The display of force that Russia rained on Ukraine early on Tuesday, with hundreds of drones and missiles, cannot mask the increasing signs of Moscow’s weakness in the four-year war.Russia’s frontline advance in Ukraine has slowed almost to a halt. It has stepped up coerced mobilisation in occupied eastern Ukraine as its domestic recruitment efforts have fallen short. Domestic discontent is growing. Europe is providing new support to Ukraine. And peace talks brokered by the United States have all but ended.All this adds up to a loss of momentum by Russia, analysts say.“Ukraine’s position is much, much more formidable now than just a year ago,” Franz-Stefan Gady, a military analyst based in Vienna, said in an interview on Tuesday.Some analysts say they believe Russia’s recently stepped-up strikes are an attempt to reclaim an advantage in potential peace talks and to re-engage the Trump administration, which has become more focused on the war in Iran than the one in Ukraine.Ukrainian soldiers fire at a Russian drone in Kostiantynivka, Ukraine. Photograph: Tyler Hicks/The New York Times Ukraine’s battlefield gains, nonetheless, have turned the tide in the war, said Jack Watling, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a research organisation in London.While Russia’s air strikes could continue “for a long period”, Watling said on Tuesday, its combat performance is waning. That has led to “a growing optimism that Ukraine can fight Russia to a ceasefire”, he wrote in an analysis this week for Foreign Affairs.That is a stark turnabout from last summer, when Russian president Vladimir Putin was so confident of victory that he flew to Alaska for a meeting of minds with US president Donald Trump on how to end the war. These days, president Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine is the one pushing for a quick end to the hostilities.In Moscow on Tuesday, Putin’s chief spokesperson said the war could end as soon as Ukraine withdraws from the Donbas region, where Russia has claimed territory.[ Ukrainian drones hit St Petersburg as Putin’s flagship economic forum opensOpens in new window ]“We remain open to peace negotiations,” said spokesman Dmitry Peskov, even as he conceded that talks were at a standstill.Gady said Russia was unlikely to seize full control of the Donbas by the end of 2026, as it had sought to do before returning to ceasefire negotiations. But, he said, the barrage of air strikes like those on Tuesday show that Russia’s air power cannot be discounted, and “Ukraine is certainly going to see more of these attacks”.Ukraine, in the meantime, is holding the line on the ground.A soldier with the 28th Mechanised Brigade prepares to fire at Russian targets from an artillery position in Kostiantynivka, Ukraine. Photograph: Tyler Hicks/The New York Times