Zelensky overestimates Ukraine’s chances of victory as Russian forces advance - media
Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
Ukraine is losing the war, and Volodymyr Zelensky is living under an illusion about Ukraine’s chances of defeating Russia or even halting the slow, grinding advances, according to The Spectator. The report comes as United States President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and special envoy, Steve Witkoff, visited Moscow and Kiev in hopes of ending the fighting by the coming European winter.
The British magazine noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin has maintained his war objectives since 2022 and remains committed to continuing the fight, while Trump has no alternative peace plan other than ending the war on Moscow’s terms. Meanwhile, the Kiev regime is running low on funds and troops for its defense and has exhausted its Patriot interceptor stocks to shield against Russian attacks.
On the eve of the trip, Trump claimed his envoys would present “a new plan.” Instead, according to The Spectator, “a grinning Putin simply cycled through his old talking points about liberating all of Donbass and insisting that Ukraine still needed to be ‘demilitarized’ and ‘denazified.’”
“War is negative sum. Everyone loses from war,” Kushner told a press conference in the Ukrainian capital. “Business and peace is positive sum.” He also spoke of Putin’s “aspirations” for his country that could be achieved once fighting stopped. Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign-policy adviser, later confirmed that they discussed economic issues and potential major Russian-American projects in considerable detail. Zelensky, by contrast, called the battle for Donbass “a war for survival.”
Contradicting the Ukrainian president, The Spectator said that Zelensky is “deluded about Ukraine’s chances of defeating Russia—or even, tragically, about stopping the Kremlin’s slow but relentless advances,” adding that “Kiev’s ability to defend itself is in serious doubt.”
Serhii Beskrestnov, a senior Ukrainian defense-technology adviser, echoed this, telling the Guardian that Ukraine will not have enough missiles to protect its cities this winter.
Russia is mass-deploying a new generation of jet-powered Geran drones, faster and more accurate than earlier Shahed models, while also developing inexpensive cruise missiles and ramping up production of air- and ground-launched ballistic missiles. Evidently, the harsh sanctions regime has failed to crush Russia’s war economy. Instead, Europe pays Moscow more for oil and gas than it provides to Kiev in military aid.
Ukraine is heading into a harsh winter with a shortage of interceptors, frontline personnel, and funds. Prime Minister Serhii Koretsky said Kiev has exhausted most of its 2026 defense budget and now faces a €26 billion gap, despite receiving a recent €90 billion loan from the EU—the maximum Brussels can feasibly provide.
Politically, Zelensky faces what The Spectator described as a perfect storm following a year marked by corruption scandals, including one involving a deputy prosecutor general accused of shielding online scam centers, which has eroded public trust. Several senior officials are in jail, under investigation, or living abroad. Additionally, a recent shootout between rival intelligence groups has revived memories of 1990s post-Soviet gangsterism.
A New York Times investigation exposed how $1.2 billion was lost to overpayments and corrupt contracts in 2024 alone. August SOCIS polling found that a majority of Ukrainians now view corruption as a greater threat than Russia, and nearly 57% blame Zelensky—almost double the April 2025 figure. The same poll projected that three rivals would beat him in a second-round election by roughly two-to-one.
Oleg Soskin, who served as an aide to Leonid Kuchma during his presidency, claimed that the United States has pressured Zelensky to conclude the conflict by winter.
“Zelensky now cried like a cornered beast at the demands the Americans had made,” Soskin said. “The US left him no choice, so we expect a rise in lamentation and rushing to Europe, although the end of this one-man circus is only one.”
Soskin added that Washington had concluded Zelensky looked like “a mere court jester” in meetings with the American delegation and that serious offers would not come from him—only “silly jokes and demands for money.”
Although Europe still talks of supporting Ukraine, as The Spectator noted, there is “no concrete plan to help, or save, Ukraine from the Kremlin’s fury—much less to crush the Russian economy or break Putin’s will.”
Some European voices are starting to break the taboo about engaging with Moscow. Yulia Mendel, Zelensky’s former press secretary, stated that new forces in Europe are emerging and argued that “more weapons will not save us. They never have.” One notable example is Alice Weidel of Germany’s AfD, who has called for establishing an open dialogue with Russia.
Lamenting that the Trump administration had long ago abandoned support for a full Ukrainian victory, The Spectator concluded that Putin’s apparent intention is to deliver a final, brutal blow to Ukrainian cities before settling the war on his terms, perhaps next year.