It is widely noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently abandoned his previously restrained military posture, intensifying strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure and preparing to deliver the final blow to Kyiv.
Russia has entered a new, far more aggressive phase of the war aimed at rendering Ukraine non-functional as a state, while the West risks confronting an outcome it has failed to foresee for years.
Daily bombardment of Kyiv: Energy infrastructure in the crosshairs
First, it is worth examining what is actually unfolding on the battlefield.
Russia is now bombarding Kyiv on a daily basis.
This marks a major shift compared to the preceding period, when Russian drones and missiles arrived in successive waves separated by intervals lasting several days or even weeks.
Now, strikes occur at intervals of mere minutes.
Simultaneously, Russia has begun targeting the energy infrastructure of Ukraine in a manner it had previously avoided.
The objective is to render Kyiv essentially uninhabitable during the winter, depriving the population of electricity generation and distribution.
The country's logistics and transport networks are also squarely in the crosshairs.
Warehouses have been destroyed, while the Ukrainian government has reported losing 90% of its food supply chain infrastructure.
At the very same time, conditions along the front are growing increasingly dire for Ukraine.
Russia is advancing, while the last major fortified cities of the so-called "fortress belt" in Donetsk, Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, appear close to collapse within the coming weeks.
Following the fall of these two cities, little will remain to halt the Russian advance toward the Dnieper River, which serves as the gateway to Kyiv.
Why the West faces a major surprise
From the very outset of the conflict, Western analysts failed to grasp Russian strategy in Ukraine.
When the invasion began, American military officials appeared thoroughly perplexed.
American military doctrine prescribes a rapid, decisive, and overwhelming assault with maximum lethality, as US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth characteristically puts it.
This strategy was exemplified in the "Shock and Awe" campaign of George W. Bush against Saddam Hussein in 2003, as well as more recently in the relentless bombardments ordered by Donald Trump against Iran.
Americans wondered why Russia was advancing so hesitantly in Ukraine, without massive carpet bombing, without an extensive air campaign, without destroying basic national infrastructure, and with a force of just 150,000 troops.
To American military thinking, this approach created the impression that Putin was not taking the operation seriously.
How could he subjugate a population of 35 million people, as the population of Ukraine then stood, with such a small military force?
By comparison, when Hitler decided to conquer Poland, he invaded with an army of 1.5 million men.
It is absurd to believe that Putin thought he could subdue Ukraine with one-tenth of that force, given that the country is twice the geographic size of Poland and had already been militarized by NATO since 2014, receiving billions in weapons, equipment, and supplies alongside training in the Alliance's most modern military tactics.
To Western analysts, it almost looked as though Putin did not even want to conquer Ukraine.
They did not read Clausewitz
The reality is even more striking: Putin indeed never wanted to "conquer Ukraine."
What he sought was to compel the West to take seriously his warnings regarding the accession of Ukraine to NATO.
Moscow insisted that Ukraine remain faithful to its 1991 Constitution and maintain a status of permanent neutrality.
The total failure of the West to comprehend what Von Clausewitz termed the "nature" of the conflict has rendered it incapable of grasping what is truly transpiring.
The outcome, when the war reaches its inevitable end, will be a massive strategic shock across Western capitals.
"Brotherly peoples": The historical and religious dimension of the conflict
The reason Russians opted for a softer approach toward Ukraine is tied to a distinct Russian worldview: the concept of literal kinship among Slavic nations.
This perspective was elaborated in July 2021, when Vladimir Putin published his essay titled "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians."
In it, he argued that Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians constitute "brotherly peoples," a triad of nations originating from the exact same historical root, the state of Kievan Rus.
For Putin, the unity of the three peoples rests partially, or even primarily, on their shared religious tradition, namely the Russian Orthodox Church.
As he wrote:
"Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians are all descendants of Ancient Rus, which was the largest state in Europe. Slavic and other tribes across the vast territory were bound together by one language, economic ties, and, after the Baptism of Rus, the Orthodox faith. The spiritual choice made by St. Vladimir, who was both Prince of Novgorod and Grand Prince of Kiev, still largely determines our affinity today."
The Russian president also expressed sorrow over the fact that this historical kinship between Russia and Ukraine had been undermined.
"First of all, I would like to emphasize that the wall that has emerged in recent years between Russia and Ukraine, between the parts of what is essentially the same historical and spiritual space, to my mind is our great common misfortune and tragedy."
The Russian president's use of the word "tragedy" echoes an earlier address in which he described the dissolution of the Soviet Union as the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century."
"Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century."
That statement was immediately seized upon by Western neoconservatives as proof that Putin harbors imperial and expansionist ambitions aimed at "rebuilding the Soviet Empire."
However, such an interpretation is entirely erroneous.
Putin is neither an admirer of the Soviet Union nor of communism.
Indeed, his foremost political rival in contemporary Russia remains the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
In that very same speech, Putin explained why he considered the breakup of the USSR so tragic:
"As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and compatriots found themselves outside Russian territory."
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), approximately 25 million Russians suddenly found themselves holding invalidated Soviet passports, discovering that they no longer lived on Russian soil.
Millions of Russians in eastern Ukraine
This phenomenon was especially acute in Ukraine, where nearly half of that population severed from Russia resided, numbering roughly 12 million people.
According to data, 83% of the population of the Donbass prior to 2014, including vast swaths of the eastern and southern oblasts, were ethnic Russians or native Russian speakers.
Overall, nearly half of all Ukrainians spoke Russian. It is also well known that Volodymyr Zelensky spoke Russian as his native tongue and learned Ukrainian only upon being elected president of the country.
In his address, Putin also explained the origins of this historical tragedy:
"These are, first and foremost, the consequences of our own mistakes made at different periods of time. Yet they are also the result of deliberate efforts by forces that have always sought to undermine our unity. The formula they apply has been known from time immemorial: divide and rule. There is nothing new here."
It is evident, according to the author, that when Putin refers to these "forces," he means the United States and its Western allies, particularly the United Kingdom, which has allegedly sought the disintegration of Russia since the era of the so-called Great Game roughly 200 years ago.
Why Russia views the war as a civil conflict
What most Westerners fail to comprehend is that, owing to history and preceding events, the current conflict in Ukraine is viewed by the Russian side as a civil war.
To begin with, roughly one in three Russians has relatives in Ukraine. Furthermore, prior to the 2014 coup that toppled the Ukrainian government, 74% of Russians held a positive attitude toward Ukraine.
Therefore, according to the analysis, Putin was far from alone in viewing Ukrainians as a "brotherly people."
In eastern Ukraine, where most fighting takes place, 75% or more of the Russophone population speaks Russian, with a large proportion using Russian as their sole native language.
A true civil war
Based on these figures, the commentator argues that events unfolding across eastern Ukrainian regions constitute a de facto civil war.
Much like the American Civil War, this is a conflict between two sides speaking the exact same language, sharing a common historical heritage, and in many cases bound by direct family ties.
In other words, it is a conflict of "brother against brother."
Why Putin chose the strategy of a slow advance
Another major Western misconception, or what Germans would term a Denkfehler, an error in thinking, concerns the seemingly slow, methodical, and often hesitant approach of Putin to the war.
The "Special Military Operation"
First, there is the insistence of Putin on calling the conflict not a war, but a "Special Military Operation" (SMO).
In the West, the term was met with derision, with officials refusing to use it and dismissing it as a cynical communications ploy designed to mask an alleged "full-scale invasion."
The real reason is that Putin had no desire to execute a strategy of total annihilation, nor to declare war on a "brotherly people," particularly when nearly 50 million Russians had family members in Ukraine.
No "Shock and Awe" strategy in Ukraine
Putin sought to frame the use of military force as a rescue operation to protect ethnic Russians living in eastern Ukraine, in the Donbass, from the regime in Kyiv.
Ukrainian government forces, according to the Russian argument, were shelling and killing residents of those areas on a daily basis.
The death toll among Russians had reportedly reached roughly 10,000 during the years leading up to the 2022 Russian military intervention.
In other words, Putin intervened to halt the killing of Russians in Ukraine rather than to inflict even greater casualties through collateral damage.
This explains why he adopted a strategy of slow, deliberate advance.
Indeed, he reportedly issued orders to the Russian military to avoid even driving tanks across cultivated farmland.
The goal of the intervention was to compel Ukraine into negotiations and bring the war to a swift close so that Russian-speaking populations in eastern Ukraine could return to normal life.
In short, Putin did not view Ukrainians as enemies, but as future Russian citizens awaiting "liberation."
Life in Kyiv remained nearly normal
Until recently, the air war in Ukraine remained relatively restrained.
Strikes took place intermittently, and critical civilian infrastructure was not systematically targeted.
In fact, Kyiv was considered safe enough for senior officials from the United States and the European Union to visit the Ukrainian capital, frequently traveling by train from Poland knowing full well that those rail corridors were exempt from Russian strikes.
Daily life for residents remained largely unaffected.
Bars and nightclubs stayed open, citizens went to work, and economic and social life continued.
What changed and why Putin is abandoning restrained tactics
From the outset of the Special Military Operation, Putin faced domestic pressure to act more decisively and accelerate the neutralization of Ukrainian forces.
Many voices within Russian elites, alongside a sizable segment of public opinion, asked: Why is Russia leaving Ukrainian railways, bridges, and infrastructure intact?
Why is it allowing Ukraine to continue exporting grain and earning foreign currency? Why is it advancing so slowly on the battlefield?
The answer lies in the distinct Russian perception of "brotherly peoples" articulated by Putin in his 2021 essay.
At that time, after all, 74% of Russians held a favorable view of Ukrainians.
Today, however, those dynamics have shifted dramatically.
Russians have turned their backs on their Ukrainian "brothers"
Following the Maidan coup in 2014, attitudes began shifting not only within Ukrainian society, but across Russian public opinion as well.
As Russians watched images, videos, and reports documenting the killing of ethnic Russians by far-right battalions from western Ukraine, the backlash grew intense.
Ukrainian nationalist formations, including the Azov Battalion, the Aidar Battalion, Right Sector, and other groups, are accused by the author of murdering thousands of innocent Donbass residents whose sole "crime" was their ethnic Russian heritage and adherence to the Russian Orthodox Church.
To those extremist circles, Russian-speaking Ukrainians were viewed as "Untermenschen," or subhumans.
Indeed, Yatsenyuk, the prime minister handpicked by the United States to lead the post-coup government, literally used that characterization in a public statement.
Despite these events, on the eve of the Russian military intervention in Ukraine, nearly half of all Russians still maintained a positive view of the neighboring country.
In 2026, however, only 16% of Russians still view their "Slavic brothers" favorably, according to figures cited in the article.
The attack on Starobelsk marked a turning point
On May 22, 2026, Ukrainians, assisted by the CIA, carried out a drone strike against the academic building and student dormitory of the Starobelsk Professional College of the Pedagogical University in Starobelsk, Russia.
The institution primarily educates young women training to become schoolteachers.
The strike was executed in three successive waves, mirroring the "double tap" attack conducted by the United States on the Mehab school in Iran.
Six young women were killed and another 40 were wounded.
Russian public opinion reacted with outrage. How could a "brotherly people" carry out such an attack?
The terrorist strike in Starobelsk marked a decisive turning point for Russian public opinion, as well as for the strategy Putin now pursues toward Ukraine.
"Putin takes off the gloves": Russia shifts to total bombardment
Observers of the conflict documented a sharp escalation in Russian strikes over the course of the summer.
Drone and missile bombardments, previously conducted intermittently, have now become an uninterrupted daily reality.
Whereas strikes once occurred primarily at night, allowing commerce and economic activity to function during daytime hours, they now continue around the clock.
Sensitive command-and-control facilities housing NATO advisors and Western personnel, which had largely been spared during the early years of the conflict, are now being systematically destroyed.
Bridges, rail lines, and trains have also been placed in the crosshairs, alongside attacks on supply chain hubs, warehouses, and even data centers.
An exceptionally damaging blow to the Ukrainian economy has been the Russian offensive against Odessa, resulting in the closure of all Ukrainian ports along the Black Sea.
This development has effectively transformed Ukraine into a landlocked state, drastically curtailing its access to international maritime trade routes.
Already, 92% of Ukrainian grain exports have been halted, alongside 60% of the country's overall export economic activity.
The gravest blow, however, targets energy infrastructure.
Electrical grids and natural gas networks, which Russia had previously struck without inflicting total destruction, now face comprehensive annihilation.
This means cities like Kyiv may be entirely unable to provide heating to residents during the upcoming winter.
In previous years, Russia allowed Ukraine to keep certain vital energy facilities operating through the winter.
Now, according to the author, Moscow appears prepared to leave Ukrainians, whom it once called a "brotherly nation," to face the cold and darkness.
The war of attrition: Russia's true strategy
Another dimension of the conflict in Ukraine misunderstood by the West concerns the true nature of the Russian Special Military Operation.
The campaign has several core objectives, chief among them removing NATO from Ukraine and ensuring Russia has a neutral neighbor posing no threat either to itself or to ethnic Russians residing on Ukrainian soil.
In other words, Russia seeks, in its own formulation, the "demilitarization and denazification" of Ukraine.
Western analysts and political elites continually fixate on the slow pace at which Russia captures territory.
Yet this focus misses the true essence of Putin's strategy.
The Russian president advances slowly and methodically because the war he is waging is a war of attrition.
In conflicts of this nature, success is not measured primarily by territorial gains, but by one side's ability to destroy the adversary's capacity to continue fighting.
As Clausewitz described, it is a strategy aimed at exhausting the willpower and operational capability of the opponent.
In a war of attrition, the victorious side is evaluated by the number of enemy troops, weapons, and equipment destroyed, particularly when its own losses remain comparatively limited.
The goal is the complete demilitarization of the adversary through the neutralization of vastly greater military forces than those lost in return.
By this benchmark, the Special Military Operation is proving an overwhelming success for Russia.
A casualty ratio of 7 to 1 or even 10 to 1
Throughout the conflict, Russia has reportedly maintained a casualty advantage over Ukraine at a ratio of 7 to 1 or even 10 to 1.
This disparity, according to the analysis, reflects the overwhelming superiority of Russia in artillery, a reality acknowledged even by Western observers.
As United24 reported in 2025:
"Russia produces roughly 250,000 artillery shells per month, or about 3 million annually. In 2024, Russia fired roughly 10,000 shells per day, compared to just 2,000 daily by the Ukrainian side, according to a European intelligence official speaking to CNN."
This vast disparity is also reflected in periodic exchanges of fallen soldiers' remains between the two sides.
In recent years, the ratio of fallen Ukrainians to fallen Russians returned during exchanges has reportedly reached 34 to 1 and most recently 36 to 1.
Indicatively, in February 2026, Russia returned the bodies of 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers and received the remains of 35 Russian soldiers in return.
In January, in a similar exchange, 1,000 Ukrainian dead and 36 Russian dead were handed over.
Ukraine has lost up to 3 million people, according to estimates
Four years of such a brutal war of attrition have led, according to the article, to the near-total exhaustion of the military capacity of Ukraine.
Although Kyiv refuses to release official casualty figures, independent analysts estimate total Ukrainian losses may reach as high as 3 million.
The South Korea-based Military Watch Magazine reported in 2025 that Ukraine had already lost 1.7 million soldiers and that the pace of casualties was accelerating.
According to the report:
"Data indicate that 118,500 military personnel were killed or went missing in 2022, 405,400 in 2023, 595,000 in 2024, and 621,000 so far in 2025. These figures confirm a growing body of evidence accumulated over more than three years demonstrating that casualties have surged dramatically to unsustainable levels."
Indeed, Kyrylo Budanov, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, admitted in August 2026 that the country is losing at least 30,000 soldiers every month.
"We cannot mobilize fewer than 30,000 people per month. That is the minimum number required to maintain the forces we currently have," Budanov stated.
Russian losses remain comparatively limited
Conversely, verifiable Russian casualties, according to figures published by Mediazona, a UK-based outlet affiliated with the BBC Russian Service, stand at approximately 259,000 military fatalities.
This relatively low figure, according to the author, proves that Putin genuinely meant his stated intention to minimize losses among Russian soldiers.
Naturally, a quarter of a million Russian dead represents an immense human and political burden. However, the author notes that this is Russia, a nation that lost 14 million people during World War II, while total losses across the Soviet Union reached 27 million.
It must nevertheless be noted that the cautious approach of Putin has resulted in a war that has now lasted longer than World War II.
Even so, the commentator assesses that the patience of the Russian president is ultimately poised to pay off.
Russian advance accelerates: Ukrainian front on the brink of collapse
Given the extraordinarily high and unsustainable attrition rate, combined with severe disruptions and destruction of supply lines and logistics support, Ukrainian forces remaining in the last two major fortified cities of the Donbass find themselves in an untenable position.
Their fall now represents an inevitable development as the Russian offensive presses forward.
Once that occurs, the Russian army will face minimal obstacles, as analyst Jimmy Rushton had pointed out, in reaching the Dnieper River and potentially Kyiv itself.
In short, Ukraine stands at the gates of collapse. It is simply a matter of time.
What comes next and when the war will end
Analysts closely tracking the Russo-Ukrainian conflict are now debating which factor will trigger the final collapse of the regime in Kyiv.
Will it be the devastating air campaign destroying the infrastructure of Kyiv and eroding the habitability of the capital for its population?
Or will it be the total neutralization of the Ukrainian armed forces, down to the last Ukrainian soldier, under the commitment of Western backers of Kyiv to continue funding and prolonging the war?
Whatever the ultimate trigger, the final phase of the war has already begun.
The front is crumbling, soldiers appear demoralized with inadequate supplies and food, and forces face relentless pressure across the entire 1,200-kilometer frontline.
Thousands of troops are reportedly abandoning their positions or surrendering, while hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have already deserted.
At the same time, Ukrainian cities endure round-the-clock bombardment, the country is losing its capacity to generate electricity, and authorities face mounting difficulty securing food for the population.
Store shelves are emptying.
"Mission accomplished" in Ukraine: Denazification at the center
Once this final stage is completed, Russia will seek to fulfill its other core strategic objective: the denazification of Ukraine.
War crimes trials will follow, and Russia is likely to organize its own version of the Nuremberg Trials aimed at eradicating extremist elements from Ukrainian society.
This represents a monumental undertaking, given the breadth and depth of ideological influence attributed not only within the Ukrainian government, but also across schools and civil society.
In 2021, Vladimir Putin described the estrangement of Ukraine from Russia, which he attributed to Western interference, as a "great common misfortune and tragedy."
Sooner or later, and likely sooner rather than later, this tragedy will reach its inevitable and somber conclusion through the dissolution of the Ukrainian state.
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