption, once questionable, is now false, he writes. The new realities on the
16:43battlefield present a new opportunity for diplomacy to succeed. Ukraine is now more confident in its
16:48own defense and less dependent upon promises from Washington for its future defense. Russia now faces
16:53a future of mounting casualties and economic strain for no chance of a breakthrough. According to McGurk,
16:58that resets the tape. As might be expected, efforts by the US to broker a settlement have more or less
17:04come to a standstill since the US began Operation Epic Fury against Iran. The US side has understandably
17:10been somewhat preoccupied with more pressing concerns. The last formal round of US broker talks on the
17:15conflict took place in February. There has been little activity since, but that may soon change.
17:20Yuri Ushakov, one of Putin's most influential aides, stated on May 20th that the US chief negotiators
17:26concerning Ukraine, Steve Wyckoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, were expected in Russia in the
17:31coming weeks. McGurk feels that Trump should seize the opportunity to strike while the iron is hot.
17:36For Trump, the best chance to end the war now lies in not assuming Ukrainian weakness,
17:40as Trump has done to date, but in recognizing Russia's increasing vulnerability.
17:44There is now leverage to force a settlement on terms acceptable to Ukraine,
17:48and Washington should use it, he concludes. We'll conclude this video on that note too.
17:53Needless to say, we will of course be following the story closely and keep you updated in our daily
17:57reports. In the meantime, for a more thorough look at Russia's casualties during the war,
18:01check out this video. And thank you as always for watching.
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