The war between Ukraine and Russia has reached a strategic stalemate, in which the western military support of Kiev is balanced on the one hand and Moscow’s strategy aimed at exhausting Ukrainian capacities on the other hand. This is stated in the report on the activities of the Turkish secret service MIT for 2025, which RBC-Ukraine agency referred to on Wednesday.
Russia, which militarily invaded Ukraine almost four years ago, provoked the largest armed conflict in Europe since the end of World War II with its invasion. So far, it has claimed tens of thousands of lives, millions of people have had to leave their homes, and many Ukrainian cities and towns have been destroyed, Reuters wrote.
The report by Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) came out at a time when the third round of peace talks between Ukraine and Russia was taking place in Switzerland. which is mediated by the United States. Last year, these talks took place in Istanbul, Turkey, but they did not lead to any fundamental progress except for an agreement on the exchange of prisoners of war.
“The Russia-Ukraine war is stuck in a strategic impasse between Western military support and Russia’s strategy of industrial exhaustion,” the Secret Service said. The head of the MIT, Ibrahim Kalin, stated that while the warring parties in negotiations oscillate between demands for territorial concessions and security guarantees, the nature of the ongoing military conflict has shifted towards nuclear confrontation and the increasingly frequent use of autonomous weapons systems.
Turkey does not apply sanctions against Russia and has relatively close relations not only with Moscow, but also with Kyiv. while supplying the Ukrainian army with combat drones since the beginning of the Russian invasion in February 2022. Kalin emphasized in the report that Ankara is playing an active role as a mediator in an effort to help reduce tensions between the parties and reach a peaceful resolution to the war.
Citing military and intelligence officials of unnamed Western countries, The New York Times wrote that the head of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, is convinced that Russia is waging a victorious battle against Ukraine and that its continuation ensures a better position for iteven if it would take another two years for Russian forces to conquer the rest of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.
