Since the start of the war in Iran, conventional wisdom says that Russia has enjoyed a windfall from soaring oil prices so great that it has strengthened its position in the war in Ukraine. This has even trickled into the White House, which is quietly continuing to incentivize Russia to end the war, while Moscow claims that Kyiv is “militarily defeated.”
But that consensus has masked a far more overlooked truth. Rather than Russia, it is Ukraine that has recently seen its most successful stretch, both on and off the battlefield, in years — and perhaps since the war first began.
Start with the battlefield first. Not only has Ukraine managed to stave off Russia’s years-long offensive, forcing Moscow’s troops to advance at a slog so slow they are reminiscent of World War I. But in recent weeks, Kyiv has managed to capture more territory than the Kremlin for the first time in nearly three years. Perhaps most remarkably, some of those gains have come without the presence of Ukrainian troops whatsoever, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky. Two weeks ago, he revealed that Kyiv retook territory using a brigade of robots and drones alone for the first time.
Those gains are still incremental and hardly enough to force Russian troops out of Ukraine itself. But these new advances have come amid a parallel development that is putting the Russian military on the back foot while opening up much more of Russian infrastructure and Russia’s own territory to Ukrainian assaults.
