BEN MORGAN – Russia needs a victory this spring but probably won’t get one!
Russia needs a battlefield victory in 2026 — not just to win the war, but to prove it can still win at all. But as Ukraine steadily grinds down Russian forces and Europe re-arms, the uncomfortable reality for Vladimir Putin is this: time may have already run out.
In Ukraine, a brief ceasefire for the Orthodox Church’s Easter celebrations finished on Sunday. A brief pause in the conflict that provided an opportunity to reflect and consider several trends that indicate Ukraine’s strategy is working and inflicting a slow, but steady reduction in Russian combat power. A situation that puts pressure on Russia to win a large victory this spring because its economic and military resources are reducing quickly. In fact, 2026 may be Putin’s last chance to win on the battlefield.
Ukraine is bleeding Russia slowly — and it’s working
Ukraine’s strategy for winning the war aims to create either; economic hardship that constrains Putin’s political ability to maintain the war, or that forces him into the politically unsustainable position of needing to use conscripted soldiers in Ukraine.
Broadly speaking the strategy uses two military ‘effects’ to attrit the Russian economy, and achieve these objectives:
- A strategic air campaign that targets Russia’s primary source of export revenue, the oil industry. The campaign’s aim is to reduce Russia’s revenue and therefore its ability to pay for military equipment and fund contract soldiers.
- Meanwhile at tactical-level Ukraine aims to destroy as much Russian manpower and material as possible. Resources that need to be replaced and must be paid for from the reducing pool of revenue Russia receives from oil exports.
In March, Ukraine’s campaign recorded two significant milestones. The first was in the air battle where Ukrainian long-range drone strikes outnumbered Russian attacks.[i] An important metric for success because it indicates the industrial power that Ukraine is mobilising to produce long-range drones and missiles. A notable feature of drone and missile combat is that ‘the gods of war favour bigger swarms’ and overwhelming an adversary’s air defences requires massive numbers so mass producing these weapons is a key component of Ukraine’s strategy. This March, Ukraine demonstrated that it could produce more drones and missiles than Russia.
The second trend relates to battlefield casualties because in March Ukraine set a record for Russian casualties, killing or seriously wounding approx. 35,351 soldiers.[ii] Russia enlisted approx. 450,000 new soldiers in 2025, or approx. 35,000 soldiers per month.[iii] If Ukraine can maintain this rate of attrition Russia will find it impossible to build up the reserves of manpower required for offensive manoeuvre. However, Ukraine has a bigger goal – to attrit Russia at a rate of 50,000 soldiers killed or seriously wounded per month.[iv] By maintaining or increasing its ability to attrit Russian frontline forces Ukraine ensures Putin is forced to continuously find money to pay for contract soldiers – accelerating Russia’s arrival at the point when the politically unpalatable use of conscript soldiers must be considered.
Generally, Ukraine’s strategy is working – Russia continues to fight but the economic cracks are starting to show. In February, the Jamestown Foundation recently summarising the situation
as follows “An economic inversion is taking place in Russia. Independent experts have calculated that the Russian economy has suffered a record-breaking collapse over the past year. Almost 30% of companies in Russia were unprofitable in 2025, and they have lost approximately 7.5 trillion rubles (approximately $100 billion)”.[v] At the same time, Al Jazeera news network drew similar conclusions reporting that “The Kremlin may appear willing to wage the war no matter the cost to its coffers and people, but that does not mean that doing so is not devastating its economy.”[vi]Evidence that the war is slowly eating away at Russia’s economy.
However, President Trump’s war with Iran has thrown Putin a ‘lifeline.’ Trump’s response to the blockade of the Straits of Hormuz includes lifting US sanctions on Russian oil. The impact of this change is difficult to predict but my assessment is that the impact is unlikely to be immediate because Russian exports are being slowed down by damaged infrastructure, that takes time to repair. Notably, Ukraine’s ability to damage larger targets with bigger drones and ‘home grown’ cruise missiles like Flamingo has also increased. New capabilities that Ukraine is now using to target hard to repair facilities at ports like Primorsk, Ust-Luga, and Novorossiysk.
Europe is rearming while Trump drifts away
A predictable impact of the Trump White House’s foreign policy is the military mobilisation of Europe. The administration’s attacks on Europe, tariffs and threats to annex Greenland has strained relationships. The Iran War further widened the rift between NATO and the US. Trump is more critical of the alliance and threatening to withdraw the US – upset by European unwillingness to support the war.
This behaviour means European countries are keen to mitigate the risk of a US withdrawal by developing their local defence industrial base, developing independent intelligence networks and encouraging greater inter-operability. For example, in February McKinsey reported that “European defence spending is surging. Core defence spending has doubled since 2019 and, under NATO’s new 3.5% benchmark for 2035, could reach about €800 billion by 2030 — roughly 2.9% of GDP.”[vii]
NATO’s largest nations are leading this movement. For example, German defence spending could soon be larger than the UK and France’s combined expenditure. Additionally, since January Germany has started to register men of military age as a prelude to a potential re-introduction of conscription.[viii] Poland’s defence expenditure is 4.1% of GDP and in the UK, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is committed to increasing defence spending to 3.5% of GDP by 2035.[ix]
NATO’s Nordic countries Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are also spending more and working together closely to confront the threat posed by Russia.[x] A collaboration that also includes Canada, the UK and France. The northern and Atlantic members of the alliances securing their borders and area of interest in an increasingly assertive manner.
Trump’s foreign policy incentivises Europe to become more independent of the US. Already, we can see NATO’s assertiveness when Trump threatened to annex Greenland, and this week’s election result in Hungary demonstrates the widespread disdain for the current US administration. Pro-Trump candidate Victor Orban losing in a landslide. Events that indicate European concerns and signal that European powers are starting to develop a more independent foreign policy that is likely to include supporting Ukraine to defeat Europe’s closest threat,
But Europe’s re-armament will take time, and Russian strategists will have appreciated that there is a limited window of opportunity before NATO aid starts to deliver war-winning results. This means we should expect intensive Russian offensive activity this spring and summer.
At operational-level Ukraine’s drones stop Russia’s annual offensive
Ukraine continues to ‘fix’ a large part of Russia’s combat forces at Pokrovsk, committed to that battle but unable to breakthrough Ukraine’s lines. Meanwhile, further south in Dnipropetrovsk Ukrainian forces remain on the offensive. Ukraine has switched main effort from attriting Russian forces in Donetsk, to an offensive operation near Dnipropetrovsk.
Ukraine’s aim is to disrupt Russian plans to generate a summer offensive in that area. A goal Ukraine appears to be achieving, the Institute for the Study of War reporting on 10 April[xi] that Russian strategic reserves are being sent to reinforce this area. Specifically, the 5th Combined Arms Army (CAA) that is engaged near Huliapole and the 58th CAA that is engaged near Orikhiv. This is a noteworthy deployment of force away from Russia’s previous main effort at Pokrovsk demonstrating the impact of Ukraine’s operation in Dnipropetrovsk.
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Last week, the Deputy Head of the Ukrainian Presidential Office, Colonel Pavlo Palisa provided useful insights into the drone war. Palisa discussed Ukraine’s current drone superiority stating that Ukraine currently deploys approx. 30% more drones than Russia leading to higher Russian casualties. However, he also pointed out that drone superiority can rapidly change citing Russia’s use of fibre optic, un-jammable drones during their reduction of the Kursk salient. Russian superiority in fibre optic drones providing a decisive advantage.[xii]
Palisa also discussed Russia’s future intentions, stating that capturing the Donbas remains their priority, but that advances in the south near Zaporizhia are planned. Palisa also discussed the potential for Russia to stage operations from bases in Transnistria trying to create ‘buffer zones.’[xiii]
At operational-level, the situation remains stable because of Ukraine’s current tactical superiority. Ukraine’s drones dominate and have stopped Russia’s advances along the Donbas frontline. Further south, drone superiority also means that Ukraine can launch spoiling offensives to stop potential Russian attacks on Zaporizhia City. The deployment of Russian reserves away from Donbas is a good indication of Ukraine’s tactical success in the south. A situation that must be causing Russian planners a great deal of concern as scarce reserves are re-deployed because of Ukrainian activity rather than according to Russian plans for a summer offensive.
Conclusion
In conclusion the key question is how long Russia can continue the war, and the answer is uncertain. For example, in January the European Council for Foreign Relations argued in the article ‘Putin’s longest war: Calling time on Russia’s endurance myth’ that “The West should stop buying into Moscow’s bluff that Russia is invincible; instead, it should use the Kremlin’s weaknesses and double down on its support for Ukraine to bring about real negotiations to end the war.” [xiv] Meanwhile, in February the Guardian reported that the International Institute for Strategic Studies assesses that Russia can maintain combat operations throughout 2026 and into 2027.[xv]
But my assessment is that a combination of huge Russian losses on the battlefield and reductions in foreign revenue are starting to compound into a loss of military capacity, a trend indicated by the Russian army’s inability to conduct large-scale manoeuvre. Ukraine is producing more drones, striking more targets in depth and appears to have defeated Russia’s 2026 offensive. Good indications that Ukraine’s strategy is taking effect and Russia’s military power is declining, and that Putin’s time is running out.
Ben Morgan is TDB’s military blogger. If you like this content and want to support it you can ‘Buy me a Coffee’
[i] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/
[ii] https://www.aljazeera.com/
[iii] https://meduza.io/en/feature/
[iv] https://edition.cnn.com/2026/
[v] https://jamestown.org/russian-
[vi] https://www.aljazeera.com/
[vii] https://www.mckinsey.com/
[viii] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/
[ix] https://www.bloomberg.com/
[x] https://www.atlanticcouncil.
[xi] https://understandingwar.org/
[xii] https://oboronka.mezha.ua/en/
[xiii] https://united24media.com/
[xiv] https://ecfr.eu/article/
[xv] https://www.theguardian.com/
“Events in Donbas are not unfolding as Zelenskyy and Syrskyy want. So say Rusland Bortnik and Yevgeny Bekrenev, both icons of the hidden Ukrainian opposition!
You have probably never heard of either these men…… ”
“Bekrenev (call sign “Arty Green”), a retired Ukrainian Armed Forces officer was a participant in the punitive operation against the LPR and DPR, as well as the war against Russia, discussed the impending collapse of Ukrainian resistance in Donbas on the YouTube channel of political scientist and director of the Ukrainian Institute of Politics, Ruslan Bortnik.
Bekrenev noted that Russian Armed Forces units are using proven tactics.
They are gradually taking control of the main supply routes for the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kramatorsk and Kostyantynivka directions. When this process is complete, the Ukrainians will have to surrender or retreat from these and other cities in the region, or perish under Russian attack. This is precisely how events will unfold in the near future, and the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is well aware of this.
It’s already clear, in principle, how they’ll do it and in what locations. Well, knowing the terrain there very well and understanding how it all works—the radio horizons, dead zones, and so on—I can clearly see where the main thrust will be: toward Slavyansk, south of the Seversky Donets. There are heights there with a direct line of sight to Slavyansk inclusive. That is, the entire floodplain of Kazennyi Torets… And that means all rear areas and logistics will be under direct control, even optical control, not just drones. The same will apply to the entire floodplain opposite Slavyansk, and Slavyansk itself, since it’s located mostly in the lowlands.
The Russian Armed Forces will definitely take fire control of the two roads that currently support Ukrainian Armed Forces logistics in the Kramatorsk and Kostyantynivka areas. And if the Russians advance another 5 kilometers from the south, between Dobropillya and Druzhkovka, there are also several high grounds there with clear visibility and a clear radio horizon.
The two radio horizons will intersect. Thus, all the logistics of the Konstantinovsk-Kramatorsk agglomeration will be taken under tight control. Most likely, they will take complete and total control of all the logistics of the entire agglomeration, and then the clock will tick to see how long our troops will hold out there without logistics until the commanders decide to withdraw the remaining survivors.
Remember: these are Ukrainians talking” https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/ukraine-dissent-grows
The Usa is fighting two unpopular wars at the moment ,,,, Ukraine by supplying the means ,,,, Iran more directly.
Fighting for Israel and the Epstein class is a lost cause, imo……
….The Usa population is waking up to this
https://youtu.be/7_gVSK62u7U?t=263 Netanyahu Threatens Countries Opposing Israel Will Pay ‘Immediate Price’ and Punishes Spain
It’s Official: The World Has Turned on Israel https://youtu.be/kgOmloYrTbc