Is Vladimir Putin getting tired of Russia's war in Ukraine?

Facing mounting military and economic strain, Putin is reshaping the narrative around Russia’s war in Ukraine without abandoning his maximalist demand.

by Tim Zadorozhnyy

The Kyiv Independent, May 14, 2026 5:19 PM; article contains numerous links and additional illustrations

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a ceremony to lay flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by the Kremlin wall in central Moscow, Russia, on May 9, 2026. (Alexander Nemenov / POOL / AFP / Getty Image/) 

After presiding over the smallest Victory Day parade of his rule, Russian President Vladimir Putin shifted tone on his country's war against Ukraine.

"I think (the war in Ukraine) is coming to an end," Putin told journalists on May 9 — a statement that drew attention because it was the first of its kind in four years.

Putin also avoided many of the triumphalist talking points that have defined his public appearances. And for perhaps the first time in years, he publicly referred to President Volodymyr Zelensky as "Mr. Zelensky."

"This is slightly new language from Putin," said John Lough, senior research fellow and head of foreign policy at the New Eurasian Strategies Center. In previous years, Putin routinely described the Ukrainian president as a "neo-Nazi drug addict."

The remarks came at a moment when Russia faces mounting military, economic, and political pressure despite continuing offensive operations in Ukraine.

A few days later, however, Russia launched another mass missile attack against Ukraine, killing and injuring dozens of civilians in Kyiv.

"His statement is therefore best read as tactical populism: telling Russians that the end is visible, while telling Ukraine and the West that the price of that end remains political surrender," said Gregoire Roos, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia programs at Chatham House.

Russia's system revolves around Putin

Understanding the importance of Putin's comments requires understanding how power functions in modern Russia.

Russia is described as a personalist autocracy — a system where political authority is concentrated almost entirely in the hands of one individual.

In practice, this means one thing above all else: Russia's war continues because Putin personally wants it to continue.

That reality also explains why U.S. President Donald Trump has failed to secure any meaningful breakthrough in peace talks despite repeated outreach to Moscow.

Trump's approach — centered around dealmaking, sanctions relief, and diplomatic incentives — ultimately ran into the same obstacle: Putin himself.

The Russian president has rejected proposals that would require compromise while continuing to insist on maximalist demands that Ukraine considers unacceptable.

Putin himself has, at times, openly hinted at the psychological logic behind the Kremlin's wartime mentality.

"When everything is calm… we get bored — we want some action," he said during his annual press conference in 2024. 

The Kremlin launched the invasion expecting a quick victory. Instead, it received a prolonged war with no clear end and security concerns inside Russia itself.

"As soon as the action starts, though, everything whistles past your head — shells and bullets flying by — and suddenly it's scary, terrifying. But not absolutely terrifying."

That worldview helps explain why even substantial concessions floated by Washington — including discussions about sanctions relief and recognition of Russia's occupation of Ukraine's Crimea — failed to move Moscow closer to ending the war.

For Putin, critics argue, Trump's transactional diplomacy was unlikely to fundamentally alter the Kremlin's calculus.

The war does not directly threaten Putin's personal wealth or grip on power yet.

What changed?

The battlefield reality, however, facing Russia today differs from the ambitions Moscow had at the start of the full-scale invasion.

When Russia launched its all-out war in February 2022, Putin expected a rapid collapse of Ukrainian resistance. Russian troops advanced toward Kyiv, Kharkiv, and southern Ukraine under the assumption that the government would quickly fall.

Instead, Russia was pushed back.

Russian forces withdrew from northern Ukraine in spring 2022 after failing to capture Kyiv, and since then, Moscow has struggled to secure any breakthrough capable of changing the course of the war.

More than four years into the all-out invasion, the front line has largely hardened into a grinding war of attrition.

Recent months have brought little territorial movement despite Russian losses.

At the same time, Ukraine significantly expanded its long-range strike campaign against Russian infrastructure.

Almost nightly, Ukrainian drones target oil refineries, military airfields, ammunition depots, and industrial facilities deep inside Russia of the Kremlin's central wartime strategies — attempting to break Ukrainian morale through systematic attacks on energy infrastructure during winter — failed to produce the collapse Moscow hoped for.

David Marples [JB -- see] , a distinguished professor at the University of Alberta, said Russia increasingly faces pressure both on the battlefield and inside its economy.

"Russia is losing more troops than it can replace without opting for full conscription," Marples said.

According to him, the Kremlin relies on prisoners, short-term contract recruits, foreign fighters, and financially incentivized volunteers to sustain offensive operations.

"Ukrainian drones are hitting Russian oil refineries with regularity, which is far more effective in slowing its economy than sanctions are," Marples added.

The Kremlin launched the invasion expecting a quick victory. Instead, it received a prolonged war with no clear end and security concerns inside Russia itself.

Putin's growing fears

One of the clearest signs of the Kremlin's anxiety has emerged online.

Following the killing of the Iranian leadership and the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, Russian authorities intensified restrictions on internet access.

Since May 2025, Russia has experienced recurring fixed-line and mobile internet shutdowns across multiple regions. ...

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JB: Regrettably, after long efforts beyond my limited understanding, I was unable to post the entirety of this thought-provoking article by the use of my home computer. If it's my ignorance, I'll take the blame ...