He noted that “so far Putin has completely failed.”
The Russian war against Ukraine began in 2014, and even after a full escalation in 2022, Putin “still does not control the entire Donbass,” Stoltenberg emphasized.
He said Putin believed he could take control of key cities and the rest of Ukraine within weeks after a full-scale invasion, but lost 50% of the territory he controlled at the start of the war.
At the same time, Russia continues to seize certain territories and has demonstrated “its willingness to pay a very high price for this war – in blood and money,” the former NATO Secretary General added.
“But the characteristic feature of regimes like Putin’s is that they only seem very strong – until suddenly they cease to be so,” Stoltenberg said.
In his opinion, the Russian Federation understands that there is a war of attrition, so Western countries should continue to support Ukraine – the more likely Putin will show readiness for peace negotiations.
Context
On December 28, 2025, the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky and the head of the White House Donald Trump held the meeting against the backdrop of negotiations between the United States and Ukraine teams on a “peace plan” for resolving the Russian-Ukrainian war.
Trump said after the talks that they discussed all issues of a potential agreement to resolve the war. According to him, the parties have reached “great detail”, but “one or two questions” remain. Zelensky clarified that in the 20-point “peace plan,” only the issues of control over territories and the work of the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant, temporarily occupied by the aggressor country of the Russian Federation, have not been resolved.
Negotiations on the “peace plan” continue.
