Putin ‘considering new assault on Kyiv’ as his troops near capture of key cities | Ukraine live

Russia is reportedly considering a second assault on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

Meduza, a news website based in Latvia, said there are renewed hopes in Moscow that it can win a war of attrition in Ukraine. 

The Putin administration is beginning to think it can win a full-scale victory by the end of the year, Meduza reported its sources as saying.

Two of its sources are said to be “close to the Kremlin”, with another “inside the Putin administration itself”.

There are also “minimum” and “maximum” thresholds for declaring a successful and completed “special military operation”, Meduza said.

The minimum is said to be the capture of the eastern Donbas region.

The maximum goal is the seizure of Kyiv, Meduza added.

An earlier assault on the capital failed, leading to the focus on the Donbas.

Moscow seems to realise that a second attempt at taking Kyiv will be a major operation.

Meduza said: “Russia’s military leaders have apparently resigned themselves to the fact that Ukraine’s capital cannot be ‘captured with little bloodshed’, meaning that any second offensive would need more troops.”

Sky News has been unable to independently verify this information.