The more progress they make, the greater the pressure for the kind of defeat that would be far more than Putin could accept. But they don’t see a quick victory either and have resisted Kyiv’s demands for longer-range weapons to speed that outcome. Battlefield successes to date have boosted calls to retake all the territory lost to Russia, including Crimea, which Putin annexed in 2014. But some European officials worry his replacement would be even more hard-line. A broader defeat in Ukraine would be too much for Putin to cover up.
