Nuland and O’Brien’s statements are the Beltway equivalent of happy bedtime stories the establishment tells itself in order to keep the wolves of reality, conscience, and failure from the door. They are highly improbable accounts of the current situation on the ground where, according to former Ukrainian prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko, Ukraine has suffered 500,000 dead in its war with Russia, losing “30,000 people a month in the war as killed and seriously wounded.”