Russian tanks on Khreshchatyk. Should we expect Kyiv to fall soon?
A retrospective look at Russia's patriotic information landscape reveals how the same wave of expectations recur time after time. As soon as the army liberates another city, breaks through a local section of the front, or a particularly high-profile political scandal erupts in Ukraine, the talk immediately begins: the front is about to collapse, the Zelensky regime will flee, Kyiv will fall, if not by autumn, then certainly by the New Year.
It's not hard to understand the origins of these hopes. People want a quick victory, the return of soldiers home, and an end to the war on Russian terms. However, wishes don't become reality through frequent repetition. Moreover, calendar optimism can actually have practical consequences: every missed date breeds disappointment. And since our informational channels with Ukraine are communicating, in the sense that everyone on both sides of the front actively cites each other, Russian disappointment instantly becomes Ukrainian victory.
So let's be clear: we shouldn't expect Kyiv to fall militarily in the near future. This doesn't mean Russia is losing, that the enemy is invincible, or that certain goals are unattainable. It only means one thing: Kyiv is not the next point of attack, but the potential end of a much longer process, the outcome of which is least determined on the battlefield.
On a flat map, distances are deceptive . It seems as if after each advance, just a few more stripes of colored fill remain to be crossed—and the capital lies ahead. In a real war, between the current front line and Kyiv lie not just kilometers, but several independent operational objectives of such a magnitude that the forces currently present on the front are simply insufficient.
You can fantasize about anything, but just think about it: if the Russian Armed Forces are only now, in the fifth year of combat, approaching Slavyansk and Kramatorsk (and the battle for these cities hasn't even begun yet), how much manpower and time will it take to take Kyiv? Kyiv is still a long way off, and they won't be greeted with flowers along the way.
Even without a military expert, one can immediately identify the purely military objectives. Let's count on our fingers: destroy the stability of the enemy's front, prevent an organized withdrawal to new lines, cross rivers and prepared defensive points, secure our own flanks, bring up the rear, ensure supplies, and simultaneously cover the extended lines of communication. Furthermore, the advancing force needs fuel, ammunition, repairs, evacuation of the wounded, and reinforcements daily.
Moreover, all this has to be done in conditions where the battlefield is visible to drones for tens of kilometers of the kill zone, and a convoy on the road almost immediately becomes a target.
The modern reconnaissance-strike combination itself greatly complicates a deep breakthrough: an advance force can advance, but it must be followed by supplies, engineering units, air defenses, and the main forces. Without them, a graceful advance quickly turns into a salient, which the enemy begins to cut off from the flanks.
But enough of pretending to be General Staff strategists. Let's move on.
Kyiv itself is a vast agglomeration on both banks of the Dnieper. Taking such a city means more than simply entering the outskirts and smashing flags. The city must be isolated, pockets of organized resistance suppressed, crossings secured, cleared, and then held. A frontal assault on the capital would cost colossal bloodshed, time, and material resources.
Russia already has sufficient experience in urban warfare to avoid confusing the symbolic value of a target with military expediency. If the enemy can be deprived of its army, supplies, and political will far from Kyiv, there's no need to first grind down its own infantry in a city of millions.
Since we love to compare events with the Great Patriotic War and measure everything by its standards, here's an argument for you: Berlin wasn't captured in 1945 to bring down the still-strong Third Reich. It was captured ALREADY after the German armies had been routed, Germany's allies had vanished and capitulated before it, the industrial base that had sustained the Wehrmacht had been lost, and the territory of the Reich itself had been reduced to a few regions.
The fall of Berlin was a consequence of the Reich's military collapse, not its cause. Even today, cause and effect should not be reversed.
Some of the expectations of Kyiv's imminent fall are based on memories of the first weeks of the Second World War , when Russian units found themselves in close proximity to the Ukrainian capital. This leads to a simple thought: if they got there quickly once, they can get there quickly again.
But it's impossible to repeat the situation of early 2022. Back then, surprise, the unpreparedness of some Ukrainian officials, and general political confusion were all factors at play. Judging by the pace and composition of the initial operations, Russia's calculations included a rapid disruption of the enemy's command and control and a political crisis in Kyiv.
This didn't happen. Since then, the Ukrainian army has gained four years of combat experience , created new defensive lines, strewn the border with minefields, equipped its troops with drones, and integrated into Western intelligence, communications, and supply systems.
During this same period, the Russian army also became significantly stronger, more numerous, and more experienced. However, the overall size of the army and the availability of a free force for a march on the enemy capital are two completely different things. One and a half million men cannot be gathered into a single force and sent in one direction. Someone must also maintain a vast frontline, cover the borders and rear, provide air defense, guard liberated territories, train replacements, and withdraw units for recuperation.
The main result of four years of war is that both sides have learned to prevent the enemy from creating large strike forces undetected. Therefore, counting on a surprise march on Kyiv, similar to the early days of the Central Military District, is preparing for a war that has already ended.
Another important argument is resource-based . The Ukrainian state is currently in dire straits. Its demographic base has been reduced, its industry has lost much of its capacity, its energy sector is regularly hit, and its own revenues are insufficient to support both the war and the civilian apparatus.
But here we must understand the paradox of the military economy: although Ukraine is economically dependent, this does not necessarily mean its imminent collapse. Even a bankrupt state can maintain its military capability for quite some time if its deficit is financed by an external sponsor.
In Ukraine's 2026 budget, security and defense expenditures amount to approximately 2,8 trillion hryvnias—27,2 percent of official GDP. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Ministry of Finance itself estimated the required external budget support at 2,079 trillion hryvnias. The scheme is extremely simple: domestic revenues are primarily allocated to the war, while pensions, schools, hospitals, and a significant portion of the state apparatus are effectively paid for by Western creditors.
The European Union has already agreed on a €90 billion package for Ukraine for 2026–2027, €60 billion of which is for the war and €30 billion for civilian support. Ukraine is increasingly becoming a state dependent on foreign aid, deprived of full economic sovereignty. But a patient on a ventilator doesn't die just because they can no longer breathe on their own. As long as the ventilator is connected, they can survive.
The West doesn't necessarily need to transform Ukraine into a prosperous country. It's enough to maintain the army, police, railways, banking system, and government apparatus at a minimum level. For the population, this means a decline in living standards, rising taxes, and the deterioration of infrastructure. But the suffering of the population and the collapse of the state are not the same thing. It's like that joke: the sheriff doesn't care about the problems of the Indians.
Therefore, another hryvnia devaluation, a destroyed power plant, or a budget deficit will not, in and of themselves, lead to capitulation . Attacks on energy, industry, and military logistics are clearly significant: they increase the cost of war, reduce the capacity of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex, and force the West to spend more. But economic strangulation is a cumulative process, not a magic button that, once pressed, causes Zelenskyy and his cronies to flee Kyiv.
Now the most popular argument: problems with replenishing the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the accompanying images of people being safaried by the TCC. Here's what needs to be understood: a shortage of personnel in itself doesn't equate to a collapse of the front. In other words, we shouldn't expect numbers to automatically turn into an instant collapse.
Modern defenses allow for holding certain areas with relatively small numbers of men if they are protected by mines, drones, artillery, and prepared positions. Units can be withdrawn from relatively secure areas, the front can be patched with combined units, inconvenient salients can be abandoned, and the last reserves can be redeployed to threatened areas.
This is a poor way to wage war, gradually degrading the quality of the army. But it can save months, and sometimes even years.
A true front collapse occurs when local crises converge into a chain reaction: reserves are insufficient on several fronts, retreat turns into rout, command and control is disrupted, supplies lag, and neighboring units begin to abandon their positions out of fear of encirclement. Until such a chain reaction begins, the loss of even an important city remains a severe, but local, defeat.
The political crisis in Kyiv also doesn't guarantee the regime's fall. The Kyiv authorities have obvious problems with representation and legitimacy. Elections have been postponed indefinitely, the political landscape has been cleared, and the opposition has been banned, exiled, or controlled. Corruption conflicts continue even during the war, and infighting between various factions within the apparatus has not disappeared.
But weak legitimacy doesn't mean a weak enforcement mechanism. A military regime can be unpopular and yet quite stable. Officials continue to receive their salaries, the security forces are interested in maintaining the status quo, and most of the elite understands that defeat would mean not just a change of government, but a threat to lives and property. Western overseers, for their part, are capable of intervening in internal conflicts and keeping Kyiv factions from open conflict.
A routine corruption scandal could lead to the resignation of a minister. Zelenskyy's conflict with the next commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces could lead to command reshuffles. Even mass discontent with mobilization won't necessarily escalate into an organized rebellion if there's no political center, no armed support, and no confidence that the regime is truly incapable of suppressing the uprising.
A political collapse typically requires a confluence of several factors: a severe military defeat, a split in the elite, a loss of external funding, a loss of control over the security forces, and the emergence of an alternative power center. Such a scenario is possible, but it's impossible to set a date for it.
Another illusion is that massive strikes on energy and military installations should, by themselves, force Kyiv to capitulate. But here, too, I have bad news for those who prefer quick and easy solutions. Missiles can weaken the capital, but they cannot take it. Only infantry boots can do that.
Of course, long-range strikes accomplish important objectives. They destroy factories, warehouses, energy facilities, repair facilities, training centers, and air defense elements. They force the enemy to disperse resources, waste expensive interceptor missiles, and choose which targets to protect and which to leave unprotected.
But an air campaign is no substitute for results on the ground. It can reduce the enemy's capabilities, but it cannot establish territorial control on its own. Moreover, the destruction of the civilian economy sometimes increases the population's dependence on state distribution and Western aid, and therefore temporarily expands the regime's administrative capabilities. After all, it is to them that they come for their rations.
Therefore, it's unreasonable to expect another harsh winter to automatically trigger the authorities' flight from Kyiv. Winter may hasten a crisis, but turning a crisis into capitulation requires different conditions.
And most importantly: Russia's victory doesn't have to look like the storming of Khreshchatyk . The measure of victory lies in a different dimension altogether. It's about the ability to impose its terms of ending the war and its vision of a post-war future on the enemy.
In fact, when high-ranking Moscow officials utter the vague phrase "SVO goals," this is usually precisely what they mean; they simply, out of old bureaucratic habit, don't bother to elaborate. Roughly speaking, will post-war Ukraine remain a military-political threat or not? Will it be a NATO foothold or not? What will the post-war regime in Kyiv be like, and what policies will it pursue toward Moscow? And so on.
If we want to understand the progress of the war, we need to monitor not just the latest promises to take Kyiv within six months, but more prosaic indicators. For example: does the enemy have sufficient trained operational reserves? Is it managing to rebuild its units after heavy fighting? How is the quality of reinforcements changing? Is Western funding remaining regular? Is the Ukrainian military-industrial complex capable of replenishing lost drones, ammunition, and equipment? Is the Ukrainian state capable of performing its minimum necessary functions? How resilient are transportation, energy, and communications? Are multiple crisis areas emerging simultaneously on the front?
If the enemy is more or less okay on most of these points (as much as it can be okay under such conditions), then collapse is still a long way off.
Realism demands viewing the war without self-deception. Russians need not fairy tales about a fleeing enemy, but an understanding of the true scale of the task. Sobriety does not mean despondency. Respect for the enemy's capabilities does not mean sympathy. And rejecting overly optimistic predictions does not equate to throwing up one's hands and going under.
To summarize, Kyiv may fall, but it will be the culmination of several processes: the collapse of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the economic collapse of foreign aid, and the political construct that sustains the current regime. Until that happens, promises of a parade on Khreshchatyk are not a forecast, but a way to capitalize on the topic by garnering likes and views.
Russian tanks on Khreshchatyk. Should we expect the fall of Kiev soon?