The three-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine this week brought with it renewed hope that a long-awaited peace may soon follow.
But the road to a ceasefire is proving almost as contentious as the war itself.
Direct talks between the US and Russia – held without Ukrainian representatives – have fuelled fears that Kyiv‘s future is being decided elsewhere, particularly given the evident rift between Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump.
European leaders, including Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, have scrambled to Washington to present their own plans and convince the US President that Europe must also have a say in negotiations.
Trump himself has declared that Moscow ‘has the cards’ in the talks, but is set to host his Ukrainian counterpart to discuss potential security promises for Kyiv – if Zelensky is prepared to hand over some of his nation’s mineral wealth.
Amid the diplomatic jockeying, a smug Vladimir Putin is likely sitting in the Kremlin rubbing his hands in anticipation.
If a ceasefire were to freeze the conflict in place, Russia would retain control of nearly a fifth of Ukraine’s land, including key industrial and agricultural regions.
In the past three years, Putin has also deepened ties with non-Western powers, tested and refined military technology and all but ensured Ukraine will not be granted NATO membership for the foreseeable future.
But these victories come at a price. His armed forces have been hollowed out, the economy is heading for crisis, and NATO’s border with Russia has more than doubled in size.
Now, as diplomats toil away in embassies and war-weary soldiers fight on, let’s examine what exactly Putin’s murderous rampage in Ukraine has achieved for the Kremlin – and what Russia has had to sacrifice in return.
Amid the diplomatic jockeying over Ukraine, a smug Vladimir Putin is likely sitting in the Kremlin rubbing his hands in anticipation
WINS
Territorial gains
Above all else, any ceasefire agreement that freezes the conflict in place as it stands will see Russia lock down its claim to almost 20% of Ukraine’s total landmass.
Beyond Crimea, which was annexed in 2014 and is now wholly under Russian control, five Ukrainian regions are now partially occupied by Putin‘s forces.
Four of them – Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – were unilaterally annexed by Russia in September 2022 and declared part of the Russian Federation – even as war continued to rage.
In 2025, Luhansk has been almost completely subsumed, while somewhere between 70%-80% of the Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts are now under Russian control.
The Russian-installed authorities are working to ‘russify’ these Ukrainian regions, issuing Russian passports, broadcasting Russian media and taking payments in roubles, rather than the Ukrainian hryvnia.
Russian troops have also occupied a very small portion of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region.
It is unclear exactly how much of this land Kyiv will be forced to relinquish, but the US has signalled Ukraine is set to lose much of its territory under a ceasefire deal.
US Defence Secretary Hegseth openly declared earlier this month that Ukraine regaining its pre-2014 borders as part of a peace deal was ‘unrealistic’.
‘We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine. But we must start by recognising that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective,’ Hegseth told a meeting of Ukrainian officials and more than 40 allies in Brussels.
‘Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering,’ he added.
The Kremlin has also stated that Ukraine would have to give up a small amount of territory its forces managed to seize in Russia’s Kursk region as part of any peace deal.
Russian soldiers ride atop Akatsiya self-propelled gun at an undisclosed location in eastern Ukraine
Ukrainian forces firing a 120mm mortar towards Russian positions at an undisclosed location near Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region, on February 8
Natural resources and industry
In conquering Ukraine’s Eastern flank, Russia has also seized a large portion of Ukraine’s natural resources and mineral wealth.
Luhansk and Donetsk constitute the Donbas region of Ukraine, which has long been the nation’s industrial heartland.
The Donbas contains the bulk of Ukraine’s coal deposits along with a significant quantity of coveted rare minerals.
All told, about 40% of Ukraine’s metal resources and up to 90% of Ukraine’s coal have been brought under Russian control, according to estimates by Ukrainian think-tanks We Build Ukraine and the National Institute of Strategic Studies, citing data up to the first half of 2024.
Since then, Russian troops have only continued to advance steadily and in January, Ukraine closed its only coking coal mine outside the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk, which Moscow’s forces are trying to capture.
Russia has also occupied at least two Ukrainian lithium deposits during the war – one in Donetsk and another in the Zaporizhzhia region in the southeast – and is now pushing to take a third near Shevchenko in the Donetsk region.
Along with these highly valuable natural resources come the majority of Ukrainian industrial facilities required to extract, refine and export the coveted materials.
In addition, huge swathes of Ukraine’s most arable land are located across the southern Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, roughly three-quarters of which are controlled by Russia.
Volodymyr Zelensky is said to be on the cusp of signing a deal with the US that would see Ukraine offer up future revenues on some of the resources it still controls in exchange for as yet unspecified security guarantees and financial commitments.
But with Russian-US relations warming significantly, there is speculation Putin could offer Washington preferential oil, gas and mineral deals following a favourable ceasefire agreement.
This could even see Moscow provide Washington with minerals gleaned from Ukraine’s occupied territory.
Ukraine will not join NATO
Ukraine has repeatedly said it cannot agree to a ceasefire without ironclad security guarantees from its Western partners to prevent future Russian aggression.
Zelensky has long campaigned for Ukraine to accede to NATO, which would see Kyiv protected by the alliance’s collective defence commitments laid out in its treaty’s famous ‘Article 5’.
But this prospect is one of Moscow’s undisputable ‘red lines’, and with Trump in the White House, Ukraine’s ambition to earn membership to the transatlantic security bloc is all but lost.
‘The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement,’ Hegseth told Ukrainian delegates and European defence chiefs earlier this month.
He later gave a half-hearted caveat, adding that in regard to the likelihood of Ukraine’s future NATO membership, ‘everything is on the table’.
But NATO operates on a unanimous voting system, meaning that the US can bar Ukraine from joining the bloc even if the other 31 member nations are in favour.
While Washington’s commitment to upholding Ukraine’s future security following a ceasefire remains in question, Europe is expected to shoulder the majority of the burden.
Britain and France are said to have hatched a plan to deploy a peacekeeping force to Ukraine that would be stationed at key infrastructure sites around the country, allowing Ukraine’s own armed forces to focus on border security and patrolling a demilitarised zone implemented along the frontlines.
Their presence would in theory deter Russian aggression, and their safety would be guaranteed with additional NATO troops and air power reinforcing the alliance’s eastern flank.
The US would also support its European allies with air support, and air and naval reconnaissance.
President Donald Trump signs two Executive Orders in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C
Rescuers of the State Emergency Service work to extinguish a fire in a building after a drone strike in Kharkiv
Russian air strike in Kostyantynivka, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, 23 February 2025
Domestic support, and non-Western political and economic ties
As the war in Ukraine approached the three-year mark, Putin’s approval ratings were soaring.
Polling conducted by the Levada Centre – widely seen as Russia’s most credible sociological research body – put Putin’s approval rating in January at 87%.
Three years ago – one month prior to the invasion of Ukraine, his rating lingered at 69%.
Despite the horrors of the conflict, Putin’s warmongering has triggered a noticeable increase in his popularity. His approval rating has not dipped below 80% since November 2022.
Meanwhile, one of the pillars of the Kremlin’s foreign policy is centred around dismantling the so-called ‘unipolar’ world order in which the US and the West enjoy outsized political and economic dominance, particularly in established international forums and institutions.
Instead, Moscow is pushing for ‘multipolarity’ – an order in which global affairs are influenced and directed by several states with diverging interests, thereby distributing power more evenly.
Through its war in Ukraine, Russia has demonstrated to the world that it can tolerate Western sanctions, resist efforts to isolate it from the international community and operate independently of the Western economic and political sphere.
Moscow has also doubled down on efforts to strengthen ties with other powers, particularly China, India, Iran and North Korea, positioning itself as a potential leader of the so-called ‘Global South and Global East’.
Technological development, warfighting capabilities
Russia’s armed forces will derive significant benefits from their experiences in Ukraine, despite heavy losses.
Moscow’s military is now acutely aware of the logistical and operational challenges of large-scale modern warfare.
They have refined their approach to fighting, developed new tactics and discovered the effectiveness and limitations of their military technology. In turn, Putin’s troops and military scientists have learned more about the capabilities of advanced Western weapon systems used by Ukraine.
Meanwhile, they have deployed, tested and developed advanced modern warfighting technology of their own – particularly when it comes to drones and drone countermeasures.
An explosion of a drone is seen in the sky over the city during a Russian drone strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine February 5, 2025
Ukrainian servicemen of the 24th Mechanized Brigade firing a MRLS BM-21 ‘Grad’ towards Russian positions
LOSSES
Casualties and materiel losses
Exact numbers are impossible to come by, but Russian casualties after three years of war in Ukraine are believed to be extremely high.
Even the most conservative estimates suggest a minimum of 700,000 Russians have been killed or injured since February 2022, with that figure increasing as high as 1.2 million, according to some analyses.
Trump declared earlier this year that almost 1 million Russian soldiers had been lost – presumably, he meant killed and wounded.
The shocking attrition rate can be attributed to a number of factors, chief among which is the Russian armed forces’ approach to the war.
In many cases, Russian commanders resorted to World War I-style tactics – battering Ukrainian positions with artillery before sending thousands upon thousands of people to wear down defensive lines, seizing ground metre by blood-soaked metre.
Furthermore, Moscow was reluctant to deploy its elite units to the front and risk losing large quantities of highly trained troops.
When Russia’s initial invasion force had incurred heavy losses, much of the heavy lifting was done by private military companies – primarily the infamous Wagner Group – along with battalions comprised of prisoners liberated from their cells and sent to the frontline, and reservist conscripts.
Several of these units were often poorly trained, inexperienced and woefully underequipped.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s armed forces, equipped with Western weaponry and using drone warfare to great effect, have obliterated huge quantities of Russian armour and heavy weaponry.
More than 20,000 tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery batteries and mobile launchers have been reduced to scrap since February 2024, along with hundreds of military aircraft shot down by Ukrainian defences.
A Ukrainian serviceman stands near a destroyed Russian tank
Trump is keen to force Putin and Zelensky to the negotiation table. He seems less concerned as to whether European nations are present while he does so
NATO expansion
Russia may have succeeded in scuppering Ukraine’s NATO ambitions.
But in waging war across the border, Putin triggered an expansion of the Western-led security bloc further north.
Finland and Sweden reversed decades of neutrality in 2022 when they applied for NATO membership within months of Russian tanks rolling into Ukraine.
Finland became the bloc’s 31st member in April 2023, and Sweden joined less than a year later in March 2024, bringing the total number of NATO nations to 32.
The accession of Finland in particular constituted a significant blow to Putin and the Kremlin’s rhetoric that it would not accept an eastward advancement of NATO or Western military influence.
Finland and Russia share a border stretching some 840 miles, thereby doubling the length of NATO’s pre-existing border with Russia.
Impending economic crisis
Though Trump himself has said Moscow ‘has the cards’ in the ceasefire negotiations, a continuance of war in Ukraine would likely wreak havoc on the ailing Russian economy.
According to Oleg Vyugin, former deputy chairman of Russia’s central bank, Russia must stop inflating military spending.
If Moscow opts to maintain its current spending habits to fuel war, it will pay the price with years of slow growth, high inflation and falling living standards – all of which carry political risks.
Though government spending usually stimulates growth, non-regenerative spending on missiles at the expense of civilian sectors has caused serious economic overheating.
Interest rates in Russia are soaring at 21% and inflation cannot be tamed, while the central bank projects a slowdown in economic growth.
In other words, the Russian economy is headed for stagflation.
‘For economic reasons, Russia is interested in negotiating a diplomatic end to the conflict,’ Vyugin said earlier this month.
‘(This) will avoid further increasing the redistribution of limited resources for unproductive purposes. It’s the only way to avoid stagflation.’
Although Russia’s military industrial complex is benefitting greatly from war, civilian corporate sectors are not so lucky.
A report by Russia’s Interfax news agency late last year found there had been a 26% increase in business bankruptcies in the first three-quarters of 2024 vs the same period in 2023.
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy meet at Trump Tower in New York City, U.S., September 27, 2024
Strengthened Ukrainian identity
When he ordered Russian troops to bear down on Kyiv in February 2022, Putin said one of the primary goals of his so-called ‘special military operation’ was to ‘demilitarise and denazify’ Ukraine.
This statement was ridiculed from the outset by Ukraine and the West.
Zelensky is a democratically elected Jew, and there are no discernable far-right elements in the Ukrainian government.
The ‘denazification’ of Ukraine was therefore taken to mean the degradation of Ukrainian identity and elements within the country set on breaking free of Russia’s post-Soviet sphere of influence.
On these accounts, Putin’s war in Ukraine has proven to be an abject failure.
Russian authorities have made consolidated efforts to undermine Ukrainian identity in the eastern regions now under their control, and there are widespread reports of forcible deportation of Ukrainian citizens to Russia.
But beyond the occupied territory, the Ukrainian identity and desire to affirm Ukraine’s independence is arguably stronger than ever.
Polls conducted by the respected Ukrainian Centre for Economic and Political Studies have shown that Ukrainian national pride has soared since Russia’s invasion in tandem with anti-Russian sentiments.
Surveys in May 2023 found that self-identification with the Ukrainian cultural tradition among ethnic Ukrainians increased from 66% in 2006 to 83%. Conversely, identification with the Russian cultural tradition decreased from an already paltry 6% to 0.2%.
What’s more, 83% of Ukrainians associated Russia with ‘backwardness and devolution’. In 2017, only 51% reported such association.
Meanwhile, though Ukraine’s weary military has suffered significant losses of its own, its armed forces are now well-trained and well-armed and have successfully held back a much larger and more powerful adversary.
They are also likely to be supported by ongoing training, military aid and financing by NATO nations, up to and perhaps including the United States, for years to come.
Reduction in Russia’s influence abroad and damage to reputation
Though Russia may have strengthened its relations with non-Western states, there is no doubt that its reputation as a world-leading military power now lies in tatters.
Moscow’s inability to conquer Kyiv in the early days of the war, the huge human and materiel losses it has sustained at the hands of Ukraine and its reliance on other countries for large quantities of ammunition and drones to fill the gaps in its domestic supply suggest Russia’s armed forces can no longer rival those of China or America.
This is also evidenced by a reduction in Russia’s capacity to project power beyond Ukraine.
A notable example of this is Syria, where Russia conducted a brutal military intervention in 2015 to prop up the failing presidency of Bashar al-Assad.
Assad’s regime was only able to survive thanks to Russia’s punishing bombardments of rebel positions, and Russia was granted military facilities in Latakia and Tartus as a result.
But having been preoccupied in Ukraine from 2022, Russia was powerless to prevent Assad being overthrown by Islamist rebel group HTS late last year.
HTS mounted a lightning offensive and ousted Assad in less than two weeks, facing little resistance from Assad’s divided forces and no pushback from Russian military assets stationed on Syria’s west coast.
Now, Russia is in desperate talks with Syria’s new government to hang onto the Khmeimim airbase and its naval port in Tartus – Russia’s only warm-water port in the world.
