Ukraine is finally setting the terms for Russia — so should the US

Three things have happened recently that should focus minds in Washington.

First, Russia’s war came home, because Ukraine’s startling innovations are changing the universe of whats possible. Second, Ukraine has shattered the myth of inevitable Russian victory, recapturing territory and disrupting Russian military logistics with newly developed capabilities.

But the third change is subtler, and its consequences won’t be felt for a long time after headlines move on.

Kyiv has opened a new front where few Western leaders have dared to fight: the cognitive warfare where Moscow operated largely unopposed — at least until now. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote a letter to his Russian counterpart demanding a face-to-face meeting and an immediate ceasefire.

This was packaged as diplomacy and nominally addressed to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but it was obviously meant for a much wider audience. And it was a strategic masterstroke: Ukraine is now setting the agenda, and the Kremlin, at last, must respond.

On June 5, Putin was due to appear at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, the Kremlin’s annual exercise in self-congratulation. The event was meant to project confidence, global relevance and that much-advertised Russian “stability.” Instead, smoke from Ukrainian strikes hung over the proceedings, and Putin found himself responding to a public challenge from the leader of the country whose existence Moscow denies.

Authoritarian systems rest on the appearance of total control. Russia can lose staggering numbers of troops — 1.3 million killed or badly wounded and counting — burn through equipment and impoverish its own regions, all in the service of imperial ambition. Human life has never been the measure of power in Moscow. A visible weakness at the center is........

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