During the new mandate! Vladimir Putin is determined to achieve his military goals in Ukraine

Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin is determined to conquer Ukraine, betting he can outlast Kiev's Western backers and prevail on the battlefield even if Russian troops advance slowly, Bloomberg editorial said, citing sources , familiar with the Kremlin's military strategy.

Amid his new six-year term in power and an attempt to blame Kiev for Russia's deadliest terrorist attack in two decades – the one at the "Crocus City Hall", Putin is committed to achieving his military goals after diplomatic contacts with the US ended in failure at the end of last year, the agency noted.

At the same time, US officials see no signs that the Russian president was serious about finding a way to end the fighting in Ukraine.

"Now Putin is likely to escalate. His goal is victory”, Alexey Mukhin, head of the Moscow Center for Political Information, is confident.

The article emphasizes that with Russia lacking the manpower needed to make a decisive breakthrough and Ukraine struggling to supply its forces with ammunition, there are no signs that either side will be able to end the fighting anytime soon.

Since winning election last month, Putin has stepped up missile attacks on Ukrainian cities, saying he is not interested in giving Kiev and its allies time to rearm by agreeing to a pause in the fighting.

Bloomberg suggests the Kremlin may be preparing the ground for an escalation of the war, including a possible further mobilization of reservists, even though Russia's "military economy is already struggling with personnel shortages”. Now, however, Russia may have trouble launching major new offensives to capture cities like Kharkiv.

"I do not believe in the eventual capture of Kharkiv. The Kremlin does not have enough forces for such a task, and the city is too big. For a real breakthrough in this war, Russia needs much better communication capabilities, much more high-precision weapons and much more people,”, explains Ruslan Pukhov, head of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies at the Moscow Defense Analytical Center.