U.S. intelligence agencies sounded the alarm on Ukraine’s dwindling battlefield prospects against Russia in an annual report released Tuesday.
The 2025 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community — released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in conjunction with top officials’ testimony at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing — warns that Moscow has “seized the upper hand” in the war over the past year and “is on a path to accrue greater leverage” to force favorable terms in its negotiations with Ukraine and the West.
Intelligence agencies see continued Russian military resilience despite heavy battlefield losses — replenishing personnel and ratcheting up its industrial capacity.
“Even though Russian President [Vladimir] Putin will be unable to achieve the total victory he envisioned when initiating the large-scale invasion in February 2022, Russia retains momentum as a grinding war of attrition plays to Russia’s military advantages,” the report states. “This grinding war of attrition will lead to a gradual but steady erosion of Kyiv’s position on the battlefield, regardless of any U.S. or allied attempts to impose new and greater costs on Moscow.”