The Institute for the Study of War's latest assessment portrays Russia's war effort as increasingly centered on coercion rather than immediate territorial breakthrough. According to the analysis, Moscow is using mass drone attacks, missile strikes and pressure on critical infrastructure to erode Ukraine's capacity to sustain the war and to shape the political environment for a future settlement on Russian terms. The report argues that the Kremlin's strategy is designed to intensify over time, with spring 2027 emerging as a possible horizon for maximum leverage if Ukraine's defenses, energy grid and industrial base are sufficiently strained.
Pressure Through Attrition
The assessment frames Russia's campaign as a deliberate attempt to impose cumulative costs on Ukraine rather than achieve a rapid military decision. By repeatedly targeting energy facilities, logistics nodes and urban centers, Russian forces are seeking to degrade civilian morale and complicate Kyiv's ability to maintain wartime governance. ISW's conclusion is that these attacks are not isolated acts of punishment but part of a broader theory of victory: exhaust Ukraine's resources, reduce Western confidence in long-term support and create conditions under which political capitulation becomes more plausible than battlefield collapse.
That logic reflects a familiar Russian pattern in the war. When front-line advances have been limited or costly, Moscow has often turned to long-range strikes to widen the conflict's impact beyond the trenches. The current phase appears to be no exception. The report suggests that Russia is betting on endurance, assuming that sustained pressure on power generation, air defenses and industrial output can gradually outpace Ukraine's repair capacity and its partners' willingness to fund recovery.
The timing matters. A spring 2027 target, as described in the assessment, implies a campaign built around months of escalation and adaptation. It also indicates that Russia may view the coming period as one in which Ukrainian air defenses could be stretched by repeated waves of drones and missiles, while domestic reconstruction demands continue to compete with military spending. In that sense, the war is being fought not only at the front but in the space between military logistics, economic resilience and political legitimacy.
Moscow's Strategic Bet
ISW's reading of the Kremlin's approach is that Russia is trying to convert tactical persistence into strategic coercion. The goal is not necessarily to seize all remaining Ukrainian territory by force in the near term. Instead, Moscow appears to be pursuing a broader objective: convince Ukraine and its allies that the cost of continued resistance will become unsustainable. That would allow the Kremlin to claim success through exhaustion, even if the battlefield remains contested.
The report also underscores the role of drone warfare in this strategy. Mass drone attacks are cheaper, more scalable and easier to sustain than large conventional offensives, making them an attractive instrument for a long war of attrition. They can force Ukraine to expend scarce interceptors, disperse air defenses and divert resources from other priorities. Over time, that can create a dangerous imbalance between the cost of attack and the cost of defense.
For Kyiv, the implications are severe. Ukraine must simultaneously defend cities, preserve energy infrastructure, maintain military production and keep public confidence intact. That is a difficult balancing act even with steady Western support. If the pace of Russian strikes increases, the strain on Ukraine's air defense inventory, repair crews and emergency services will likely intensify. The broader strategic question is whether Ukraine's partners can sustain assistance at a level that prevents Moscow from turning attrition into political leverage.
War Beyond The Front
The assessment arrives amid a wider debate over how the war may evolve if neither side secures a decisive breakthrough. Russia's offensive campaign has repeatedly shown that the conflict is no longer defined solely by territorial movement. It is also a contest over endurance, industrial capacity and the ability to absorb shocks. In that environment, long-range strikes become a central tool of statecraft, not merely a battlefield supplement.
The Kremlin's apparent willingness to absorb international condemnation while continuing attacks suggests that it believes time may favor coercion. But the strategy carries risks. Escalating strikes can harden Ukrainian resistance, deepen Western resolve and expose vulnerabilities in Russia's own military-industrial base if the campaign becomes too resource-intensive. Even so, the ISW assessment indicates that Moscow is prepared to pay those costs in pursuit of a political outcome that military advances alone have not delivered.
For now, the report points to a war entering another phase of pressure and counterpressure, with Russia seeking to break Ukraine's will through sustained bombardment and Ukraine relying on resilience, air defense and external support to deny that outcome. The central question is whether Moscow's campaign can translate destruction into surrender before Ukraine and its allies adapt to the new tempo of the war.