"What Trump is doing is business. He treats countries the same way he treats his businesses. However, having served the state for a long time and been in public service, I can say that war cannot be waged like business. Completely different principles apply here. State systems — especially when it comes to the armed forces — cannot be run in that manner," Ühtegi said.

"If people think it is possible to buy, sell, trade, bluff and do all sorts of other things, in the end, it simply does not work."

Ühtegi said that right now, it is clear that Russian forces are pushing hard in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. "They absolutely need to capture these two regions. They also want to advance as far south as possible to secure a border. That way, if they enter negotiations, they will have a clear starting point," Ühtegi said.

Speaking about Russia's missile and drone attacks on various Ukrainian cities, Ühtegi said that Russia is operating under the assumption that negotiations will eventually be necessary and is trying to break Ukraine as much as possible in the meantime. "Not just politically, but also the will of the people. That is why civilian targets are being attacked," Ühtegi said.

He acknowledged that while attacks on civilian infrastructure may further anger Ukrainians, there is a threshold of pain beyond which people will begin demanding an end to the attacks. "Ukraine's leadership has a moral duty to its people to preserve human life and to maintain societal cohesion. At some point, people will start asking what is being done to make that happen," Ühtegi said.

At the same time, Ühtegi noted that Russia is in a relatively difficult situation and, in his view, currently needs peace more than Ukraine does. "In my opinion, Russia is very close to its limits," he said.

Ühtegi explained that Russia is moving away from using cruise missiles in its attacks because they are relatively slow and Ukraine's air defenses are effective. Ballistic missiles, he said, cause much more damage, even if air defenses manage to hit them. "The thing with ballistic missiles is that even if you shoot one down, it will still crash somewhere. You can also attempt to disrupt it with electronic warfare, but even then it will hit within about a 100-meter radius of its target," Ühtegi said.

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