Pjotr Sauer

And that, you know, Ukraine is having bigger man shortages on the front line and Ukraine will collapse at any moment.

And we've seen, you know, Putin repeating that again and again and again, that I will not stop until I reach my military goals.

Right.

And is there any evidence that Russia is actually winning?

Because Vladimir Zelensky gave a fairly upbeat interview to our colleagues Luke Harding and Pippa Krier this week, in which he insisted that Russia was not advancing.

And he also wrote to Putin, didn't he, last week, suggesting that they kind of meet together face to face, mano a mano, and thrash out some sort of deal.

Based on all the military analysis that we have at this point, shows that Russia is advancing, but advancing at a very, very slow rate.

And if they continue to advance at this slow rate, it would take them years, if not decades, to capture the whole of Donbass, which is sort of the minimum that Putin wants.

But there's no indication that...

that shows that Ukraine is facing an immediate collapse.

So the question is, why does Putin think this way?

And I think there are different theories behind that, but it does seem like he's receiving very upbeat, rosy,

military reports from his commanders.

There's this, you know, good example that we've seen play out in public, where last year a military commander told them it was televised that Russia captured the city of Kupyansk in northern Ukraine.

Kupyansk is still controlled by Ukraine.

So, you know, even though this commander told something like, you know, we've captured Kvyansk, you know, this was just wrong information.

You've said that the mood appears to be darkening in Russia, not only because of the enormous death toll, but also because of the effect that it's having on the economy.

You mentioned this sort of Russian Davos that took place in St.

Petersburg last week.

What have we learned about how the Russian economy is actually doing right now?