PUTIN’S bloody war in Ukraine will reach a tipping point this year when the tyrant’s coffers run dry — leaving Russia at risk of complete military and economic breakdown, a former intelligence officer has warned.
Desperate Mad Vlad has ploughed billions into his meatgrinder war to find himself at a gruelling stalemate in some regions of Ukraine — and Russia is running out of cash quickly.
Speaking on the latest episode of The Sun’s Battle Plans Exposed, Philip Ingram, a former intelligence officer, said: “We’re getting into a point of Russian exhaustion.”
Ingram predicts that Russia could face collapse by late 2026 or early 2027.
He said: “The attacks on the Russian oil and gas infrastructure, the attacks on Russian industry, the attacks on Russian generals inside Moscow, the attacks on Russian airfields, the attacks on billions of dollars worth of Russian military equipment is eating away at Russia’s continual ability to support this conflict.
“It is getting to a tipping point — and that tipping point is something that is likely to come in late 2026 or early 2027.
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“Russian exhaustion is about to come upon us.
“And that will be the Russian economy suddenly realising the Russian people are in a position where they cannot continue with the suffering that they will begin to feel.”
Last month marked four years since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Inflation has run rampant in Russia ever since the conflict began — even the humble cucumber has risen in price by 425 per cent, Ingram said.
Russia relies on imported fruit and vegetables, meaning prices are highly sensitive to fluctuations. In some regions, a cucumber now costs £4 — they have doubled in price since December.
Sergei Mironov, parliamentary leader of the Just Russia party said: “This winter, a new ‘delicacy’ has appeared in our shops: cucumbers.
“What are people supposed to do? Just accept that they can’t afford the most basic foods?”
One angry shopper, Svetlana, called the prices “outrageous”.
She said: “Once upon a time they said eggs were ‘golden’ because they were so expensive. Now it’s cucumbers that are golden.”
Cucumbers are just one small symbol of the faltering Russian rouble, which is set to lose almost a quarter of its value this year.
Russian food prices have risen by 18.6 per cent in two years, according to the BBC, and as people’s economic suffering grows, Putin could lose support for his assault on Ukraine — or run out of funds altogether.
Speaking on the anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Putin must be stopped after “already starting” World War Three.
Putin has continued to blitz Ukraine, even breaking a cold-weather truce brokered by Trump — intended to spare Ukrainian citizens from having their homes destroyed during the harshest weeks of winter weather.
In the past two years he hit the country with more explosives than Hitler hurled at Britain during the whole of World War Two, The Sun revealed.
In 2025 alone, Russia unleashed 90,000 missiles, bombs and drones.
On Battle Plans Exposed, Ingram said Putin will amp up nuclear threats as he scrambles to save face.
He explained that the desperate despot will pump out propaganda to try and convince his people and the West that he is winning the war.
The military expert said: “As he gets more and more concerned, we’ll see him rattle the nuclear sabre more often than he has done – it’s something he’s reached for on many occasions, but we’ll likely see the rhetoric increase.
“Does that mean we’re any closer to the nuclear war?
“No, because Putin knows that if he ever went and pushed the nuclear button – even with what is described as a tactical nuclear weapon – then he would lose the tacit support he has from other nations around the world, from China, from India, from Iran.”
While the Russian leader raves about nukes on the world stage, his flailing army is losing soldiers faster than it can replace them, as would-be recruits realise they are little more than cannon fodder to the ageing tyrant.
Even the soldiers who survive aren’t much help to Putin – many front lines are frozen.
Ingram said: “The East is not going to move – it hasn’t. The front lines haven’t moved dramatically in the past four years. They’re not going to move.
“Over the next year, we’ll still see the meatgrinder operations that are going on there. The Russians will still think that they can win.”
In some areas where Russia is gaining ground, they are advancing slower than any army in more than 100 years – including allied efforts at the notoriously drudging Battle of The Somme.
Mad Vlad’s desperate lads have been taking between 15 and 70 metres of territory per day since early 2024, according to a report by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
Meanwhile, Ukraine recently re-captured land from Russia at the fastest pace in three years after Russian comms suffered a big blow.
Zelensky’s forces gained 78 sq miles in just five days last month, according to AFP analysis of Institute for the Study of War data – equal to Russia’s progress for the whole of December.
And Russia was hit by internet blackouts this month, as rumours swirl of a power-challenge by Putin’s most senior security council official Sergei Shoigu.
How ‘sky assassins’ could decide Ukraine’s fate
BY Gergana Krasteva
FOUR years after Russia unleashed its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the first 20 miles of the frontline have turned into a haunted strip of earth where neither infantry nor tanks dare to linger.
Between the abandoned dugouts, a killing zone lies – so exposed and so relentlessly watched that only machines now move with any regularity.
Soldiers call it “no man’s land”. This is where Ukrainian forces hunt for the enemy using drones – the ever-changing technology that has reshaped the geometry of the war.
Patrick Shepherd from defence technology firm Milrem Robotics told The Sun: “They have changed the world – like gunpowder, it is never going back in the bottle.
“It is so cheap, effective and real. The genie is out of the bottle. The way we do everything in the future is going to change.”
Ivan Stupak, a military expert and ex-officer in Ukraine’s security services (SBU), told The Sun that as of 2026, drones are responsible for around 70 percent of all injuries along parts of the front.
“Unfortunately, this is on both sides of the frontline – Russia and Ukraine,” he said.
For Ukrainian and Russian infantries, drones are their guardian – but also executioner. The weapons have long been dubbed the silent killers of the sky and some are known as the “sky’s assassins” – such as America’s MQ-9 Reaper.
In Ukraine, they deliver ammunition and aid to cut-off positions, scout trenches and evacuate the wounded by guiding rescue teams through minefields. But they also stalk, circle, and strike.
Lurking in between trees, these assassins chase armoured vehicles down dirt roads and blow up entire squads.
Humiliated, Putin is turning to even new tactics to try and destabilise Ukraine’s allies — using his puppet state to send migrants into the EU in a pathetic ploy to sow chaos in the West.
Kremlin-controlled dictator Alexander Lukashenko is also using mysterious Middle Eastern specialists to dig Great Escape style tunnels to smuggle migrants into Poland.
It’s all part of the Russian propaganda machine, Ingram said.
He warned: “Russia is very powerful in Europe and across the rest of the world, through propaganda, through misinformation, through corruption, and through political influence.
“They’re brainwashing Europeans and other global leaders who don’t necessarily feel the threat.
“They’re weaponising fatigue, Ukraine fatigue that we keep hearing about.”
But hope remains for Zelensky – his army is only gaining experience as it stands firm against Putin.
Ingram said: “Despite the politics, one fact remains. Ukraine now possesses the most battle-hardened modern army in Europe and arguably in the world.”
“One million soldiers have tested every weapon system the world has to offer in real combat.
“It is one of the biggest beta testing zones for new weapon systems that we have seen in recent years.”
And the rest of the world needs Ukraine to fight on.
He added: “The Ukrainian army is the first defence of Europe. The warning from Kyiv is stark – if Ukraine falls, the tank treads don’t stop. First the Baltics, then Poland, then Finland.
“If the US steps back, Putin will advance, maybe even to Berlin. He sees Ukraine as the first salami slice of his wider ambitions of regenerating the old Soviet Union.”
Ingram said the Ukrainian army remains “strong, determined and independent”.
He said: “The question isn’t whether Ukraine can fight. The question is, will the West wake up?
“Because the next time the battlefield might not be in the Donbas, it might be closer to the borders of NATO.”