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Russian President Vladimir Putin is running out of time to win his war against Ukraine, Kaupo Rosin, head of Estonia's Foreign Intelligence Service, told CNN in an interview at the agency's headquarters in Tallinn.
He added that within four to five months, Putin "may not be able to negotiate from a position of strength anymore."
"Time is not in Russia's favor," Rosin said.
"I do not hear any more talk about total victory. People in the Kremlin recognize that the situation on the Ukrainian battlefield is not going too well," he added.
Rosin said Russia was losing more men than it could recruit. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week that Russia was losing "15-20,000 soldiers a month dead, not injured, dead."
Ukrainian defense ministry figures put April alone at 35,203 Russian soldiers killed or severely wounded, similar to each of the previous two months. CNN was unable to independently verify the figures; neither Moscow nor Kyiv publishes official data.
In the two years to January, Russian forces advanced at an average of 70 meters per day, with around 1,000 soldiers killed or wounded daily, according to analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Even those minimal advances have effectively stopped this year. Both sides are "unable to conduct a massive, mechanized breakthrough" into areas deep in the enemy rear, Rosin said.
Most casualties on both sides are now being inflicted by drones, in which both Ukraine and Russia have invested heavily. Ukraine claims a new generation of drone interceptors is blunting the impact of Russian attacks.
"The share of Shahed drones shot down by interceptor drones has doubled over the past four months," Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said this week.
Rosin predicts the shift toward drone warfare will continue to limit changes on the front lines.
Russia cut its growth forecast for 2026 from 1.3% to 0.4% last week, with Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak citing labor shortages, excessive government spending and Western sanctions.
Rosin said the cost of the war, international sanctions and Ukraine's campaign against Russia's oil industry were beginning to bite. Ukraine has inflicted "billions and billions of dollars' worth of damage to the energy sector," Rosin said.
A new mobilization, if Putin chose it, could revitalize the battlefield effort but "would create additional internal stability risks" for the Kremlin, Rosin said.
"They are very concerned about internal stability, monitoring it very carefully. This is not the decision they would make very easily," he added.
Soldiers returning from Ukraine are also generating domestic headaches, "carrying back home violence, instability, psychological problems, and crime," Rosin said.
A study estimated that Russian veterans had killed or injured more than 1,000 people inside Russia. While dissent remains tightly controlled, Rosin said: "Sometimes such systems are very hollow inside, and if something happens, it will happen very rapidly, and we all will be surprised."
The intelligence assessment arrived as the death toll from a Ukrainian drone strike on a college dormitory in Russian-occupied Starobilsk, in the Luhansk region, rose to 11, with 41 people wounded and 10 still missing, according to the Moscow-backed regional governor Leonid Pasechnik.
Ukraine's military said it had struck the headquarters of Russia's elite Rubicon drone unit in Starobilsk, accusing the unit of regularly targeting Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure.
Putin said there were "no military facilities, intelligence service facilities or related services in the vicinity" and that there was "absolutely no basis" for claiming the building was hit as a result of Russian air defense or electronic warfare.
He ordered the military to prepare "proposals" on how to retaliate and described the strike as a "terrorist act."
Early Saturday, drone debris triggered a fire at an oil depot in Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, injuring two people.
The Krasnodar region operational headquarters said several technical and administrative buildings caught fire and debris fell on the site's oil storage terminal.
Russia's Defense Ministry said its forces intercepted and destroyed 348 Ukrainian drones over 15 regions and the Azov and Black Seas overnight.
Separately, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that Ukraine struck the Metafrax chemical complex in Russia's Perm Krai, approximately 1,700 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
"Metafrax Chemicals is an important part of Russia's chemical industry. The company's products supply dozens of other Russian military production facilities, including aircraft and drones, missile engines, and explosives," Zelenskyy said, adding that production at the facility had been halted.
On Friday, Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces had also struck a Russian oil refinery in Yaroslavl, around 700 kilometers from the border.
Ukraine's Defense Ministry said Kyiv had struck 11 Russian oil facilities since the start of May.
"Ukraine's long-range sanctions against Russia's oil industry, the engine funding this war, will continue. Every strike on the Kremlin's energy revenues brings peace closer," the ministry said.
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