The Biden administration is confronting an odd paradox in Ukraine — Kyiv’s unexpected successes could be making peace less likely anytime soon.

Ukrainian forces have taken back around 2,000 square miles of territory in recent weeks that had been previously seized by Russia, stunning the Kremlin. The Ukrainians went on to score a substantive and symbolic win with an explosion that partially destroyed the Kerch Strait Bridge on Saturday.

But those developments have infuriated Russian President Vladimir Putin and may have contributed to pressure from Russian hard-liners to intensify the raw aggression of the war effort. 

Russia hit at least 11 Ukrainian cities with missile strikes on Monday. Putin cast the shelling as retribution for the “terrorist” attack on the bridge, which he had personally opened in 2018.

Meanwhile, speculation that an increasingly embattled Putin might resort to some form of nuclear weapon continues to swirl. 

Last week, President Biden suggested the world was closer to a nuclear “Armageddon” than at any point since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 — though White House aides later clarified that U.S. intelligence assessments of the likelihood of Russia using nuclear weapons had not changed.

The upshot of it all is a broadening gulf between the warring nations on anything resembling a peace deal. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will surely be reluctant to offer painful concessions, in the form of surrender of territory, when the tide of the war seems to be moving in his nation’s direction. 

Zelensky, along with the international community at large, poured scorn on the quasi-referendums that were conducted under Russian armed occupation in four eastern regions of Ukraine late last month.

Putin, for his part, cannot countenance accepting a loss in the invasion that he launched in the face of international condemnation in February. To do so would not only stain his reputation internally; it could put his survival as president at risk.

So, for the moment, there is no obvious end in sight. 

“If Russia pulls its troops out, the war is over — so, conceptually, it’s not like this is so complicated,” said Yoshiko Herrera, a professor of political science and a Russia expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “But, practically speaking in terms of what is likely to happen, Ukraine seems quite dedicated to preserving their sovereignty and nation, because it looks like they’re winning. And Russia seems committed to continuing the fight.”

The signs are, for now, pointing toward greater escalation if anything.

Late last month, the Russian president said that comments appearing to allude to the possibility of a nuclear strike were “not a bluff.” He also argued that the American atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War offered a “precedent” for such a move