In this video, world-renowned political scientist and international relations scholar Prof. John Mearsheimer fundamentally challenges the dominant Western narrative of the Ukraine war. While reports of heavy Russian losses, successful Ukrainian drone attacks, and slow Russian territorial gains suggest that Moscow is coming under increasing pressure, Mearsheimer reaches a very different conclusion.
Why does he assess Ukraine’s military situation so pessimistically? Mearsheimer examines the balance of forces on the battlefield, the air war, Western support, and political developments inside Ukraine – and explains why he believes Kyiv’s long-term prospects are continuing to deteriorate.
This video was produced by John Mearsheimer and published on his YouTube channel on the 2nd of September, 2026. We have translated it into German and are republishing it today to help build opinion on this issue in Germany and beyond.
To read the transcript of the interview: Episode 6: Why Ukraine Is Doomed
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John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1982. He graduated from West Point in 1970 and then served five years as an officer in the U.S. Air Force. He then started graduate school in political science at Cornell University in 1975. He received his Ph.D. in 1980. He spent the 1979-1980 academic year as a research fellow at the Brookings Institution, and was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs from 1980 to 1982. During the 1998-1999 academic year, he was the Whitney H. Shepardson Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
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