Putin Is Slowly Losing Control of the Ukraine War

David Kirichenko

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Key Points and Summary – Ukraine has shifted strategy from the front to Russia’s rear, using long-range drones and missiles to hit refineries, depots, and industry—2,000 km deep in some cases.

-The campaign is generating fuel shortages, airport shutdowns, rolling blackouts, and rising costs that rattle Russian citizens and elites.

-As defenses stretch to protect refineries and cities, Russia faces shrinking oil income, tax hikes, and a tightening budget.

-With Ukraine scaling domestic strike systems and navigation that beats GPS jamming, the pressure inside Moscow will grow—and the Kremlin can’t ignore it.

Ukraine Is Bringing the War Home to Moscow

The last thing Vladimir Putin expected from his bunker in Moscow in early 2022 was that his army would be ground down fighting for mere inches of territory more than three and a half years into the full-scale invasion. Now, Ukrainian drones buzz across Russia, as Kyiv strikes oil refineries, including one 2,000 kilometers away on Putin’s birthday. For the past two years, Kyiv has increasingly brought the war home to Moscow’s elites.

Ukraine On the March

In the days leading up to May’s Victory Day parade, Ukrainian drones were already buzzing near Moscow. Kyiv said China asked Ukraine not to strike the Kremlin while Xi Jinping was in attendance, likely because it doubted Moscow’s ability to protect him.

For years, both Russian and foreign observers saw Putin as a shrewd, calculating statesman—a leader whose luck and timing always seemed to favor him, until his army met the Ukrainians on the battlefield.

Putin’s rise to power in the early 2000s coincided with a surge in global gas prices that filled Russia’s coffers. Throughout his presidency, a social contract has existed: Putin could pursue his imperial ambitions, as long as ordinary Russians didn’t suffer too extensively, and as long as the rent-seeking elites could pillage the country’s resources. Putin thought it all too easy after his 2014 invasion of Crimea, when the West was too scared to act.