By George Barros, the Russia team lead at the Institute for the Study of War.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has worked hard to convince the world that Ukraine’s defeat is inevitable when it is not. His biggest success has come not on the front line but in the battle of narratives. Since meeting with Putin in Alaska, Donald Trump has shifted from demanding an immediate ceasefire to pressuring Kyiv to hand over unoccupied territory to Moscow based on the false idea that Russia is bound to win. “They’re much bigger. They’re much stronger,” Trump has said, giving Russia the “upper hand” in Ukraine.
Putin’s narrative of inevitable Russian victory rests on false claims: Ukraine’s front line is on the verge of collapse; Russia will capture the territories it claims; Russia has the manpower and resources to sustain the war indefinitely; and Ukraine cannot defeat the Russian military. Invoking the Soviet Red Army’s crushing of the German Wehrmacht in World War II, the Kremlin wants us to think that today’s much smaller Russian military is an unstoppable steamroller destined to win.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has worked hard to convince the world that Ukraine’s defeat is inevitable when it is not. His biggest success has come not on the front line but in the battle of narratives. Since meeting with Putin in Alaska, Donald Trump has shifted from demanding an immediate ceasefire to pressuring Kyiv to hand over unoccupied territory to Moscow based on the false idea that Russia is bound to win. “They’re much bigger. They’re much stronger,” Trump has said, giving Russia the “upper hand” in Ukraine.
Putin’s narrative of inevitable Russian victory rests on false claims: Ukraine’s front line is on the verge of collapse; Russia will capture the territories it claims; Russia has the manpower and resources to sustain the war indefinitely; and Ukraine cannot defeat the Russian military. Invoking the Soviet Red Army’s crushing of the German Wehrmacht in World War II, the Kremlin wants us to think that today’s much smaller Russian military is an unstoppable steamroller destined to win.
This is more than propaganda. It is a system of cognitive warfare designed to shape Western leaders’ assumptions and push them toward decisions that benefit Russia and disadvantage Ukraine. Moscow aims to persuade its audience that the only sensible outcome is a final settlement on Russia’s terms. Surrendering to Russia, the steamroller narrative suggests, is humane because it would spare the lives of soldiers and civilians who would otherwise be crushed. Putin has effectively injected the steamroller narrative into the international information space and U.S.-Russia negotiations.
The Kremlin has exaggerated perceptions of Russian military performance by claiming faster advances and greater territorial control than the facts support. Moscow frequently asserts that Russian forces have seized settlements that in reality remain under Ukrainian control. The aim is to create the impression of steady Russian momentum and a Ukraine perpetually on the back foot—bolstering demands that Kyiv cede substantial territories as a condition for peace. This narrative persists despite Russia’s failure to fully conquer these areas after four years of war.
A prominent example is the false claim that Russian troops captured Kupyansk, an operationally significant town in northeastern Ukraine, roughly 40 kilometers from the Russian border. The Kremlin publicized this claim ahead of Putin’s Dec. 2 meeting with U.S. negotiators in Moscow. In fact, Kyiv never lost the town. On Dec. 12, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted a selfie from Kupyansk.
Putin and his lieutenants are masking the reality that Russian forces are advancing literally at a snail’s pace, achieving small gains at huge and unsustainable costs. In 2025, Russia captured just 0.8 percent of Ukraine’s territory, far below typical rates in modern mechanized warfare. Even some of the most infamous trench battles in World War I showed more rapid overall advances.
Assuming it can sustain the fighting and advance at its late-2025 pace, Russia would need until August 2027 to seize the rest of Donetsk oblast and until April 2029 to seize Donetsk along with the remaining parts of Zaporizhia and Kherson—three regions it declared annexed in 2022. Seizing all of Ukraine would take roughly a century.
On average, Russia incurred roughly 1,200 casualties per day in 2025. Ukraine’s drone kill zone has trapped Russian forces in brutal positional warfare by denying them the ability to mass tanks and armored vehicles for a breakthrough. Instead, Russian units maneuver in small infantry groups of three to five. Combat footage shows soldiers crawling over the corpses of their fallen comrades to gain only tens of meters.
Russia’s military power is finite, and the assumption that it can fight indefinitely is false. The war imposes high and compounding costs on the economy. In January, Russia raised its value-added tax to 22 percent to offset record military spending amid falling oil and gas revenues. In November, it began selling gold reserves as its sovereign wealth fund continued to shrink. A month earlier, Russia began preparing for compulsory mobilization. Facing a labor shortage, Russia plans to recruit tens of thousands of Indian migrant workers.
Ukraine’s situation on the battlefield is difficult but not critical. While Russia remains dangerous, a collapse of Ukrainian defenses is unlikely. With the front line a vast drone kill zone, both sides are locked in positional warfare with little capacity for rapid maneuver.
The war’s decisive battleground thus remains international support for Ukraine. Putin rightly assesses that if he can outlast the West—or better yet, persuade it to abandon Ukraine—Russia will win. The false narrative of inevitable Russian victory should not influence Western policy.
Read the other seven thinkers on four years of war in Europe here.
George Barros is the Russia team lead and a senior analyst at the Institute for the Study of War.
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