It was a fight for freedom and autonomy against a Nazi-style regime run by the evil Putin. Now it is an inconvenient money sink. That’s why, back in December, the administration signaled that Ukraine should consider giving up territory to end the war.

It is a frustrating reality that Ukraine doesn’t have the manpower and material to beat Russia, but the reality is that they don’t and never will. Even if they had unlimited supplies of modern weapons, Russia has three times the population and a deeper reserve of older, less capable weapons that would be sufficient to defend the territory they had taken. We can wish that weren’t so, but it is.

Clearly, the signal has gone out to the Establishment media that it is now time to change the Ukraine-related propaganda, and The New York Times is doing its bit.

Biden is still pushing for one more tranche of weapons shipments to Ukraine, although I suspect that this will be the last and that Zelenskyy will be warned that his “offensive” is no more. He would be expected to use what he gets to defend the territory he has and negotiate a cease-fire.

But as you can see from the shift in tone–“Hey, maybe Ukraine isn’t the paragon of democracy we said it was”–the pro-Ukraine propaganda is becoming muted.

With Ukraine’s military facing mounting deaths and a stalemate on the battlefield, army recruiters have become increasingly aggressive in their efforts to replenish the ranks, in some cases pulling men off the streets and whisking them to recruiting centers using intimidation and even physical force.

Recruiters have confiscated passports, taken people from their jobs and, in at least one case, tried to send a mentally disabled person to military training, according to lawyers, activists and Ukrainian men who have been subject to coercive tactics. Videos of soldiers shoving people into cars and holding men against their will in recruiting centers are surfacing with increasing frequency on social media and in local news reports.

The harsh tactics are being aimed not just at draft dodgers but at men who would ordinarily be exempt from service — a sign of the steep challenges Ukraine’s military faces maintaining troop levels in a war with high casualties, and against a much larger enemy.

When the story becomes high casualties, no progress, coercive tactics, and near-kidnapping, you have to expect support to wane. And that is what the powers that be want.

Not a rapid reversal, but a bleeding away of support. The goal now, as it likely always was, is to not lose the war, not to win it.

The administration official told POLITICO Magazine this week that much of this strategic shift to defense is aimed at shoring up Ukraine’s position in any future negotiation. “That’s been our theory of the case throughout — the only way this war ends ultimately is through negotiation,” said the official, a White House spokesperson who was given anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the record. “We want Ukraine to have the strongest hand possible when that comes.”

Is this the war as it was sold for two years?

Of course not. But then again, I find it difficult to believe that anybody in the administration ever believed that Ukraine’s borders would ever be secure. Russia is big, on Ukraine’s border, and dug in. What Washington wanted was to bleed Putin dry and use Ukrainians to do it. Low cost, high gain for Washington; terrible for the Ukrainians.

Was this strategy cynical? You bet it was. Was it justifiable? Perhaps, depending on how cold-blooded one is.

Was Biden honest with the American people? Obviously not.

In any case, expect the Ukraine war to wind down, at least in US media. As I noted in December, The Washington Post has already dropped it from their top stories to follow column.