Ukraine/Russia stalemate. The moment for talks.

Twenty months of war and both sides are at an impasse.

The brutal air and ground attack on the people of Gaza has pushed the twenty month long war in Ukraine to the back pages.

NBC’s war correspondent, Richard Engel, has changed the location of his breathless reporting from Kyiv to the Gaza/Israel border.

The U.S. has its hands in both of these wars. Biden wants billions of dollars and weapons for both Israel and Ukraine with no effort on his part to find a path for peace or a ceasefire.

While Republicans seem less supportive in continuing U.S. aid to Ukraine, there is bipartisan support for Israel. As a result, Biden’s plan has been to combine both funding for both wars in a single war-funding package.

All calls for a ceasefire have been rejected by Biden.

For the time being attention has shifted away from Ukraine. But an article in this morning’s New York Times caught my eye.

“Just like in the First World War we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate,” the commander, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, told The Economist in an interview published on Wednesday. “There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.”

It was the first time a top Ukrainian commander said the fighting had reached an impasse, although General Zaluzhny added that the deadlock could be broken if Ukraine improved its technological abilities to gain air superiority and increase the effectiveness of artillery fire. He added that Russian forces, too, are incapable of advancing.

The general said modern technology and precision weapons on both sides were preventing troops from breaching enemy lines, including the expansive use of drones, and the ability to jam drones. He called for advances in electronic warfare as a way to break the deadlock.

All the talk we heard earlier this year about how the Spring offensive by Ukraine would dramatically shift the war in their favor has vanished.

Of course, in declaring a stalemate, General Zaluzhny argues that the impasse can only be broken by more guns, higher level war-making technology and more soldiers dying on both sides.

Clearly the Russians will match the west with guns, tech and soldiers.

The result will be the same old same old. Or worse.

Now is the time for talks to begin.