I mean, at the end of the day, who cares if Putin can take Kyiv or not at this point, at least if you are on the UKR side? Shouldn't the discussion be about whether UKR has a chance to retake most of their land back in a reasonable time? When I say'reasonable time', it means the time frame that the 'West' can support. It is not forever.
But even if we want to talk about Putin's strategy, once the support stops, yeah, Putin will chip away more and more land, which is grim for the UKR. Yeah, Putin lost strategically—short-term. But you can't say he won't get it at some point. And the fact that UKR troops are not doing as well as they should in all these counterattacks, even with 'the support', should reinforce the point that Putin is still in this war firmly and probably holds some slim advantage in the long term.