The Wall Street Journal
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Opinion: Potomac Watch
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2026
2/5/2026 3:00:00 PMShare This Episode
Is Trump Getting Closer to Brokering a Russia-Ukraine Peace?
トランプ氏はロシア・ウクライナ和平の仲介に近づいているのか？
U.S. negotiators profess optimism, as Vladimir Putin feels more economic pressure from sanctions amid staggering casualties. But land and security guarantees for Ukraine are still sticking points.
- getting closer to brokering ~ /ˈɡɛtɪŋ ˈkloʊsər tuː ˈbroʊkərɪŋ/ 〜の仲介に近づいている
- U.S. negotiators /ˌjuːˈɛs nɪˈɡoʊʃieɪtərz/ 米国の交渉担当者
- profess optimism /prəˈfɛs ˈɑːptɪmɪzəm/ 楽観的な見通しを示す
- economic pressure from sanctions /ˌɛkəˈnɑːmɪk ˈprɛʃər frəm ˈsæŋkʃənz/ 制裁による経済的圧力
- amid staggering casualties /əˈmɪd ˈstæɡərɪŋ ˈkæʒuəltiz/ 途方もない人的損失の中で
- land and security guarantees /lænd ənd sɪˈkjʊrəti ˌɡærənˈtiːz/ 領土および安全保障の保証
- sticking points /ˈstɪkɪŋ pɔɪnts/ 重要な懸案、交渉で妥協できない点
Speaker 1: From the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.
Paul Gigot: Donald Trump's negotiators are taking another run at trying to get a truce in the Russian-Ukraine war, even as economic pressure builds on Russia as sanctions and other pressure increases. Meanwhile, a study gives new insight into the staggering casualties on both sides of that conflict that is now approaching its fourth anniversary. What are the chances of a deal now that could find a truce, if not a permanent end to the conflict? Welcome to Potomac Watch. That's what we'll talk about today, the daily podcast of Wall Street Journal opinion. I'm Paul Gigot here with Kate Bachelder Odell. And here in studio, Jillian Melchior, usually ensconced in London and frequent travel to Ukraine since the war began in 2020. Good to see you in person, Jillian. So I'll just start by telling you what I heard from a US official who's deeply involved in the talks with both sides. And the person's actually optimistic, believe it or not, about kind of getting some kind of settlement. Said that one breakthrough is that they forced both sides to talk about security guarantees and put them down in tangible ways on paper so they could start to trade. And that Zelenskyy, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, is very happy with the security guarantees. Now, we don't know the details of them, which is a problem and my source wouldn't say because he doesn't want to get it out there in a way that might spoil it, but was reasonably optimistic, at least from the Ukrainian side, they were happy with them. There's something called a prosperity agreement with Russia, which outlines bringing Russia back into the world of commerce, especially with the US, kind of co-investment, that kind of thing, that is supposed to be a carrot for Vladimir Putin and Russia to get back in the game of a normal nation as opposed to a marauding power. And my source conceded that the big outstanding issue is land. How much more will Ukraine have to give up in the east, in Donbas? And how much will Russia settle for? Will Russia have to give up any land? Neither side has put their final offer on the table, but there was some optimism about getting there, making progress. Jillian, what do you think of that outline?
- taking another run at ~ /ˈteɪkɪŋ əˈnʌðər rʌn æt/ 〜に再挑戦する
- staggering casualties /ˈstæɡərɪŋ ˈkæʒuəltiz/ 途方もない人的損失
- ensconced in ~ /ɛnˈskɑːnst ɪn/ ～に落ち着いている、拠点を置く
- tangible ways on paper /ˈtændʒəbl weɪz ɑːn ˈpeɪpər/ 文書として明確に
- prosperity agreement /prɒsˈpɛrəti əˈɡriːmənt/ 繁栄協定（経済復帰枠組み）
- carrot /ˈkærət/ 「にんじん」、報酬・誘因
- marauding power /məˈrɔːdɪŋ ˈpaʊər/ 略奪的・侵略的な勢力
- concede /kənˈsiːd/
認める・容認する（事実・論点・意見として）
敗北・降参する（主にスポーツ・政治で）
Jillian Melchior: So I'm interested in it for a couple of reasons. I mean, I think right now what's under discussion are Article 5 like security guarantees. That's what we keep hearing.
Paul Gigot: Explain what Article 5 is.
Jillian Melchior: It's an attack on one is an attack on all.
Paul Gigot: And it's part of NATO (inaudible)?
Jillian Melchior: And it's part of NATO.
Paul Gigot: Yeah.
Jillian Melchior: So Ukraine is not on an imminent path to join NATO. The question is what these Article 5 like guarantees entail and if Ukraine is going to have to give territorial concessions in exchange for that. Russia wants at minimum the whole of the Donbas region, but that's a really important region because it's home to the fortress belt. That's the Ukrainian defensive fortified position that has stopped the Russians from rolling further into the country. So when I'm talking to troops on the ground, what they say is these security guarantees need to be at least the equivalent of this fortress belt week. We count on force to stop the Russians. So I was looking at polling on this. Zelenskyy said that an offer like this he'd have to put before the Ukrainian public. There's still some skepticism. Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, one of the most respected bodies out there, talking about how 52% would categorically reject the transfer of Donbas region for security guarantees, while only about 40% are ready to accept. So the devil here is really in the details, especially given how Russia tends to make promises and then promptly violate them.
- imminent path /ˈɪmɪnənt pæθ/ 差し迫った道筋
- Article 5 /ˈɑːrtɪkl faɪv/ NATO第5条（集団防衛条項）
- guarantees entail /ˌɡærənˈtiːz ɪnˈteɪl/ 保証が意味する・伴う内容
- territorial concessions /ˌtɛrɪˈtɔːriəl kənˈsɛʃənz/ 領土の譲歩
- fortress belt /ˈfɔːrtrəs bɛlt/ 要塞地帯、防衛拠点
- rolling further into ~ /ˈroʊlɪŋ ˈfɜːrðər ˈɪntuː/ 〜へさらに進軍する
- polling /ˈpoʊlɪŋ/ 世論調査
- categorically reject /ˌkætəˈɡɔːrɪkli rɪˈdʒɛkt/ 断固として拒否する
categorically /ˌkætəˈɡɔːrɪkli/ 完全に、断固として、明確に「category（分類）」が語源 → 明確に分類するように、白黒はっきりさせるイメージ
→ 「きっぱり」「断固として」
- the devil is in the details /ðə ˈdɛvəl ɪz ɪn ðə ˈdiːteɪlz/ 詳細にこそ難点がある
- promptly violate /ˈprɑːmptli ˈvaɪəleɪt/ すぐに破る
Paul Gigot: Yeah. And last day or so, Kate, I saw that the Russian foreign minister said, "We reject this security guarantee offer." So it doesn't appear that Russia wants to accept that deal so far. And they keep returning every single time you broach this in public at least to, "Well, our original war aims are still intact." And those war aims were basically the surrender of Ukraine into Russian suzerainty, if I may use a old-fashioned word.
- broach ~ /broʊtʃ/ （話題を）持ち出す、切り出す
- war aims /wɔːr eɪmz/ 戦争の目的、戦略目標
- intact /ɪnˈtækt/ そのまま残っている、損なわれていない
- surrender /səˈrɛndər/ 降伏、引き渡し
- suzerainty /ˈsuːzərənti/ （古風）宗主権、従属国家を支配する権利
Kate Odell: Well, you had the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio saying this week that sometimes you go a long time and you negotiate and there's not a breakthrough and then suddenly there is. And that is true. And so I would like to remain optimistic that a deal here would be achievable. I think the axis that it's currently rotating on is that the more land Ukraine has to give up, the really tougher those security guarantees have to be because Jillian was describing, if Ukraine were to give up the whole of the Donbas as Russia wants, they'd be surrendering some very well fortified land that would make it easier for Putin to go back at it. So that requires that they get actually a teeth commitment with troops on the ground and some promise of intervention if he restarts it. Now, the harder you make the security guarantees, the less likely Putin is to accept them. And so this is the kind of doom loop we have been on for the past year. And now Rubio says that the issue set has narrowed and that they are down to just the gnarliest pieces of it, but I have yet to see any substantive reason to think those gnarliest issues have been worked out in a way that the United States can tolerate. And just briefly on your welcoming Russia back into the normal world of nations, for the United States, that should require him to change his intentions, to drop his constant talk about recreating the Soviet Empire. Commerce alone is not going to change kind of how he sees his place in the world and I think that's the real weakness in that idea.
- teeth commitment /tiːθ kəˈmɪtmənt/ 強制力のある具体的保証（military teeth = 実効力）
- doom loop /duːm luːp/ 悪循環、抜けられない負のループ
- gnarliest /ˈnɑːrliɪst/ 最も困難な、やや口語的
- substantive reason /səbˈstænʃɪv ˈriːzn/ 実質的な理由、根拠
- drop talk about ~ /drɑːp tɔːk əˈbaʊt/ 〜についての発言をやめる
- root weakness /ruːt ˈwiːknəs/ 根本的な弱点
Paul Gigot: Well, the US has brought in BlackRock and financial analysts to see what would it take to kind of rebuild Ukraine as part of this deal. And the number I was told is about $500 billion. Some people have thought it was (inaudible) a trillion and a half. My source said, "We think it's probably closer to about $500 billion." Big number, but they would get some of that from Russian reserves that are in Western banks in Belgium for the most part. But that's got to happen. The Ukraine has to be rebuilt. I guess one question is, is that commercial incentive big enough for Putin to stop? I've thought no, but the economic pressure is building, Jillian.
6：20
Jillian Melchior: It is. So looking at just the Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy is starting to have a real effect. Reuters was reporting this week that Russian state oil and gas revenues are halved in January compared to the previous year. This is the lowest level since July 2020, and that's-
Paul Gigot: Two years before the war.
Jillian Melchior: Yeah, this is the money that it uses to basically finance its war machines. So I think Russia wants this money back. It wants to be able to interact as a normal member of international society and reap the financial benefit from that. But a question is, what is it going to do with that money? And every indication is that it's going to ramp up production of its military and plan for the next time. So that's something that Ukrainians are considering. Another part of seizing these Russian assets and using them to rebuild Ukraine is there's a debate around how much of this goes to unoccupied Ukraine versus occupied Ukraine in a way that would kind of refortify Russia's claim on these territories.
- refortify Russia’s claim/ˌriːˈfɔːrtɪfaɪ ˈrʌʃəz kleɪm/ロシアの領有権主張を再強化する
Paul Gigot: This is Russian occupied Ukraine in the East.
Jillian Melchior: Yes. Correct.
Paul Gigot: Let's listen to Donald Trump talk this week about the outcome of requests he had made to Vladimir Putin to, because of the cold weather in Ukraine, it's a brutal winner there, stop attacking the energy infrastructure of Ukraine. Let's listen.
Donald Trump: It was Sunday to Sunday and it opened up and he hit him hard last night. No, he agreed. He kept his word on that. It's a lot. One week is ... We'll take anything because it's really, really cold over there, but it was on Sunday and he went from Sunday to Sunday.
Speaker 6: He just wanted ... He didn't go further or go north?
Donald Trump: I want him to end the war. I spoke to him. I want him to end the war.
Paul Gigot: Kate, this is becoming on repeat. "I want him to end the war." And he doesn't really get Putin to do it. And I guess one of the questions is, we've been writing, you've been writing, how much is Trump willing to ratchet up sanctions? He's been banging on the Europeans to do so. And now we read that the European Union is considering interdicting Russia's shadow oil fleet. We don't know if that'll get through all of the members as it has to do with the EU, kind of crazy governance there, but you have to do that. So somebody like Orban in Hungary could object to it. But if that happened, the EU started interdicting these ships and we started putting important sanctions on Russian oil sales. And then in India, the president just did a deal with Modi of India, which he says Modi is going to stop buying Russian oil, which he's been buying at a discounted rate. That could begin to put even more pressure on Russia's financing for the war.
- on repeat /ɑn rɪˈpiːt/ 繰り返し起こる、同じことの繰り返し
- ratchet up /ˈrætʃɪt ʌp/ 段階的に増加させる、強化する
- banging on (someone) /ˈbæŋɪŋ ɑn/ （口語）～に強く迫る、強く求める
- interdict /ˌɪntərˈdɪkt/ （公式・軍事的に）取り締まる、阻止する
- shadow oil fleet /ˈʃædoʊ ɔɪl fliːt/ 表向きではない隠れた石油輸送船団
- crazy governance /ˈkreɪzi ˈɡʌvərnəns/ （口語）制度が複雑で理解しにくい、統治構造がややこしい
Kate Odell: It certainly could. I mean, the Russian economy had basically no growth last year. It is a negligible player in things like artificial intelligence, and it is already on a real wartime footing. I mean, I think Russia's spending about 10% of its economy on defense, higher than that really when you count in all other types of things. But for comparison, I mean, the US spends 3%, we're trying to get our friends to 5%. It's an enormous amount of effort that he is putting towards his military infrastructure, and he needs his relationship with China and those oil sales to keep it going. And so I think the economic lever and the military lever are still available here because I've been arguing for a while now that a deal along the current front lines in Ukraine is a pretty fragile one that would make it easy for Putin to go back at it. And ideally the United States would get him to give up some territory, would get at least a little bit closer back to where he started.
- negligible player /ˈnɛɡlɪdʒəbəl ˈpleɪər/ ほとんど影響力のない存在
- wartime footing /ˈwɔːrˌtaɪm ˈfʊtɪŋ/ 戦時体制
Paul Gigot: You mean Putin? Putin would have to give up some territory.
Kate Odell: Sorry. Excuse me. Ideally-
Paul Gigot: We're not giving up Florida, Kate. We're not giving up Florida.
Kate Odell: Sorry. I think for the deal to be stable and durable in addition to those security guarantees, Putin has to pay some kind of territorial price for what he's done here. And if he gets to hold it all, it becomes very favorable for him to start again. Now, if we got a deal on the current lines, could we try to swallow it? I mean, maybe. But I make that point because I think the economic pressure here is really crucial to at least trying to get a deal that's stronger, that will last longer, that will end the bloodshed for longer, which is what the president really seems to be animated by. And it's also, we can talk more about this in a minute, but we're at an inflection of point thinking about what kind of threat Russia is going to present to NATO for the next decade. And this deal really matters to that question.
- swallow it /ˈswɑːloʊ ɪt/ （嫌なこと・不本意なことを）受け入れる
- animated by /ˈænɪˌmeɪtɪd baɪ/ ～に駆り立てられている、～に影響されて動いている
- inflection point /ɪnˈflɛkʃən pɔɪnt/ 分岐点、重要な転換点
Paul Gigot: Well, on that point, there's been some discussion that the Russians, if they got more of the Donbas and was able to capture that fortress line, they might give up some territory further south. There's been some discussion of that. Is that a fair trade in your view?
Jillian Melchior: It's ... A fair trade. That Donbas territory, that fortress belt is so important. That's the Ukrainian's strongest defenses.
Paul Gigot: And there's a clear run if they break that down to Kyiv, right?
- clear run /klɪr rʌn/ まっすぐ進めるルート、障害のない進路
Jillian Melchior: Well, at least to the Dnieper River. And that's a huge amount of distance that they can just roll through. So Ukrainians are really hesitant to give that up. It's been really interesting hearing Russia's rhetoric about the fortress belt compared to the reality on the ground. And the Kremlin likes to say that it's on the verge, this is going really well. But I was talking this morning to a soldier who's fighting on the Ukrainian side in Pokrov. This is kind of one of the epicenters of the fight. And he was describing how this is a slow grinding battle with enormous amounts of Russian casualties incurred and not a lot of advances. Then further up, this is just outside of the fortress belt, but in Kupyansk, the Ukrainians have actually managed to regain some of that territory, and you're seeing Russian troops diverted from the fortress belt to go fight there, and that's operationally significant. I think the broader point here is that the Russians are having a much more difficult time seizing the fortress belt by force. And so of course they're trying to gain it during negotiations.
Paul Gigot: All right. We are going to take a break. And when we come back, we'll talk about the extraordinary number of casualties that are being taken by the Russians in this war, when we come back.
Welcome back. I'm Paul Gigot here on Potomac Watch with the Kate Odell and Jillian Melchior. Kate, give us an indication here, more tangible ways and numbers, of the casualties that Russia is experiencing. Now, there are terrible casualties in Ukraine side too, and Ukraine doesn't have the manpower Russia does, but our friend Seth Jones at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a colleague, put together a pretty comprehensive study based on all of the sourcing that they can get, just what the casualties are here, and they really are staggering. Tell our listeners about that.
Kate Odell: Well, I think Seth did a real service here by trying to put some numbers on the record. I mean, he estimated about 1.2 million casualties on the Russian side alone, and that's killed, wounded, a mix, and he estimates about 325,000 killed. And to just give you a sense of the scale here, I mean, we're talking about five times the casualties Russians have taken in every conflict they've fought since World War II. I mean, this is just on a completely different scale from Soviet engagements, for instance, in Afghanistan. I mean, to give another comparison, I mean, the United States did some heavy and tough fighting in the Korean War for three years and took maybe one eighth of the casualties we're talking about. So it is important to underscore that we are talking about a war on the magnitude that the world really hasn't seen since World War II. Also, I mean, the question too is how much is Putin advancing for these casualties that he's paying? And if you look around the Pokrovsk offensive that Russia has been desperately trying to take all of Pokrovsk, you look along that line of effort and you see that the Russians haven't been advancing. I mean, 70 meters a day on average. I mean, that is slower than some of the most brutal offensives of World War I, as Seth really articulated in his paper. It's like, if you've been to Manhattan, starting on 42nd Street in the morning, ending up on 43rd Street. And real quick, because you mentioned Ukraine has manpower problems too, but when you start to look at the casualties in this paper, I mean, Russia appears to be taking two to one to 2.5 to one the Ukrainian casualties. And that's in part because they're using technology more effectively. They are much more careful about human life. But when you get into two to 2.5 to one casualties, if you talk to defense analysts, that really does start to get into the range where it becomes hard for Putin to keep sustaining his losses without serious national personnel mobilization that he's been reluctant to do. And so yes, Ukraine is a smaller power and it has very acute manpower issues, but Russia is not the dominant player in this war the way that they appear to be. They're not winning, even if you look at the manpower element of the war.
Paul Gigot: There's a little inside baseball here, but months ago when it looked like the Russians would first be able to capture Pokrovsk, I asked Jillian to write up an editorial based on the fact that it would fall. It's still in the can because it hasn't fallen. I'll update it when it happens, but that's what we're talking about here in the slow advance. And the way this war is conducted, it's not exactly like the World War I trench war because the lines are further along and it's patrolled by drones. It's in many ways, a drone war. But the Russians, because of the casualties, when they try of big offensive, I gather they're going with the motorcycle teams, small groups, patrols, and try to come in and take some territory. How would you like to have that mission? You're cannon fodder.
- inside baseball /ˈɪnsaɪd ˈbeɪsbɔːl/ 内部事情、専門家しかわからないディテール
- fall (in context) /fɔːl/ （都市・地域が）陥落する、占領される
- in the can /ɪn ðə kæn/ （文章・番組などが）完成しているが未公開
- cannon fodder /ˈkænən ˈfɑːdər/ 使い捨て兵士、犠牲になりやすい兵士
Jillian Melchior: Yeah, that's right. I mean, Pokrovsk, I want to talk about that region. They've been trying to take this for 24 months now, and we keep hearing they're just on the verge of it, hasn't happened. But you're absolutely right. When I was in the fortress belt in September, I was talking to Ukrainian drone operators and they're saying, "You have to think about this war in a different way." Instead of a line that is the front line, this is a 25-mile stretch and it's known as the kill zone. And what the Russians are basically doing is pointing a gun at their own guys saying, "You advance, your odds aren't good, but they're zero here," and pushing them forward. And so the guy I was talking to this morning was saying, these are under-trained troops that are advancing a couple meters, maybe we'll take a tree, you'll send five out and one of them will survive and be out there waiting for reinforcements. It's a very deadly slog. And you've seen videos in the past couple of weeks of Russian soldiers who haven't gone-
- deadly slog → 「ゆっくり進むが非常に危険な戦い」消耗戦や困難な戦いを表す口語・報道表現
Paul Gigot: When you say haven't gone, what do you mean?
Jillian Melchior: Refused to advance.
Paul Gigot: Refused to advance. These are conscripts who refuse to advance?
- conscripts /ˈkɑːnskrɪpts/ 徴兵された兵士
Jillian Melchior: Yeah. And there are really horrific videos of Russians tying them up in the forest, hanging them from trees in their underwear, brutalizing them. And I think that's meant to have a psychological effect.
Paul Gigot: Yeah. This will happen to you if you don't go over into the kill zone. For months as this war went on, Kate, the assumption was, well, Russians don't care about casualties. This is their history. Putin can take it. He controls the media entirely. So the word about some of this doesn't really spread. They were also paying the families of KIAs, substantial sums compared to what their regular incomes are. Now that doesn't make up for a sum loss, but this was all designed to kind of make it easier to take these large casualties. But sooner or later, this has to wear on the support domestically for what Russia is doing. Now, we can't hear opposition because you can't have any reporter in to listen and report fairly. We had ours arrested for months before he was released. So it's hard to know just how much pressure Putin is really under domestically.
- KIA (killed in action) /kiː aɪ ˈeɪ/ 戦死者
- substantial sums /səbˈstænʃəl sʌmz/ かなりの金額
- wear on the support→ 比喩表現。「徐々に国民の支持を減らす」
Kate Odell: It's near impossible to know really. I mean, he has no regard for human life. Of course, he's proved that in his conduct of the four years of this war, but he does have to consider his grip on power. I think that is ultimately what influences his analysis. And a lot of these conscripts have come from far-flung rural villages in very poor parts of Russia. And I think eventually he does have a replacement problem because he is just burning troops basically as fast as he can conscript them. And that eventually I think is a problem. And my argument has been, okay, we need to use the economic and military levers we have to put more pressure on Putin, not because he's going to recognize that he's committing an awful humanitarian slaughter, but because this needs to not be able to be achieved at a reasonable cost to him anymore. So Jillian's point about Pokrovsk really does bear on the larger negotiations picture too, because the argument for several months has been Ukraine should just give up the Donbas because Putin's going to take it anyway. And there's been a debate among analysts and intelligence communities about how long it's going to take Putin to take the Donbas. But I think the rate of advance and the Russian under-performance in Pokrovsk, it favors those who have said, "No, Ukraine should be careful about giving up the Donbas because Putin can't just walk through it. He would've done so by now." And so the slow rate of advance, I'm hoping that the CSIS report is read by our negotiators and our administration officials because it actually does give you a new way of thinking about the war that actually Putin has some precarious domestic economic realities and military battlefield realities that he can't sleep on. And the United States can use those to get a better, more durable peace in Ukraine.
- far-flung rural villages /fɑːr flʌŋ ˈrʊrəl ˈvɪlɪdʒɪz/ 遠隔の農村地帯
far-flung→ 「遠く離れた、辺鄙な」 - rate of advance /reɪt ʌv ədˈvæns/ 進軍速度
- under-performance /ˌʌndər pərˈfɔːrməns/ 期待以下の成果、低パフォーマンス
- precarious→ 「不安定な、危うい」
- bear on→ 「〜に関係する、影響する」
Paul Gigot: One of the people I hope reads it is the Vice President of the United States, JD Vance, who's been making the argument that Putin's going to win inevitably anyway. So Ukraine, suck it up and cut the deal you can now. And they don't want to take that offer from the VP. We are going to take another break and when we come back, we'll talk about what further sanctions or pressure, economic and battlefield pressure the United States could help Ukraine put on Russia to end this war, when we come back.
- suck it up /sʌk ɪt ʌp/ 現実を受け入れる、仕方なく耐える
- cut the deal /kʌt ðə diːl/ 取引を成立させる、合意する
- inevitably /ɪˈnɛvɪtəbli/ 避けられずに、必然的に
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Speaker 1: From the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.
Paul Gigot: Welcome back. I'm Paul Gigot here on Potomac Watch with Jillian Melchior in studio and Kate Odell in Washington. Levers that the US and Europe could use, Jillian. Europe, it's one of the scandals of this war is that the Europeans are still buying Russian oil and natural gas. So they ought to cut that off, but they have reduced the amount they take in. But these new sanctions on the shadow fleet interdiction would be very interesting. The other thing is the bill in the Senate with something like 80 some co-sponsors, the US Senate, Lindsey Graham and Senator Blumenthal from Connecticut, that would put so called secondary sanctions on the users of buyers of Russian oil. And the president gave his go ahead to put that on the floor, pass it in the Senate. It would pass easily and there's still no vote. John Thune hasn't put it up for a vote. But do you think that would make a big difference in Ukraine?
Jillian Melchior: I think it would make a difference. No one thing is going to win this war, but I think there are a couple places that you can hit Putin to make it count. And one of them is in the purse and another one is on energy facilities because that has an effect on the purse. And you're seeing Ukraine ramp up these long range strikes and it actually having an effect. And the third component is on the battlefield. With these secondary sanctions, I think going after the shadow fleet is a really good idea, not just for Ukraine's sake, but for the sake of European security. There have been concerns that Russia's using this shadow fleet to launch drones to spy on Europe far away from Ukraine.
- purse→ 「財布」ですが、軍事・外交文脈では「経済的打撃」を意味する比喩
- make it count /meɪk ɪt kaʊnt/ 無駄にせず、確実に効果を出す
hit A to make it count — Aに効く形で打撃を与える
Paul Gigot: Well, we've seen evidence of that.
Jillian Melchior: Yeah. But I guess just on the military point, Ukraine is ramping up this long range strike campaign. And the general staff just announced that flamingo missiles, these are the Ukrainian long range missiles that were just developed, were used to strike a Russian ICBM hub.
Paul Gigot: How far into Russia?
Jillian Melchior: Pretty far. I mean, this was by in one of the oblasts that's near the Caspian Sea. So it's not the maximum range of the Tomahawk claimed, but it's still a pretty far strike. Ukraine is doing this with its domestically produced weapons, probably with Western intelligence, but we could be giving them things like the Tomahawks that would be ramping up that pressure and making it more difficult for Russia to sustain its fight and more costly for Putin to do that. And that is something that we should be doing. I was talking to the developer of Flamingo this morning. She was saying, "There have been some strikes that have not been reported, details forthcoming, and you're going to expect a lot more of these."
Paul Gigot: Fascinating. And Kate, what do you hear about whether or not this bill on secondary sanctions is ever going to get a vote on the Senate floor?
Kate Odell: Yeah, it's in limbo. I mean, I'm hopeful that it will get a vote on the floor because it just has such overwhelming bipartisan support and because the president has green lit it in various shades of green, if you will, that seem to change by the day. So I think it will eventually receive a vote. I wish it would receive a vote sooner. But I think Jillian's right too, that sanctions alone are essential and part of it as a larger strategy, but the president really backed off giving Tomahawk weapons to Ukraine, decided they didn't need them. And while Ukraine deserves tremendous credit for their seriousness in developing their own long-range strike options like the Flamingo, it's very hard to compete with the Tomahawk for precision and range and also just a really powerful signal that the United States is serious about bringing the war to an end in a way that is durable. And so I just think that blend has to be there. What I'm concerned about is delayed sanctions vote, but I'm concerned that it's really, as the president is focused on the Middle East and elsewhere in Venezuela, that he's not giving the attention to the potential weapon support to Ukraine that he's going to need to do to get a deal.
- in limbo
→ 「宙ぶらりんの状態」「進展が止まっている状態」 - in various shades of green, if you will
→ 「いわば“いろんな段階の承認を与えている”ということ」 - blend has to be there
→ 「この組み合わせ（戦略・要素の混合）が必要だ」
Paul Gigot: Think back four years and think of the extraordinary effort that Ukraine has made. I mean, when Putin got into this war, he thought he was going to take Kyiv in three days. He sent in the troops into the Air Force. They'd capture Zelenskyy at his command post. They'd send in the tanks around the city. Boom, it'd be over. Four years later, a very different reality. I think you can't understate the degree to which the Ukrainians have demonstrated enormous courage and ability to sacrifice for what they think is their war of independence. And it's an astonishing story, really, when you think about it. And I think that for Putin's point of view, I mean, this is not a man who shows publicly that he is given to self-reflection, but when he does look at the ceiling at night or at the moon, he has to think, "I didn't expect this. I didn't expect four years and I didn't expect this amount of devastation." Now, whether or not he's willing to stop it because he's invested so much, I mean, he may think that, "I can't stop now because if I do, I will fall and therefore I will be imprisoned or worse." But it's one of the great miscalculations in modern times.
- you can't understate /ju kænt ˌʌn.dərˈsteɪt/ 過小評価できない、強調して言うと足りないくらい
- demonstrate courage and ability to sacrifice /ˈdem.ən.streɪt ˈkɜːr.ɪdʒ ənd əˈbɪl.ə.ti tu ˈsækrɪ.faɪs/ 勇気と犠牲心を示す
- astonishing story /əˈstɒn.ɪ.ʃɪŋ ˈstɔː.ri/ 驚くべき話
- given to self-reflection /ˈɡɪv.ən tu ˌself rɪˈflek.ʃən/ 自己反省する傾向がある
- miscalculation /ˌmɪsˌkæl.kjʊˈleɪ.ʃən/ 誤算、計算違い
Jillian Melchior: It's really extraordinary. I mean, I think he's looking up at that ceiling thinking at night saying, "This is the bed I want to die in." But I do think that there's something to be said here about what Ukrainians are demonstrating. I was looking at that polling and they are going through such a tough patch right now. In Kyiv, the heat's been off. It's as cold there as it is in New York. I have friends who are going around with their flashlights and their power banks just trying to make it through the day and their down comforters. And yet I'm looking at this poll and it's saying that 65% of Ukrainians are willing to endure this war for as long as is necessary. And that is up from before Russia began these strikes on the energy sector. So I think Ukrainians view this as a fight that they cannot lose. Their lives, their families, their freedoms are at stake, and that determination and that courage is really fueled by necessity.
- tough patch /tʌf pætʃ/ 困難な時期、つらい状況
- the heat’s been off /ðə hiːts bɪn ɔːf/ 暖房が効いていない
- power bank /ˈpaʊər bæŋk/ モバイルバッテリー
- down comforter /daʊn ˈkʌmfərtər/ 羽毛布団
- willing to endure /ˈwɪlɪŋ tu ɪnˈdjʊər/ ～に耐える覚悟がある
- fueled by necessity /ˈfjuːəld baɪ nəˈsesəti/ 必要性によって支えられる、必要に駆られる
Paul Gigot: And they know the stories of what happened to Ukrainian families in the occupied territories. Their children were snatched up and brought to Russia, for example, many were summarily shot. Kate, you're going to get the last word.
- snatched up /snætʃt ʌp/ さらわれる、強制的に連れ去られる
- summarily shot /ˈsʌməˌrɪli ʃɑːt/ 即決で処刑された
Kate Odell: Ukraine's performance, if you think back to the beginning of the war, even in the United States, they were talking that Ukraine couldn't hold on very long, that soon we'd be arming a counterinsurgency against the Russians. I mean, that was a live discussion only two weeks into the war. And so for them to have held on four years, like I said, it goes to my point about kind of flipping our thinking here from, "Oh, Ukraine's an eventual loser," to, "Actually Ukraine has over-performed and we have an opportunity to turn that into at least something approaching a defeat for Putin." And there's still a real US interest in doing that.
- counterinsurgency /ˌkaʊntərɪnˈsɜːrdʒənsi/ 反乱鎮圧（対ゲリラ戦）
- live discussion /laɪv dɪˈskʌʃən/ 現実的に真剣に議論されている話題
- flip our thinking /flɪp aʊər ˈθɪŋkɪŋ/ 考え方を転換する
- eventual loser /ɪˈventʃuəl ˈluːzər/ いずれ負ける側
- over‑performed /ˌoʊvərpərˈfɔːrmd/ 予想以上に健闘した
- something approaching a defeat /ˈsʌmθɪŋ əˈproʊtʃɪŋ ə dɪˈfiːt/ 敗北に近い状態
Paul Gigot: All right. Thank you, Kate Odell. Thank you, Jillian Melchior. Thank you all for listening. We are here every day on Potomac Watch.
What’s News
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2026
2/5/2026 4:56:00 PMShare This Episode
Crypto’s Long, Hard Fall This Winter
この冬、暗号資産が経験した長く厳しい下落
P.M. Edition for Feb. 5. Even as stocks have been on a tear in recent months, the price of bitcoin has fallen, today closing below $64,000, its lowest level in more than a year. Journal reporter Vicky Ge Huang talks about why investors seem to have soured on bitcoin and crypto. Plus, the latest batch of Epstein files has led to political pressure on U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and led Brad Karp, leader of the law firm Paul Weiss, to step down as chair of the firm. We hear from WSJ national legal affairs reporter Erin Mulvaney about what his resignation means for Paul Weiss. And the government’s January jobs report may be delayed because of the government shutdown, but other sources of data indicate it probably wasn’t a great month for the labor market. Alex Ossola hosts.
- long, hard fall /lɔːŋ hɑːrd fɔːl/ 長く厳しい下落
- on a tear /ɑːn ə tɛr/ 絶好調で
❌ tear（涙） /tɪr/
❌ tear（破る） /tɛr/（名詞・動詞）
ではなくて、
👉 「猛烈な勢い」「突進」「止まらない動き」名詞 tear（/tɛr/）
to tear along
👉 全速力で突っ走る
The car tore along the highway.
to go on a tear
👉 勢いが止まらない状態に入る
- let up /lɛt ʌp/ 弱まる、和らぐ
let の基本イメージ
「妨げない」「そのままにする」「許す」「コントロールを緩める」 が let の核
let up の let 弱まる・緩む・収まる let = 力を入れるのをやめる
Let us go → Let’s go「（一緒に）〜しよう」 let = 許す
The rain finally let up.
The pressure didn’t let up.
👉 主語は人じゃないことが多い