On 25 May, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin is conducting a coordinated campaign of military escalation and psychological warfare aimed at weakening Ukraine and eroding Western support.
This comes amid several consecutive nights of significantly escalated Russian combined drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities, resulting in civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure.
ISW wrote that Putin “is leveraging long-range strikes against Ukrainian cities, aggressive rhetorical campaigns, and excessive pessimism in the West about the battlefield situation in Ukraine in a multi-pronged effort to degrade Ukrainian morale and convince the West that a Russian victory in Ukraine is inevitable and that supporting Ukraine is futile.”
According to ISW, Russia has intensified long-range missile and drone attacks over the last eight months, launching seven of the largest combined strikes of the war since January 2025.
Weaponizing pessimism and pressure
ISW emphasized that the Kremlin is simultaneously saturating the information space with calls for Ukraine to accept concessions on sovereignty and territorial integrity. These demands, however, are not new. ISW notes they are in line with longstanding Russian war aims, and this shows that “Russia’s demands have not changed over the last three years of war.”
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Despite the messaging, ISW points out that the battlefield situation has changed significantly since early 2022. Russia has suffered three years of manpower and equipment losses, weakening its military’s capacity to achieve large-scale offensive success.
On the ground, Russian progress stalls
ISW reports that Russian advances have slowed, with forces relying increasingly on poorly trained and poorly equipped infantry to sustain pressure. Nevertheless, Putin remains committed to masking battlefield realities with a media and missile campaign intended to disrupt international unity and end Western military assistance.
“Putin remains deeply committed to distracting from the realities of the battlefield situation, however, as bringing about the cessation of Western military assistance to Ukraine is Russia’s only real hope of winning this war,” ISW concludes.