A former Nato general has predicted Putin has a nine-month window to win the war.
Retired commander, Lt-Gen Konstantinos Loukopoulos, said Ukraine needs time to assimilate weapons from the west and train with them to make them operational, which will take between eight to nine months.
Loukopoulos believes that this is the timeframe Vladimir Putin has in order to win the war on the ground and reach a negotiated settlement.
“Under the present balance of forces, the general trend is in favour of the Russians. Right now nothing can change that,” he told Al-Jazeera.
“After a few months, with training of reserve units, there could be a (Ukrainian) strategic counteroffensive that could throw the Russians out.”
Elsewhere, UK foreign secretary Liz Truss accused Putin of holding the world to ransom over food.
“It is completely appalling that Putin is trying to hold the world to ransom, and he is essentially weaponising hunger and lack of food amongst the poorest people around the world,” Truss said during a visit to Bosnia.
