After 7 months of war, Ukraine is trying to turn the tide of the conflict in its favour, with its counter-offensive launched weeks ago against Russian forces in the east and south of the country.

If there are clear results to be drawn from the rapid gains and sudden collapses of Russian defenses in the Kharkiv region in recent days, they are:

First:

that Kiev is able to regain the initiative, not only when Russia is fighting a large-scale fight on many fronts, as happened at the beginning of the war, but also when Moscow limits its large combat capabilities to limited areas, as is the case now.

Second:

that Western countries provide the Ukrainian army with more advanced weapons, which actually helps it regain what it lost from the beginning of the war.

The lesson, however, is not to deprive Moscow of some of the important areas it has captured, but rather to be able to hold them for a longer time and continue advancing to the point where Russia feels its war has reached a dead end.

As important as the morale of Ukrainians is today, achieving this outcome will depend on how much the West can deepen its military support for Kiev even more.

Last week, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken pledged in Kyiv to continue supporting Ukraine "as long as it takes".

The Americans have already played a prominent role in spoiling Putin's plan for a quick victory and engineering Western isolation over Russia, but Western strategy still lacks sufficient clarity to force Putin to back down and accept a negotiated settlement.

Russia is now shifting from a position of defense against sanctions to a position of attack, by increasing the pace of arming energy supplies to Europe without worrying about the loss of tens of billions that it earns monthly from selling gas to Europeans

The West succeeded in turning the war - which Putin planned to be a blitzkrieg - into a long-term military and economic attrition conflict for Russia, but the main weakness of this strategy lies in its weak bet that Russia will find itself, over time, unable to bear the military, economic and political consequences for a longer period. .

Despite past and recent military failures, Putin is not likely to give up his belief that he can maximize gains before negotiating a peace deal.

After the war, Russia still controls nearly 20% of Ukraine's territory, destroyed about 30% of Ukraine's industrial and agricultural potential, and deprived Kyiv of most of its Black Sea coast.

Moreover, the Russian economy has not yet shown any signs of approaching the breaking point due to sanctions.

Putin was able to quickly switch to a war economy, and worked to find other powerful alternatives to the West in economic and trade relations.

While the West is betting that the ability of the Russian economy to absorb the shock of sanctions will weaken over time, this belief - if true - will not come true anytime soon.

In addition, Russia is now shifting from a defensive stance against sanctions to an offensive one, by ramping up the armament of Europe's energy supplies without caring about the tens of billions it earns monthly from selling gas to Europeans.

This transformation is particularly frightening in Europe because the aggravation of its energy crisis will lead to a deep economic recession and social and political turmoil, and thus the chances of the survival of Western unity are diminishing in a way that strengthens Putin's conviction that the war can be won.

Americans are already suffering from higher energy prices, but they are less vulnerable to the repercussions than European countries.

The West appears realistic in dealing with the conflict by being convinced of the difficulty of achieving a humiliating defeat for Putin, and focusing instead on exhausting Russia to the point of accepting a negotiated settlement.

This is not possible if the West does not raise the bar on its military involvement in the war.

Russia's war machine continues to operate effectively, and effective pressure on Putin requires a greater military commitment to achieve his goals.

The United States and European countries have provided the Ukrainian army with advanced weapons to resist the Russian onslaught, but Ukraine still finds it difficult to weaken Russian supremacy.

President Joe Biden has explicitly rejected Volodymyr Zelensky's request for NATO to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, and to this day remains opposed to supplying fighter jets to Kyiv for fear of being drawn into a direct confrontation with Russia.

Biden also raised red lines for the use of chemical weapons in war, but did not specify what the West would do to force Putin to back down.

It is clear that Putin sees Western anxiety about being drawn into a clash with Russia as weakness.

American and Western officials boast that the West's proxy involvement in this war has prevented Putin from achieving a quick and decisive victory, but the conflict's transformation into a form in which a large military power like Russia can live with it for a long time reduces the benefits of Western strategy and exposes it to more risks.

This shift could prompt Putin to intensify conventional warfare in the east and south, or perhaps use more lethal weapons if he feels Westerners are seeking to humiliate him.

US officials argue that Putin will never risk a nuclear escalation, but this bet does not appear foolproof, especially when Putin sees the gains he has made since the war began squandering.

Russia's possible escalation of the conflict would put more pressure on the West, which is seeking to avoid deepening involvement in the conflict.

Western strategy will be more effective and likely to succeed as long as it is able to avoid direct conflict and deny Putin further gains, or some of the gains he has already made.

The longer the war continues, the more likely Russia and NATO will be drawn into direct conflict.

Putin does not need much incentive to attack the convoys of Western military aid that reach the Ukrainian army via Poland.

So far, Russia has not attacked any of these convoys directly, but it has sought to impede their arrival by bombing supply routes.

Putin may step up further when he finds that bombing supply routes does not do enough to prevent weapons from reaching Ukraine.

Although the stated US goals of weakening Russia do not amount to an existential threat to Putin's rule, the West is betting that prolonging the war will make Putin rational in his handling of the conflict.

The long war of attrition seems costly to Putin in terms of military capacity, economic sanctions and reputation above all, but its damage to the West is increasing.

Moreover, Putin's deepening relationship with China is detrimental to US strategy in the long run.

Russia has already begun diverting energy and mineral exports from hostile European markets to China.

Russian consumers will increasingly rely on Chinese imports, which means that the stability of the Russian economy will depend more on an injection of Chinese cash and goods.

This situation will allow Beijing to exercise a great deal of influence over Moscow.