Vladimir Putin still has several potential routes out of the war in Ukraine, but the most favourable may not remain available indefinitely. This Insight Paper examines Russia’s diminishing battlefield returns, Ukraine’s emerging strategy of active defence and selective counterattack, the growing importance of Russian force-generation pressures, and the possibility that distorted military reporting is preventing the Kremlin from recognising when its strategy has stopped working. It argues that Putin’s greatest strategic danger may not be immediate military defeat, but an information system that encourages him to continue fighting until battlefield deterioration leaves Russia with fewer and substantially worse options for ending the war.
