Russia Is Nowhere Near Victory in Ukraine as War Casualties Approach 2 Million: Report

Russia is making little progress in Ukraine, is paying an extraordinary price for minimal gains, and is not close to victory, according to an American research organization monitoring the four-year-old war.A new report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that Russian forces have suffered nearly 1.2 million casualties — killed, wounded, and missing — including 325,000 dead since its invasion in February 2022. The center estimates that Russia averaged nearly 35,000 casualties per month last year.While some countries have lost more in conflicts over the past several decades, no major power has suffered anywhere near those losses since World War II, according to the research.The report claims, with Ukraine’s casualties, the combined total could hit 2 million by the spring.“Russia’s attrition strategy has accepted the costs of high casualties in hopes of eventually wearing down Ukraine’s military and society,” the report states.The think tank says its analysis shows that despite President Vladimir Putin making it sound like Russia is marching to inevitable conquest on the battlefields, Russia is hardly winning a decisive victory.Russian forces have gained less than 1.5 percent of Ukrainian territory since the start of 2024 and Russian forces advanced at an average rate of just 15 to 70 meters a day, the center finds. According to the institute, at the current rate of advance, Russian forces would likely need at least until mid-2027 to seize the remaining 21 percent of the Donbas region, the crown jewel of Mr. Putin’s territorial ambitions.Almost four years after invading, Russia controls just 20 percent of Ukrainian territory. A coalition of the willing, primarily NATO and European partners, has provided Ukraine with billions of dollars in military equipment to support its defense. Ukrainian drones have been effective at targeting Russian logistics and manpower concentrations farther from the frontlines. That is making it more difficult for Russia to coordinate and carry out advances.The coalition is also negotiating a security guarantee for Ukraine to deter Russia from attempting to return once a ceasefire is achieved. The report says Mr. Putin is turning to propaganda domestically and internationally as attempts to negotiate an end to the war continue. The Kremlin is accused of exaggerating seizures of tiny settlements as major victories. Misleading flag raisings in contested areas, cross-border raids, and publicized military meetings are allegedly being used to visually support the lies in the hopes military support for Kiev will cease. It claims Mr. Putin is also trying to convince the West that further arms sales and aid to Ukraine are futile.President Trump has put together a peace plan that calls for a stalemate, allowing the Russians to take the territory it has gained and stop there. Ukraine’s president has largely accepted the plan, but Russia has tied taking control of the entire Donbas to any ceasefire, even as that demand represents a reduction in Mr. Putin’s initial aims.On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that the parties are now talking behind closed doors, though the situation is extremely fluid. “It’s still a bridge we haven’t crossed,” Mr. Rubio said, describing the territorial claims for Donetsk in the Donbas as the remaining sticking point. “In the case of Russia, they’ve been telling their people for two and a half years that they’re winning this war overwhelmingly, so people are going to wonder: why are we giving up land if we’re winning so strongly?” Meanwhile, the Center for Strategic and International Studies report says while Russia’s economy has not collapsed, it is showing signs of strain with manufacturing declining at its fastest rate in three years. Lower global oil prices have also cut revenue, leading to a widening budget deficit.The analysis finds that America and Europe could do more to pressure Moscow by cracking down on its “shadow fleet” of oil tankers to apply more economic pressure. The United States military has seized several tankers near Venezuela in the past several months, with at least two having ties to Russia.France seized a tanker last week carrying Russian oil that was suspected of violating sanctions. “This is exactly the kind of resolve needed to ensure that Russian oil no longer finances Russia’s war,” Mr. Zelensky said in an X post.The Kremlin has rejected the findings of the center’s report, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov calling them unreliable. Moscow has not publicly updated its own casualty numbers since September 2022 when it reported 6,000 Russian soldiers had been killed.The Institute for the Study of War, however, concurs with the report that Russia is not close to victory in Ukraine. It claims Russian advances plateaued in early Spring 2022.

Russia Is Nowhere Near Victory in Ukraine as War Casualties Approach 2 Million: Report

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