"I don't think that [the war] is a stalemate," Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky told NBC News' Meet the Press on Sunday.

"They thought they would checkmate us, but," he insisted, "this didn't happen." According to recent interviews, his military leadership disagrees. His political inner circle thinks his insistence is delusional.

Zelensky is facing pressure both from within Ukraine and from without. Growing pressure from within is coming from both the political and military leadership; growing pressure from without is coming from Ukraine's key partners.

The battle is largely being played out in the Western media. Most intimately, Zelensky has faced criticism from his political inner circle. TIME magazine reports that some of the president's advisors have become worried that his "belief in Ukraine's ultimate victory over Russia . . . "verg[es] on the messianic." One of Zelensky's "closest aides" said that Zelensky "deludes himself." The aide complained, "We're out of options. We're not winning. But try telling him that."