Russian Victories Across the Front Warning Sign for Zelensky: Make Peace or Be Destroyed
12:56 GMT 28.12.2025 (Updated: 12:57 GMT 28.12.2025)
© Sputnik / Sergey Bobylev
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The liberation of Dimitrov in Donetsk, Gulyaipole and Stepnogorsk in Zaporozhye, and new areas in Kharkov region are significant in their own right, but even more so in terms of their impact on peace talks, says military analyst Alexander Mikhailov.
The victories create “a new, additional factor against the Kiev regime’s position.” The further west Russia pushes, “the more trump cards” it will have in negotiations, Mikhailov told Sputnik.
Strategic Victories
Gulyaipole: the second-largest settlement in the region, “and a very important fortified area.” Its capture opens the door to Russian advances in Zaporozhye and Dnepropetrovsk
Dimitrov: part of the Pokrovsk-Krasnoarmeysk agglomeration, until recently one of the last major fortified areas under Ukraine’s control in the Donbass. Its liberation leaves Russia at the gates of Slavyansk and Kramatorsk
the victories are even more impressive considering the saturation of drone coverage, which makes fighting and movement difficult, but which Russia’s military is overcoming by achieving air superiority and suppressing enemy UAV capabilities
Zelensky Cornered
The advances show that no matter how many more “useless scraps of paper” disguised as a peace deal Zelensky proposes, Russia has the momentum to achieve its goals.
“It’s one thing to have leverage…it’s another to watch as the territory you consider to be under your control shrinks, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” Mikhailov said. “I think it should be clear to the Kiev regime that if they don’t try to accept our terms now, the situation will rapidly deteriorate.”
Zelensky’s problem is that peace will mean elections, which he’ll lose.
Hence the need “to drag things out as long as possible.” Because “as long as Zelensky remains in power, his thieving clique can continue to lap up Western money,” including €90B in freshly promised aid, which still needs to be “divided up, laundered and stashed in offshore accounts,” Mikhailov summed up.
