Russia's invasion has reached its one-year anniversary and Russian President Vladimir Putin has not been shy to do all he can to make Ukrainian lives hell.
Russian troops at the command of Kremlin brutes used cruelty against innocent civilians, including aerial bombardments, rape, and unlawful imprisonment.
But despite this, Putin is still statistically losing the war which sadly makes any signs of his brutalities abating slim.
Kyiv’s intelligence agencies believe 145,000 Russian troops have died in the year since, taking with them tens of thousands of Ukrainians.
What might happen next and what can we expect the brute to do in order to try to make more gains?
A new offensive
According to western and Ukrainian officials, Russia's new focus is on eastern Ukraine and it has plenty more troops it will be bringing to the battlefield.
Ukraine Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, among many others, has warned that Russia will ramp up its attacks to mark the one-year anniversary and it has massed hundreds of thousands of troops in preparation.
Mr Reznikov said a few weeks ago that the Russian offensive aims to capture the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
Philip Wasielewski, a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia program, told Time that he think Russia is holding back troops: “They have spare capability. And I don’t think we’ve seen the biggest push yet."
But Marat Gabidullin, an ex-Wagner fighter, told Al Jazeera that he thinks both sides lack the resources and capabilities to start a decisive offensive to break the situation in their favour.
He continued: “The [Russian] army is not ready for war. They made conclusions, corrected the situation, and fixed some wrongs, but not significantly."
NATO's Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, has said, in effect, the new offensive has already begun due to Russian renewed efforts in the east.
But others say this is a continuation of efforts that have been going on for months.
Phillips O’Brien of St Andrews University told the Guardian that anyone expecting a rerun of the initial invasion last year is wrong: "The Russians have been getting weaker.
"They have more soldiers but their equipment is worse, their soldiers are less well-trained than they were, and their ammunition supplies are getting lower.”
Dr Huseyn Aliyev, an expert in security and conflict in Ukraine, told Sky News he thinks there might be "more successful counteroffensives" by Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, said Russian forces had failed to make progress in the east.
Continue to drag out war
Lots of people have said it's unlikely the war will end anytime soon, particularly with the muddy Spring season around the corner which slowed both sides last year.
Spring is known as the “bezdorizhzhia,” or “roadless” season in Ukraine because the country becomes very muddy.
Former British military intelligence officer Philip Ingram told Newsweek that the weather and ground conditions were critical to military operations.
"We saw last year how Russian wheeled and tracked vehicles got stuck in Ukrainian fields in March and April, and the Russians were forced to use tracks and roads, which made it easy for the Ukrainian defenders to channel them and pick them off," he said.
Researcher Jaroslava Barbieri, who has been focusing on the developments in Ukraine, believes the war could "drag on for years" with both sides failing to make any significant territorial gains.
The owner of the Russian Wagner Group military group who is actively involved in the fighting in Ukraine has also predicted that the war could drag on for years.
Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a video interview that it could take 18 months to two years for Russia to fully secure control of Ukraine's eastern industrial heartland of Donbas.
He also added that the war could go on for three years if Moscow decides to capture broader territories east of the Dnipro River.
Go nuclear
There has been no shortage of nuclear weapons threats throughout the war and expert opinions have been continually divided on whether Putin would cross that line, but this week he appears to of upped the threats once more.
Ms Barbieri believes the Russian president knows nuclear weapons will not be an option and Marc Garlasco, a former Pentagon intelligence analyst, told the Mirror he believes the same.
He said: "There's been no indication that that's going to happen. So anyone who says that I think they're really mistaken."
However, on Wednesday, Putin said Russia is planning to increase its nuclear potential.
In a video address, he said the country continues boosting its nuclear triad and that for the first time the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles - a weapon able to carry multiple nuclear warheads - would be deployed this year.
The missile is said to have a range exceeding 6,835 miles, meaning that it can easily reach most places on the planet, CNN reported, citing Russian state media.
"This is a great, significant event in the development of promising weapons systems for the Russian army," Putin said according to the Russian news agency TASS reported.
Randall Stone, director of the University of Rochester’s Skalny Center for Polish and Central European Studies, said to the university: "Yes, it’s conceivable that Russia might use nuclear weapons against Ukraine if Putin becomes sufficiently desperate.
"But that doesn’t seem to be a winning strategy. There are no Ukrainian military targets valuable enough to be tempting, and battlefield use of nuclear weapons is not terribly effective."
While Hein Goemans of the same university said: "I also don’t see the threat of a nuclear escalation right now. That could change if Putin is cornered."
Commit more war crimes
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General has alleged that more than 68,000 war crimes have been committed since Russia invaded nearly a year ago.
Mr Garlasco, a war crimes investigator who analysed Russian activity in Syria for the United Nations, compared Russia's intervention in Syria with the Ukraine war.
He said: "Every time they [Syria and Russia] had their back against the wall, the Russians would start to put the screws into the Syrian population harder and harder until they broke."
He says because Putin is currently failing that is likely to happen again in Ukraine.
"We're going to see potentially a ratcheting up in the war crimes being committed by the Russians and potentially more widespread civilian harm, that is my fear."
According to a United Nations investigation into war crimes in Ukraine, the ages of victims of sexual and gender-based violence range from age four to 82.
Human Rights Watch documented several cases of Russian military forces committing war crimes. These include a case of repeated rape; two cases of summary execution, one of six men, the other of one man; and other cases of unlawful violence and threats against civilians. Soldiers were also implicated in looting civilian property, including food, clothing, and firewood.
Plot a coup
Dr Marina Miron, an honorary research fellow at King’s College London, told the i Newspaper that Putin may plot a coup.
She said he might try to “capitalise” on a corruption scandal that has recently hit the Ukrainian government, with President Volodymyr Zelensky firing several senior Ukrainian officials accused of misusing aid.
She continued: “[He might] convince the West, or at least Western populations, that Ukraine is very corrupt, and every euro or pound or dollar that goes to Ukraine has been stolen by Ukrainian oligarchs.
“At some point, people will get tired of this and the war is dragging on, they’re living without power, without heat."
There were also reports he was plotting a coup in Moldova, which US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby called "deeply concerning."
Moldovan President Maia Sandu said that Putin is planning to use foreign saboteurs to destroy Moldova's leadership and stop her nation from joining the European Union.
She said: "The [Russian] plan included sabotage and militarily trained people disguised as civilians to carry out violent actions, attacks on government buildings and taking hostages.
"Reports received from our Ukrainian partners indicate the locations and logistical aspects of organizing this subversive activity. The plan also envisages the use of foreigners for violent actions."
Russia denied the claims and Mr Kirby said that while the US has not verified the coup reports, he believes Putin is capable of attempting such an act.
