Is Putin winning the war?
Putin isn’t “winning the war” he started—at the start, he clearly laid the goals: “denazification and demilitarization” of Ukraine—meaning, installing a puppet regime and destroying Ukraine’s army. He failed.
Putin also said the goal was to capture (“liberate”) the territory of Donbas—he was more successful there: the Russian troops managed to capture nearly all territory of the Luhansk region and 75% of the Donetsk region.
(Russia already had control of the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk since 2014.)
Russia controls LESS territory now compared to 4 years ago: in March 2022, Russia controlled 27% of the Ukrainian territory. Now, it’s 20%.
Russia lost territory compared to the situation just 4 weeks into their invasion.
The areas that Russia captured in combat since mid-2022 are pretty much in ruins. The towns that Russia managed to capture in the first weeks of the invasion and then managed to keep, these towns weren’t destroyed, because Ukraine wasn’t ready to fight a war.
The Russians just came in February 2022 and took over some cities with little to no resistance.
The towns that Russians tried to capture months into the war and onward, were already defended by the Ukrainian army. The only way Russia could capture them was to raze the towns into ruins. So, the Russians bombed the cities into smithereens.
Russia controls many such ghost towns where people no longer live, in the East of Ukraine.
Russia calls it “liberation.”
Ukraine calls it “murderous invasion” and “crimes against humanity.”
Russia says they came to “defend the Russian speakers.”
Ukraine says that the Russian speakers in these towns had to either flee or got killed by Russian bombs, missiles, and artillery fire.
Putin says he’s “winning the war.”
He doesn’t care that thousands of Russians die every week, trying to capture more territory for him. He doesn’t care that the Russian economy is decaying. He is angry that Ukraine strikes back at Russia—he thought only Russia would bomb Ukraine, and Ukraine won’t hit Russian cities.
Putin-lovers say that the Russians will endure anything for Putin. They say that Russia will be able to outlast Ukraine—because Russia is big and powerful.
Putin is now in the 5th year of his “3-day special military operation”—and he still insists he’s “winning” and that “all goals of the special military operation in Ukraine will be achieved.”
The Russian public and elites no longer believe him.
This public discontent in Russia is getting louder by the day.
I’m not saying there will be a coup or a revolution in Russia tomorrow. I’m saying the situation has notably shifted compared to what we saw 6 months ago.
And Ukraine hasn’t even started hammering Russia with ballistic missiles. Which they expect to be ready to do within months.
Let’s come back to this topic in December 2026.
I think we’ll have much more clarity at that point.
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