\n<\/p>\n
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s artistic skills have earned him the reputation of a public relations genius, acknowledged by both friend and foe. United States President Donald Trump, who has openly attacked him in public, famously called the Ukrainian leader “the greatest salesman on Earth.” A more sympathetic voice, New York Times columnist David French, recently characterized Zelensky as “the new leader of the free world.”<\/p>\n
But Zelensky’s PR talents can do little when it comes to changing the battlefield dynamics in the Russia-Ukraine war. In recent weeks, his administration and aides have tried hard to create the impression that the war may be reaching a turning point. But the ground reality tells a different story.<\/p>\n
For example, there were official claims that Ukraine made greater territorial gains than Russia in February. Some pro-Ukraine war monitoring platforms have supported these claims while others have not. It is important to note that these calculations can be difficult because there is a wide gray zone on the front lines in which control is unclear. The progress itself is measured at 150-200 square kilometers per month. In other words, the methodology can be manipulated to produce the desired conclusion: that Ukraine is gaining ground.<\/p>\n
In fact, there is nothing that indicates a significant change in the dynamics of the battlefield that have been going on for at least two years.<\/p>\n
More importantly, Russian troops are currently besieging several industrial cities in the north of the Donetsk region. Their advance, particularly on the northern border, is extending the active front line by hundreds of kilometers, making Ukraine’s personnel shortages even more acute.<\/p>\n
Four years into the war, the Ukrainian military had to resort to brutal campaigns to enforce conscription, removing youth from the streets of cities and villages. Meanwhile, Russia is still able to lure volunteers by offering huge compensation.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian officials have also claimed that Russia is losing more troops than it is able to recruit, based on questionable casualty figures. In particular, Zelensky said that the Russians suffered their highest monthly number of casualties \u2013 35,000 \u2013 in March this year. But his statement contradicted his own Defense Ministry, which claimed that Russian monthly losses peaked at 48,000 in January 2025, with the average monthly rate throughout 2025 being around 35,000.<\/p>\n
Zelensky’s chief of staff, former military intelligence chief Kirill Budanov, also refuted the statement, saying Russia is having great difficulty deploying personnel. He admitted in a recent interview that the Russian mobilization effort will not collapse in the near future.<\/p>\n
It is noteworthy that Ukraine is running a successful drone campaign to damage Russian oil facilities. But it is doubtful that it will change anything other than providing dramatic footage of oil tank fires for broadcast on TV networks.<\/p>\n
In April, Russian oil revenues rose to $9 billion due to the US-Israel war over Iran. The one-month windfall Russia received is equivalent to 10 percent of the EU loan Ukraine will receive over the next two years to help its war efforts.<\/p>\n
It cannot be denied that Russia has suffered huge economic losses due to the war and Russian President Vladimir Putin has also accepted this. But the Russian economy is showing a slowdown like other European economies, also affected by the wars in Ukraine and Iran.<\/p>\n
According to IMF charts, Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita adjusted for purchasing power parity (an indicator reflecting the standard of living) currently exceeds that of less prosperous EU countries such as Romania and Greece. The same indicator for Ukraine is on par with Mongolia and Egypt, while the country’s vital infrastructure is in ruins and millions of Ukrainians have fled the country, most of them forever.<\/p>\n
With Ukraine’s prospects looking bleaker than ever, pro-Ukraine watchers jump on every news coming from Russia that they hope might indicate a “crack in the regime.” Last month, an Instagram video by Russian influencer Victoria Bonya made headlines in the West for its bold criticism of government policies. There may be despair in Russia, but the regime is far from near collapse.<\/p>\n
However, this narrative serves to distract Ukrainian and EU citizens from the painful truth that the war is heading towards a stalemate at best and the collapse of Ukraine at worst. Zelensky may have been bailed out by a \u20ac90 billion loan, but his and his colleagues’ lack of foresight and a winning strategy is shocking.<\/p>\n
The reality has already started to set in. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently suggested that Ukraine would have to cede some of its territory to Russia to end the war, but in return receive a faster path to EU membership. The EU’s defense chief, Andrius Kubilius, has gone further, claiming that NATO membership is out of the question for Ukraine and that EU membership is going to be a “complex process”. Instead, he proposed a military union of Ukraine and other European countries \u2013 an idea that Moscow would reject by interpreting it as a backdoor NATO.<\/p>\n
These contradictory statements show that the main bargaining on the peace framework is currently taking place not between Zelensky and Putin, but between Zelensky and his Western, primarily European, allies.<\/p>\n
As Budanov recently claimed, Kiev and Moscow’s positions could be moved closer to what is realistically attainable in peace talks. But Zelensky needs to show at least some sort of benefit to Ukraine when a very unpleasant version of the peace treaty is eventually signed. Ideally, that benefit would be EU membership or genuine security guarantees, but as Merz and Kubilius’ statements show, the chances of achieving either are slim.<\/p>\n
The frustration among Ukrainians is already palpable. Danilo Hetamtsev, head of the Ukrainian parliament’s fiscal committee, said European officials should stop viewing Ukrainians as “a tool to solve someone’s geopolitical tasks” or as “human shields.” He insisted that he had no right to define Ukraine’s destiny.<\/p>\n
But Zelensky, surrounded by a massive corruption investigation involving his immediate party, has no cards to play against Russia or its Western allies. The status quo in which he maintains his position as a war leader is good for him, but it is becoming increasingly untenable.<\/p>\n
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s artistic skills have earned him the reputation of a public relations genius, acknowledged by both friend and foe. United States President Donald Trump, who has openly attacked him in public, famously called the Ukrainian leader “the greatest salesman on Earth.” A more sympathetic voice, New York Times columnist David French, recently<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":64492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[3928,1188,2677,3779,367,1345,3640],"class_list":{"0":"post-116676","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bible-news","8":"tag-cards","9":"tag-play","10":"tag-russia","11":"tag-russiaukraine","12":"tag-war","13":"tag-west","14":"tag-zelensky"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116676"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116688,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116676\/revisions\/116688"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}