Who is winning the war in Ukraine?

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has lowered the age of military conscription in Ukraine to 25 years old in an attempt to boost the war-torn country's troop numbers. 

As the war with Russia enters its third year, Kyiv is facing critical military shortages amid waning support from key allies. And the timing of the move may "signify Ukraine's effort to build up strong defensive fortifications in preparation for a Russian offensive" in the coming months, said the BBC. 

Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin's offensive has "benefited from a sizeable advantage in manpower", said the BBC, and its "formidable" defences brought Kyiv's counteroffensive "to a halt" last year. "There are fears that Russian forces could outgun Ukraine."

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What are the latest developments in the war?

Moscow's superior military resources include "aerial bombs that have been smashing Ukrainian positions for weeks now", said Jamie Dettmer in Politico. There's a "great risk" of the front lines of the conflict "collapsing wherever Russian generals decide to focus their offensive", unnamed military officers told the news site.

As Russia has attacked Ukraine's infrastructure, Zelenskyy has felt he had "no choice but to punch back across the border", The Washington Post said. Kyiv has carried out a number of attacks on oil refineries and ports in Russia in recent weeks, marking "the biggest Ukrainian onslaught inside Russian territory" since the war began, said Luke Harding in The Guardian. 

 Ukraine now "has its eyes on another target", he added: the Kerch bridge, which connects occupied Crimea to Russia. To Ukraine, the 12-mile long bridge "is a hated symbol of the Kremlin's illegal annexation". To Putin, it is "a tangible reminder of what he sees as one of his greatest political achievements". But there are "serious doubts" as to whether Ukraine could successfully pull off such an attack. 

Delays to the delivery of a $60 billion military aid package from the US has left Ukraine "unable to plan future operations while legislators squabbled for nearly six months", said The Washington Post. Without these funds, "we will go back, retreat, step by step, in small steps", Zelenskyy said last week. 

The Senate approved the package after Russia took full control of the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, in Moscow's "biggest gain" since capturing Bakhmut last May, said The Guardian. Ukrainian forces had withdrawn from the city following "one of the most intense battles of the war", which has left the city almost completely destroyed. But the package faces an uphill battle getting through the House of Representatives.

For Russia too, the battle has been costly, said The New York Times. Casualty estimates circulating among military analysts, pro-Russian bloggers and Ukrainian officials suggest that Moscow "lost more troops taking Avdiivka than it did in 10 years of fighting in Afghanistan in the 1980s".

The death tolls on both sides of the conflict are mounting. Some 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since the beginning of the invasion, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in February, following claims from Russia that more than 300,000 had been killed. The UK Ministry of Defence estimates Moscow has suffered more than 350,000 casualties since the start of the war. 

What does victory look like for each side?

Before Russia launched its invasion in February 2022, Putin outlined the objectives of what he called a "special military operation". His goal, he claimed, was to "denazify" and "demilitarise" Ukraine, and to defend Donetsk and Luhansk, the two eastern Ukrainian territories occupied by Russian proxy forces since 2014.

Another objective, although never explicitly stated, was to topple the Ukrainian government and remove the country's president, Zelenskyy. "The enemy has designated me as target number one; my family is target number two," said Zelenskyy shortly after the invasion. Russian troops made two attempts to storm the presidential compound.

Russia shifted its objectives, however, about a month into the invasion, after Russian forces were forced to retreat from Kyiv and Chernihiv. According to the Kremlin, its main goal became the "liberation of the Donbas", including the regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – but Moscow has made little progress in achieving this aim.

Ukraine's main objective is the liberation of its occupied territories. That includes not just those held by Russia since the February 2022 invasion, but a return to its internationally recognised borders, including Crimea. 

Can Ukraine win the war?

For Ukraine, "the military picture is grim", said Dettmer in Politico. A top-ranking military source told the news site: "There's nothing that can help Ukraine now because there are no serious technologies able to compensate Ukraine for the large mass of troops Russia is likely to hurl at us. We don't have those technologies, and the West doesn't have them as well in sufficient numbers." 

Delays to ammunition deliveries from Western allies have posed further challenges too. "Often, we just don't get the weapons systems at the time we need them – they come when they're no longer relevant," another official said. "Only Ukrainian grit and resilience" and "errors" by Russia "may now alter the grim dynamics". 

Ukraine's priority now should be thinking about a "theory of victory", defence analyst Konrad Muzyka told The Telegraph in December. "How would they like to end this war? Is getting Crimea back still on the table? Or just retaking territory Russia captured since February last year? The political leadership needs to articulate that one way or another."  

But one of the officers speaking to Politico warned: "We don't only have a military crisis – we have a political one. Russia is now gathering resources and will be ready to launch a big attack around August, and maybe sooner".