Drone strikes, mounting casualties and a distracted US president means a slow-motion victory is in doubt
Vladimir Putin suggested that the war in Ukraine may be “coming to an end” on Saturday – comments that raise the question of why the Russian president might want a possible end to the war now, given how the fighting is evolving.
After Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive in the summer of 2023, Moscow had been gradually taking Ukrainian territory. Though the Russian attacks were slow, grinding and costly in terms of casualties, they had created a sense that Ukraine was slowly but inevitably losing. But that has changed.
Ukraine’s recapture of Kupiansk in December – claimed by Moscow to have been taken a month earlier – surprised even western military experts. An agreement that prevented the invaders from using the Starlink satellite internet service in February – and Russia’s own curtailing of Telegram, also widely used for communication – helped Ukraine reverse territorial losses in Zaporizhzhia region of about 100 sq miles.
In April, according to the Institute for the Study of War, Russia lost control of 45 sq miles of Ukraine. It was the first time Russia had suffered a net loss of territory since August 2024 (the month of Ukraine’s surprise attack into Russia’s Kursk region), and comes after the invaders made negligible gains in February and March. A slow-motion victory for Moscow no longer looks certain.
