A more modest than usual Victory Day Parade in Moscow must have come as an embarrassment to Vladimir Putin, but the Russian president is hardly on the ropes yet.
Lasting for just 45 minutes, the Russian Victory Day Parade in Moscow on 9 May 2026 was a shadow of former such pageants, constrained by a potent Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) threat.
A decade ago, for example, the 2016 Victory Day Parade included 10,000 personnel, more than 130 tracked and wheeled armoured vehicles – including artillery, missile and air defence systems, several examples of the then relatively new T-14 Armata main battle tank and a 71-aircraft military flypast. This year, however, while there were still several thousand marching troops and a flypast featuring six Su-25s, five Su-30s and four MiG-29s, there was no mobile column at all rumbling over the cobbles in Red Square.
Even the 2023 and 2024 parades had featured around 50 and 60 wheeled armoured vehicles, along with the RS-24 Yars intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) system and a solitary Second-World-War-vintage T-34 tank.
Perhaps more embarrassingly for Moscow, the 9 May parade this year could only go ahead in the first place following the imposition of a three-day ceasefire and prisoner exchange brokered by the United States, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy issuing a tongue-in-cheek decree that the military parade in Moscow would be allowed to proceed.
Meanwhile, as of the end of May, the usually anticipated Russian spring offensive in Ukraine this year hasn’t happened. According to data from the US-based Institute for the Study of War and Critical Threats Project, while Russia made an average monthly net territorial gain of 404 km2 in Ukraine throughout 2025 and 319 km2 in January 2026, it gained just 123 km2 in February and only 23 km2 in March, while it was Ukraine that made a net gain in April of 116 km2.
It is factors such as the subdued Victory Day Parade this year and the absence of a Russian spring offensive that have led some observers and Western politicians to sense that Russian President Vladimir Putin is now running into significant difficulties with his ‘Special Military Operation’, especially economically.
In an opinion article published in The New York Times on 20 May 2026, Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard asserted that the Russian economy “is more fragile than it appears”.
Stenergard noted that, while Russia is benefiting from the waiving of some sanctions because of the war in Iran and the near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz, “Swedish intelligence estimates that Russia would need the average oil price for Urals oil to remain above USD 100 a barrel for the rest of the year to make a significant difference” and that “The benefits to Russia have also been limited by Ukraine’s successful strikes on Russian oil refineries.”
Stenergard pointed out that in April 2026 “the European Union made two important decisions to strengthen support for Ukraine and further increase the pressure on Russia: it greenlit a loan of EUR 90 billion, or USD 106 billion, that will cover a significant part of Ukraine’s funding needs for 2026-2027; and approved a 20th package of sanctions against Russia.”
Arguing that the EU’s work should not stop there, Stenergard suggested that “One measure in particular would make a tremendous difference: the introduction of a ban on providing maritime services — insurance, access to ports, financing and so on — to any ships leaving Russian ports carrying oil, gas or coal.
“Escalating from a price cap to an outright prohibition would deal a significant blow to the Kremlin’s war chest. Sweden would like to see the European Union, and ideally the rest of the Group of 7, impose this measure,” she added.
Finally, asserting that the weakness in the Russian economy shows how effective Western sanctions have already been, and why further pressure is the best way to force Putin to engage in serious peace negotiations, Stenergard concluded, “We can’t change Mr Putin’s wish to control Ukraine, but we can change how much it will cost him.”
Meanwhile, what of the situation on the front line in Ukraine, where Russia is estimated to have suffered at least 1.3 million casualties in total according to Ukrainian sources? For a view on this, Warsight approached the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). Ruben Stewart, the IISS’s Senior Fellow for Land Warfare, had the following to say: “The absence of a large-scale Russian spring offensive should not be interpreted as evidence that Russia has ‘run out of men’ or can no longer conduct offensive operations. Russian forces are still attacking across multiple sectors. What appears to be changing is the cost-benefit calculation of their style of warfare.
“Russia is increasingly expending significant manpower, equipment and ammunition for very limited territorial gains,” said Stewart. “There are indications that Russian losses are now approaching, and in some periods potentially exceeding, current recruitment rates, but manpower is only one part of the issue. The battlefield has also become far more lethal and transparent. Ukraine’s expanding drone strike complex, persistent ISR coverage, long-range strikes against logistics and command nodes, and wider tactical adaptation are making it harder for Russia to mass forces and achieve operational manoeuvre without suffering disproportionate losses. The loss of Starlink connectivity and self-imposed Telegram restrictions, both of which are used for communications by Russian forces, appear to have compounded those pressures by degrading their tactical co-ordination at precisely the point where offensive operations already required greater synchronisation and resilience.
“The issue for Russia is not whether it can still attack; it can,” Stewart warned. “The issue is whether the battlefield is now extracting a price for offensive action that is strategically unsustainable over time.
Russia has also demonstrated repeatedly that it is willing to absorb very high casualties for incremental gains,” Stewart continued. “The more important question is whether the Kremlin can continue sustaining those losses without another politically risky mobilisation wave, further deterioration in force quality, or growing economic strain. There are already indications that recruitment is becoming more difficult and more expensive, with greater reliance on financial incentives, coercive recruitment measures and foreign personnel.
Stewart explained that what may be emerging now in Ukraine is not the end of Russian offensives, but the exhaustion of the original Russian offensive model. “The early phases of the war relied heavily on mass, artillery dominance and the ability to absorb losses in pursuit of operational gains. The battlefield of 2026 is increasingly hostile to that approach,” he said.
“This is increasingly becoming a contest between Russian force generation and Ukrainian battlefield adaptation,” Stewart concluded. “Ukraine’s objective is not simply to stop Russian attacks, but to raise the cost of every Russian kilometre gained to the point where offensive operations no longer produce meaningful strategic advantage.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military leaders remain cautious over what could lie ahead. In an interview with Ukrainian online military news outlet Militarnyi on 19 May 2026, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine General Oleksandr Syrskyi stated, “The front line is likely to extend further, and the latest intelligence we have received and … regarding threats from Russia and Belarus, operations in the north are a possibility; it’s a real possibility. We know this data. The point is that the Russian General Staff is currently actively planning and analysing offensive operations from the north. This means the front line will extend further.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had previously voiced concerns on 15 May that Russia was considering operations using the territory of Belarus, including an operation along the Chernihiv-Kyiv direction.
Gen Syrskyi also told media outlets on 19 May that Russian forces have concentrated around 99,000 troops in the Pokrovsk area northwest of Russian-occupied Donetsk, which he cited as the Russians’ top priority. As of 20 May, Russian forces were occupying a salient in the Ukrainian lines extending northwest of Pokrovsk, according to ukrdailyupdate.com, which constantly tracks the movement of the front line in Ukraine.
For Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko – currently the longest tenured European president – the prospect of operations against Ukraine from Belarusian territory no doubt presents an uncomfortable dilemma. His position in power is substantially maintained through the support of Putin, so he would be loathe to defy his benefactor, yet facilitating an offensive against Ukraine from Belarusian territory – even if it only involved Russian troops – would no doubt invite a significant international backlash from Ukraine’s allies in the rest of Europe.
It would not be the first time for this, of course; during Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Belarusian territory was used as a staging area for Russian forces attacked towards Kyiv. Since then, Belarusian support for Russia’s Ukraine offensive has involved Belarusian airspace being used by attacking Russian attack drones and Russian missiles have been launched from Belarusian territory. Further to this, Russian Oreshnik hypersonic missiles and tactical nuclear warheads have been hosted in Belarus. The country’s military-industrial complex is also heavily involved in the Russian war effort.
The truth behind concerns of a potential new Russian front in Ukraine via Belarus will, of course, become clear in the coming months, but for now even the threat of one forces the Ukrainian armed forces to take account of the possibility, tying down troops and resources that could otherwise be bolstering Ukrainian defences elsewhere, and it is already the case that Ukrainian forces do not have the manpower to mount any significant offensive of their own.
Meanwhile, the dissatisfaction with the effects of Putin’s ‘Special Military Operation’ within Russia – even among the Russian elite – are most unlikely to precipitate any move against Putin, who continues to have control of the Russian state wired tight. Thus, unless Putin were to be driven to the brink – economically or otherwise – the war in Ukraine shows no prospect of coming to a halt any time soon.
