Putin has another option: simply declare victory on Victory Day. Dmitri Alperovitch, the Russian-American co-founder of the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike who correctly predicted the invasion back in December, argued in an insightful Twitter thread that calling for full mobilization would entail too much risk and too little benefit for Putin. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dismissed the possibility this week, which is not to say it won’t happen.

As Alperovitch pointed out, declaring victory would by no means require Putin to pull his forces out of Ukraine or stop fighting. Russian soldiers would instead attempt to solidify their gains and hold the territory they’ve occupied in the Donbas region and the southeastern corridor between the Donbas and Crimea. If after a lengthy war of attrition, the Ukrainians fail to recapture this territory, Putin may reckon he can grind Ukraine down to the point that Zelenskyy is willing to make territorial concessions in exchange for peace. The small problem with this plan is that Russia has not actually won the war — and it may not even be able to hold the territory it has occupied