Putin he continues to believe that military victory in Ukraine is still within his grasp. Zelensky knows that, with his own strength, the most he can achieve is avoid a final defeat and bog down the Russian invaders indefinitely, trusting that this will open the way the negotiation. It remains to be seen, given a situation in which the fighting forces do not appear to be in a position to force radical change on the ground in the short term, what room for maneuver Moscow and kyiv have to achieve their objectives.
As far as Moscow is concerned, it seems clearer every day that with the troops deployed so far it is not going to achieve what it intended with the invasion. Neither has achieved the fall of kyiv not even complete control of Donbas. Its performance is far from what was expected of one of the most powerful armies on the planet and now it is facing enormous problems to relieve some units that are suffering a high level of casualties, no news about the so-called “volunteers & rdquor; Syrian or Belarusian troops that they were going to reinforce the Russians. It also does not appear to have guided munitions in sufficient numbers to provoke conclusive results or the ability to launch an amphibious assault on Odessa; which translates into the use of artillery fire that only causes indiscriminate damage to the civilian population and destruction of the Ukrainian industrial base, but not in the control of large areas that prevent the ukrainian counterattacks against the units that intend to encircle kyiv or against its logistics bases and its rear.
But in any case, Putin continues to have many options to continue with his militarist commitment and, above all, he has no limits other than those he wants to impose on himself. You can send more troops, delay the return home of the conscripts who are completing their period of military service on the next day 1, or even decree a general mobilization. Similarly, he has in his hands the possibility of increasing the punishment against the Ukrainian population by using more and better weapons, whether or not they are prohibited by international law. And, since neither option is already discardable after the launch of the invasion, Putin can also decide the use of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons.
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For its part, Zelensky has far fewer options. At this point, it already has all its forces mobilized and engaged in combat, including the territorial defense battalions and the several thousand international volunteers that make up the International Legion. The industrial base that allows fueling the war, harshly punished by the Russian artillery, is already at the limit of its capacity and its economic situation does not allow it to borrow much more to be able to finance the war effort. Under those conditions, its only way of resistance is through the support it receives from abroad, fundamentally from NATO. And, as was once again made clear at the Summit on the 24th, the Alliance continues to be bound by its own limitations; which means that it is neither willing to establish a no-fly zone, nor to activate a peace operation on Ukrainian territory, nor to supply kyiv with aircraft or complex weapons systems, much less send its soldiers to fight against Russian invaders on Ukrainian territory.
Under these conditions, and regardless of the widespread sympathy generated by his cause, kyiv has it very difficult.