Putin’s reign begins to crumble

Opinion>Opinions - National Security The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill Putin’s reign begins to crumble Comments: by Jonathan Sweet and Mark Toth, opinion contributors - 06/18/26 7:00 AM ET Comments: Link copied by Jonathan Sweet and Mark Toth, opinion contributors - 06/18/26 7:00 AM ET Comments: Link copied

Vyacheslav Prokofyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP

President Vladimir Putin’s Russian Federation is taking on water. Like the Titanic, it has struck an immovable object — in this case Ukraine — and it is sinking fast.

The last couple of weeks have been pretty bad for the Russian dictator, his generals at the Kremlin and his soldiers, trying to evade the onslaught of Ukrainian drones on the battlefield.

At the current daily rate of casualties, Russia will surpass 1.4 million in less than two weeks. And if that’s not bad enough, Ukraine has also nearly isolated the Crimean Peninsula in a modern-day version of siege warfare reminiscent of George Washington’s decisive victory at Yorktown in 1781.

In fact, as retired U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus recently posted, “Ukraine might actually be able to isolate the front lines as well as Crimea … Hugely impressive.”

But the real humiliation came when Ukrainian drones found their targets in Putin’s own city — not once, but twice. They struck the Saint Petersburg oil terminal and the Kronstadt naval base during the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum of 2026.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky followed the drone strikes with an open letter to Putin on June 4 proposing an immediate ceasefire along the current frontline and a face-to-face bilateral meeting in a third country to end the war. Putin rejected the offer.

Zelensky’s letter was very direct, detailing Putin’s failures in Ukraine. It concluded by reminding Putin of the cost of prolonging a war that he cannot win: “When Russia grows tired, change comes.”

On Tuesday, Ukrainian drones once again successfully penetrated Russian airspace, despite Putin’s assurances that he was strengthening Russia’s air defense system. This time, they found their target in Moscow — the Gazprom Neft-operated oil refinery. Zelensky called the attack a “just response to Russian strikes and prolonging the war by the Kremlin.”

Specifically, he was referring to the Kremlin missile and drone attack on Kyiv that hit multiple cultural sites, including the Pechersk Lavra monastery, a nearly 1,000-year-old UNESCO World Heritage site.

Zelensky would later post on X that “The Moscow region felt the reach of Ukraine’s long-range capabilities.” Suddenly, residents of St. Petersburg and Moscow are witnessing the war, and its effects, firsthand.

And that’s not just happening in Russia. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko must have also read Zelensky’s open letter and seen the success of Ukraine’s drone strikes. That was likely enough to get the Belarusian dictator to begin hedging his bets.

Lukashenko owes his political existence to Putin. He has said his country’s military and defense cooperation with Russia remains intact, and that Minsk is prepared to “defend Moscow, if necessary” — just not in Ukraine or against NATO. Still, his decision to let Russia launch its invasion of Ukraine from Belarus is something Zelensky will not likely forget.

According to Lukashenko, “So they’re striking targets. They’re not hitting the front. The Ukrainians are striking civilians, historical and cultural monuments, oil refineries, and factories. They’re striking all over Russia, all the way to the Urals, with drones. That’s the kind of war we have now.”

But Lukashenko may be wondering how he can defend Minsk if Putin cannot even defend Saint Petersburg or Moscow. Indeed, this is further complicated by Putin’s track record of not coming to the assistance of his allies — in Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and Iran. For Putin, loyalty travels one way — upward, toward himself.

That likely explains comments made by Lukashenko two weeks ago, when he ruled out sending troops to fight in Ukraine. His soldiers, he said, would not become “cannon fodder for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war” and that he “did not want to” fight Poland, Lithuania or Ukraine.

Yesterday, Lukashenko acknowledged that “Belarus is very vulnerable militarily, because Belarus is exposed to the Ukrainian military like we are in the open palm of their hand. We fully understand that our key life-support facilities — industrial and logistical — would come under attack.”

He does not want any of that. Perhaps that is why he even apologized for remarks he had made about Zelensky in the past that may have been offensive. “Perhaps I overdid it here and there,” he said.

So even Lukashenko perceives that his keeper is in trouble.

Putin’s only recourse to battlefield failures and his intelligence services’ unsuccessful attempts to interfere in elections, is nuclear saber-rattling and the launch of ballistic missiles, glide bombs, and drones against civilian targets, which include residential neighborhoods, hospitals, schools, markets, bomb shelters, churches and cultural centers — all war crimes or even forms of genocide.

Putin can no longer defend his own skies, and he will not come to the defense of his allies. He has gone from projecting strength and power to becoming the grandfather hiding in his bunker.

Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as a military intelligence officer and led the US European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012 to 2014. Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy. They are the co-founders of INTREP360 and the INTREP360 Intelligence Report on Substack.