Kristina Solovyova, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP Russian President Vladimir Putin is a cornered man. Ukraine, especially through its deep-strike drones and ballistic missiles, is bringing Putin’s special military operation home to the city confines of Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
As of this writing, 15 distribution hubs of Wildberries — Russia’s equivalent of Amazon, which is frequently used to supply troops with equipment the Russian state fails to supply — have been hit or destroyed by Ukraine. Likewise, most of Putin’s largest oil refineries, including one as far away as Siberia, have been struck.
Billowy black smoke from burning Wildberries and uncertainty at the gas pump are putting domestic pressure on the Kremlin in ways never felt since the war began in February 2022.
Putin must either go big or go home. Going home probably means the end of his regime, so going big in Ukraine is really his only option. All signs indicate that he intends to do so this winter, whatever the cost.
Putin is not going to use nuclear weapons, although he can be counted on to threaten and bluff with them. No — going big for him means doubling, if not tripling down on his meat grinder approach to the war in Ukraine. Mass infantry attacks are his military strategy. If a Russian operation fails on the frontlines, his typical response is simply to try it again with larger numbers. This is why, in the first half of 2026, Russia has suffered roughly eight casualties the for every one it has inflicted on Ukraine.
The paradox of Putin’s stratagem is that, during the first four years of the war, as he has ramped up his investment of Russian lives in the conflict, he has gotten diminishing returns. Russian casualties, dead and wounded, are fast-approaching 1.5 million, with little accomplished on the battlefield.
The Institute for the Study of War estimates that as of late July, Russia had gained only 81 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory this calendar year. In fact, since January 2023, the Kremlin has seized only about 5 to 6 square kilometers while incurring 925 casualties each day on average since 2023.
Undeterred, Putin will keep squeezing harder/ With the repeated failures of his spring and summer ground offensives, he will weaponize the coming winter once again, calculating that he will enjoy a new strategic opening in the compounding Patriot interceptor shortage in Ukraine and Europe’s indecision over establishing a No-Fly Zone.
In July, Moscow increased its widescale aerial attacks on Ukraine. According to Militarnyi, Russia fired “107 ballistic missiles and 20 3M22 Zircon [hypersonic] missiles,” which was a significant surge from June. Likewise, according to Ukrainian Colonel Oleksandr Zaruba, Russian drone attacks have substantially increased as well “to wage a war of attrition against Ukraine’s air defenses.”
Although Russia is firing off missiles faster than it can produce them, it has apparently struck a new deal with North Korea to augment its ballistic missile stockpile. “A North Korean missile unit has begun deploying to western Russia and could be equipped with 120 ballistic missiles and six launchers for strikes against Ukraine,” Reuters reports.
So Putin is again betting on destroying Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, including its electrical power grid, to bring the country to its knees during the coldest months of the coming year. This follows the same old playbook: Hit the grid, pressure the population, then launch another spring offensive to seize all of the Donbas. This is supposed to force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his generals to capitulate.
But here’s the problem: Another large-scale Russian military operation will require a new mobilization of conscripts and reserves. Russian casualties in Ukraine so far in 2026 continue to exceed recruitment of new soldiers.
Putin is unlikely to issue new mobilization orders until after the Russian Duma elections in September. That means the new Russian conscripts or reserve call-ups used in 2027 will be hastily trained and poorly equipped. They will be no match for Ukraine’s established kill zones or the country’s battle-hardened armed forces on the frontlines.
Putin is desperate for a win in the Donbas. Will he get it? Almost certainly not. But he will bleed hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers in the process of finding out.
Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as a military intelligence officer and led the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012 to 2014. They are the cofounders of INTREP360 and the INTREP360 Intelligence Report on Substack.
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