Putin believes Russia can seize full control of annexed Ukrainian regions by end of year — Bloomberg
Vladimir Putin is "confident" that Russian forces can break through Ukraine’s defenses and fully seize control of Ukraine’s Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions by the end of 2025, Bloomberg reported on Monday, citing a person familiar with the Russian president’s thinking.
The outlet noted that this suggests Putin is unlikely to offer any significant concessions when he speaks to U.S. President Donald Trump by phone on Monday.
Ben Barry, an analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told Bloomberg that Russia’s chances of capturing all four regions, which it annexed in fall 2022, by the end of the year are very low. He said that this would be “very easy” for Russia if Ukraine’s defenses collapsed, but that “at the moment such a scenario seems very unlikely.”
