In his fifth year of war, difficulties are mounting for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
His troops have slowed on the battlefield. His spending on the war has ballooned beyond expectations. His population is increasingly fearful of what’s next. And his ability to project control has been undercut by Ukrainian strikes across Russia, with e-commerce warehouses, oil refineries and other facilities going up in flames on a near daily basis.
The situation has deteriorated to the point that the C.I.A. director, John Ratcliffe, made a rare visit this week to Moscow, where he laid out a bleak military and economic reality for Mr. Putin’s intelligence officials and urged the Russian government to cut a peace deal.
But Mr. Putin has shown little indication that he intends to stop fighting or believes his predicament is too gloomy to bear.
Instead, the Russian leader has suggested that despite Moscow’s challenges, he believes Kyiv’s situation is worse. He has warned that Ukraine “let the genie out of the bottle” by targeting Russia’s civilian economy and will get its due with a Russian escalation already underway.
“In his assessment, Russia needs to do just better than Ukraine,” believing that Kyiv “is going to crumble” eventually if he just holds on, said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin.
