Putin blunders on

Russia’s war against Ukraine appears to be stalling.

For the past several months Russia has lost 35,000 soldiers every month attempting to break through Ukrainian defensive lines. In total Russia’s casualties run to a staggering 1.4mn dead or seriously wounded since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

Russia has also lost 12,000 tanks, 42,000 artillery systems, 800 aircraft and helicopters and much of its Black Sea fleet.

By comparison the Soviet armed forces lost 15,000 dead and 50,000 wounded over ten years (1979-89) in Afghanistan.At the time that was regarded as a catastrophic loss of life and a political-military disaster for the USSR.

And Russia’s problems in occupied eastern Ukraine are getting worse. Ukraine has ramped up drone production, developed new systems, increased payloads and changed the management structures of its drone war. Video now shows Ukrainian drones patrolling main roads in occupied Ukraine — for example on the dual carriageway that skirts Donetsk city — looking for military targets.

In Donetsk Russia now has imposed a ban on large military convoys, and only two lorries are allowed to move together.

Arms dumps, control centres, radar and missiles are being attacked many kilometres behind the front lines.

Until last year the ratio of killed to wounded Russian troops was 1 : 2 or 1 : 3. It is now 2 : 1, killed to wounded, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

And all these losses are for very little territorial gain. In April theEconomist estimated that Ukraine, overall, even retrieved a small amount of land. Russia is also missing recruitment targets and failing to recruit enough to cover its losses.

New Ukrainian drones are now able to reach up to 2,000km into Russian territory, including to parts of Russia which have been relatively unaffected by the invasion of Ukraine. Apart from the ability to destroy military hardware — especially ships, planes and air defence — and war-related infrastructure, Ukraine continues to burn down oil storage and refining facilities inside Russia.

In the first two years of war the Russian army had an advantage in drones allowing them to accurately target the Ukrainian military far behind the front lines. The Ukrainians responded by developing defensive drones and more recently a new wave of attack drones. The Russians have failed to keep up, and the Ukrainians are hitting targets 20km or 30km in the Russian rear areas that were previously beyond them.

Russia has also suffered, after February, from being cut off from using Starlink in Ukraine. This radically disorganised its communications systems.

The Starlink ban was compounded by restrictions on the use of the Telegram app, used by 60mn Russians each day. After 10 February the Russian state began to restrict Telegram use. That also had an impact on Russian armed forces which used the app to organise logistics, share information and even communicate between units on the frontline.

It seems likely that in the medium term Ukraine aims to cut off the land route to Crimea and Russian troops south of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson city by stopping military road traffic along the M14 through Mariupol and Melitopol.

The Russians had built a rail link to supply their troops occupying the south of Ukraine. The Ukrainians waited until the rail track was completed and then bombed — spectacularly — military supply trains moving along it.

There seems to be growing disquiet in Russia. The fact that Putin’s military Victory Day (against the Nazis in World War Two) parade, held in Moscow on 9 May, had to be radically scaled back was a humiliating and very public recognition that Moscow was no longer safe from Ukrainian long-range attacks.

The Russian economy contracted 0.3% from January to March, inflation seems to be running at around 6%, interest rates are 14.5%, sanctions have locked down $300bn, military spending is the equivalent of $190bn or 7.5% of GDP.

Despite the economic consequences, Russia seems unlikely to stop its war any time soon. Zelensky is now publicly warning against the possibility of a new Russian offensive into the north of Ukraine, perhaps from Belarus or involving Belarussian forces and heading towards Kyiv. The aim would be to extend the frontline, now standing at 1,250km, and stretch Ukraine’s beleaguered army further.

Ukraine itself continues to be the victim of Russia’s grinding war which has killed 15,800 civilians, including 800 children (UN figures. The actual numbers are probably considerably higher). In mid-May, over three days, Russia launched a massive attack on Ukraine, firing 1500 drones and dozens of missiles.

24 people died following a strike on a block of flats in Kyiv.

Russia’s war against Ukraine is outrageous. Defend Ukraine!