Kremlin sources indicate President Putin is shifting toward further military escalation after rebuking advisers who advocated for peace negotiations with Kyiv, despite US President Trump's claims of a nearing resolution. The move comes as Ukraine increases drone strikes on Russian territory, prompting speculation about broader conflict expansion and potential NATO involvement.
President Vladimir Putin is looking to escalate the war after turning on his advisers who suggested he negotiate peace with Kyiv, Kremlin sources have told Reuters.
A source close to Putin, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that there was a 'high probability' of escalation in the coming months, as Ukraine continues to ramp up its drone attacks on Russia. The comments come despite US President Donald Trump saying on Monday that Putin wanted the war to end and that a resolution was 'closer than people realise.
' Trump held separate phone calls with Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, last week. He met Zelensky at the NATO summit on Wednesday, where the Ukrainian president said they discussed 'ideas to bring peace closer.
' Another source familiar with Putin's thinking said he had 'dug in his heels' to achieve the key objective of capturing the remainder of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, where Russian advances have slowed this year. The same source said Putin recently rebuked a group of advisers suggesting a compromise based on a ceasefire along the current front lines. A source also told Reuters that Putin believes Russia will soon capture the Donbas.
President Vladimir Putin is looking to escalate the war, according to sources close to the Russian leader It comes as Ukraine continues to ramp up its drone attacks on Russia The Russian president publicly rebuffed a call by Zelensky in June for a meeting and a ceasefire.
'Russia is ready for a peaceful resolution but has enough capability to act independently and continue the special military operation,' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in response to a request for comment for this story. In response to a request for comment to Zelensky's office, a senior Ukrainian official said Kyiv's intelligence reports in recent months reflected that Putin was preparing for further steps in the war rather than for peace, including new operations in Ukraine or a possible attack on another European country.
Some Western military analysts believe Russia would need a mandatory draft of fighting-age men to achieve the goal of taking the Donbas. The draft is a politically unpopular move that Putin has been reluctant to make since early in the war. Russian military experts have increasingly discussed escalation in public, including the possibility of hitting European targets such as NATO bases in Baltic countries.
Such a step would risk drawing Russia into confrontation with the US-led alliance, testing the NATO commitment that an attack on one member nation constitutes an attack on all. Russia could seek to sow tensions within NATO with isolated attacks, comparable to a recent Russian drone strike on Romania, according to Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a defence and security think tank in London.
'The Russians would not be aiming for a war with NATO. But it could be used to divide NATO over how to respond,' Watling said. He added that heightened tensions with NATO could help give Putin a political justification within Russia for military conscription. Repeated strikes on oil refineries, ports and storage depots in Russia and Russian-occupied Ukraine have caused severe fuel shortages, bringing the impact of the war home to millions of Russians.
Putin's approval rating remains high but recently hit its lowest point since the war started in 2022, a poll showed. A woman walks outside a shopping mall as black smoke rises from the area of the Russian oil producer Gazprom Neft's Moscow oil refinery on the south-eastern outskirts of Moscow on June 18, 2026 Black smoke rises from the area of the Russian oil producer Gazprom Neft's Moscow oil refinery on the south-eastern outskirts of Moscow on June 18, 2026 Ukraine's allies have seized on what they call a momentum shift in the war.
Some call for additional economic sanctions to force Putin to end the conflict. Ukraine's recent successes, however, have made Putin angrier and more determined to give a tough response, according to the person who meets Putin regularly. Russian forces have launched two major drone and missile attacks on Ukraine in the last week, including the capital Kyiv, killing dozens of civilians. Moscow said the assaults had struck military targets.
Speaking to generals last week in televised comments, Putin said Ukraine's strikes on energy infrastructure meant Russia would seek to capture more Ukrainian land along the border, beyond Donbas, as a 'security zone.
' A former Russian defence ministry official, Andrei Ilnitsky, said in a June 29 column for Kommersant newspaper that escalation in the conflict could start with the destruction of 30 major industrial sites in Ukraine, including a steel plant and Odesa port. Russia has already caused widespread damage to commercial enterprises and ports across Ukraine. Production and exports have also been impacted by Russia's repeated strikes on power facilitie
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