July 21st, 2025

I am back to writing about the Russo-Ukraine war, and to sum it up, the Russian army keeps grinding.

There are several points I wish to make today; tomorrow I’ll return to a more detailed review of the battlefield itself and related tactical developments.

I had a chance recently to sit down and talk to some very bright folks - army types - but folks who have been focused on wars in the Mid East and were not really focused on Russia. As I talked about Russia’s strengths and weaknesses I found myself using an analogy I first heard from one of my really smart correspondents - more than 2 decades ago: Russia is Upper Volta with 5 thousand nuclear weapons.

That is too close to the truth to be comfortable, but it also explains why the argument used often in Europe and the US to explain why, in fact, Russia is losing, doesn’t hold water: Russia’s economy is not breaking. Rather, Russia’s economy is, by western standards, already broken and has been broken for years. They produce a great deal of oil and natural gas (a petroleum related materials), a great deal of fertilizers and materials used to make fertilizers, grains, and certain other raw materials. But much of the rest of Russian industry is regarded as second tier compared to the rest of the world.

With the exception of the Sukhoi Flanker family of aircraft, no one really thinks highly of Russian aircraft. The S-300/400/500 family of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) are, by all accounts, very good SAM systems, but overall, Russian weapons are reliable if somewhat less capable, except in certain niches: the Russian have always made good missiles and rockets, good electronic warfare systems and certain other systems, but many other systems are between poor and abysmal. I have had a chance to visit a number of Soviet and Russian ships in company with some US naval engineers and have been regularly amazed at the “hit or miss” nature of their engineering solutions, some things were really clever, others were simply atrocious.

But, the point is that the assessment that “Russia’s economy will be further damaged” means little: the economy is a bit of a mess, pretty much has been for a long time, and the Russian people accept it as it is. Expecting the Russian economy to collapse, providing a Deus ex Machina, pro Ukrainian solution to the war is wishful thinking. Such things can always happen, but counting on it is a fool’s errand.

It is also worth noting that, while much is made of the Ukrainian use of drones - which has been remarkable, so has Russian usage. Russian use of fiber optic control of drones, for example, has been quite innovative, and Russian electronic warfare (EW) is as good or better than Ukrainian EW. And, Russian jamming of GPS has, apparently been highly successful. And Russian production of other items - artillery ammunition for example, though heavily augmented by North Korea, still reportedly leads the US and the EU.

There was a recent article in a major newspaper that sought to explain “why” the Russians are gaining ground, but didn’t in fact explain why. In fact, all it really pointed out was that the Russian gains on the ground - in land area - dropped in June relative to May.

I would suggest that that means nearly nothing at all. This doesn’t mean the Russians are not interested in gaining ground; they are. But gaining ground is not job #1 for the Russian army. Job #1 is killing Ukrainian soldiers. Or, more accurately, causing casualties. (I have a brief review of casualties below).

The point is this: Russia’s high command in 2022, after the disastrous invasion - which was a direct result of an horrific strategic assessment of what Ukraine, and Ukraine’s government would and would not do - changed their strategy. This is perhaps the key point of this war from the Russian perspective. The Kremlin made a glaring strategic mistake in February 2022: they thought Ukraine’s government would collapse, they thought the Ukrainian army would break. They then overextended themselves and failed to recognize that simple truth. And it took them a year to recover (most nations don't recover from strategic mistakes, so, a begrudging nod of respect is due here). But, then they changed their focus and by the end of 2022 they made the focus of the war the inflicting of casualties. 

The British strategist and historian BH Liddell Hart pointed out, in his history of WWII, that the Russians after Kursk settled into a very slow, ponderous even, approach to war, a war of true attrition, one that did not seek rapid thrusts or daring flanking movements, that did not try to respond to every opportunity presented by enemy failings, but simply pressed forward, and slowly but steadily killed Germans. This was slow and painful and expensive, but it also was of low risk. The Germans might make a counter-strike here or there and gain small pieces of terrain, but the Russian (Soviet) army would slowly pinch off any German salient and then move slowly forward after inflicting more casualties.

This is what the Russians are doing to the Ukrainians. And like the Germans, the Ukrainian army has engaged in various thrusts and counter-attacks, retaken pieces of terrain, only to slowly lose them as the Russians inflicted more casualties and finally left the Ukrainians unable to hold the terrain.

In several cases the Russians have - apparently deliberately - not attempted to take a piece of terrain or cut off a position from reinforcement for extended periods of time so that Ukrainian troops could keep moving into a small salient, so the Russians could keep killing them.

It is also of note that the Russian army has performed all this sometimes with the support of the Russian Air Force (RuAF) and sometimes without. It seems that the Russian army just grinds. If there is RuAF support, they take it, if not, they keep churning. This is inelegant, brutal war, but they have settled into it. There basic process is to engage at very low tactical levels: fire team (3-5 troops) and squad level (6-10 troops) elements moving forward to provide recon and support, these are then supported by drones and artillery when they find Ukrainian troops who are then attacked, where the effort is made to inflict casualties. Then, repeat, repeat, repeat… 

When a Ukrainian unit is forced to withdraw due to casualties, Russian forces move forward, and then pinch off the terrain to the left and right, straightening the front line. Russian engineers then move in and begin to construct defensive positions. It is difficult to be definitive but it appears that Russian defensive positions are equal to or slightly better than Ukrainian positions - but the Russians have been very thorough in keeping defensive positions manned when Ukrainian forces counter-attack. 

What this all leads to is that comments that the Russians are “only gaining 25 square miles per month [or whatever the number might be] and that at this rate Russia will need 80 years to conquer eastern Ukraine” entirely miss the point; Russia is not trying to conquer land so much as Russia wants destroy the Ukrainian army (whether they could conduct rapid advances and sustain them is a separate question, but probably not). At some point, if the war continues and they inflict enough casualties, the Ukrainian army will break. That is the point.

Casualties:

As for casualties, the US commander in Europe used a number 2 weeks ago for total Russian casualties: 790,000. That number basically agrees with other independent estimates. I have tried to track the casualty figures since early 2022 based upon something other than the official figures released by Kyiv and Moscow; both sides have made a point of saying that the other side is suffering from massive casualties, and both sides have hidden their own casualty figures. But numbers “sneak out” and there are also some very diligent folks who have dug into some of these numbers and into various other sources and those numbers tend to roughly agree; again, not including various government figures, not only from the two governments involved but also from others - the MODUK numbers, for example appear meant to serve the Kyiv information operations.

And remember, the Russian population is about 145 million, the Ukrainian population is now somewhere around 30 - 33 million, almost a 5 to 1 advantage to Moscow. So, all that said, the numbers suggest that, through the end of June the casualty figures look like this:

Russia:

130,000 - 170,000 KIA and 450,000 - 680,000 WIA, total casualties: 580,000 - 850,000

Ukraine:

130,000 - 180,000 KIA and 450,000 - 720,000 WIA, total casualties: 580,000 - 900,000

As you can see, 790,000 casualties falls into the “spread” for Russian casualties. Several other figures are also of note:

Desertions:

Russia - 15,000 - 20,000

Ukraine - 100,000+

Russia is currently bringing - per President Zelenskyy - 40,000 into the military every month. This represents about 60% of males reaching 18 years of age and would leave the Russians free to either not conscript women or bring them in at a much reduced rate.

Ukraine is currently - again per President Zelenskyy - bringing 27,000 into the military every month. Conscription age in Ukraine is 27 (that doesn't mean everyone either in Russia or Ukraine is coming in at the conscription age, but it is a handy reference number to understand the nature of the impact on the society). This number, however, given Ukraine’s smaller population, is of note: 27,000 per month is more than 75% of all Ukrainians (male and female) reaching the ago of 27 per month, and is well more than 100% of all men reaching 27 each month. This demographic “pinch” is actually going to worsen over the next several years and is behind the increasing age of the Ukrainian army, now reportedly over 42 years of age on average.

So, in the end, this war, if not stopped, appears to be one that will be settled not by the number of weapons provided, but by manpower constraints. As I noted in late spring 2022 (file under “Blind Squirrel finds acorn”), if Russia solves their manpower problem, they will win this war. Between the successful Russian conscription process, and some help from North Korea, it seems that they have a sustainable manpower “flow.”

v/r pete