Russia entered the war in Ukraine with overwhelming advantages—troops, tanks, aircraft, and a reputation for battlefield dominance. Many expected a swift victory in 2022. Instead, years later, the war drags on with no decisive breakthrough. One by one, Russia’s strengths have eroded while Ukraine adapts, innovates, and resists. Now even Moscow’s greatest asset—a long war of attrition—is turning into a costly liability. So how did a seemingly unstoppable invasion unravel so dramatically in the end?
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#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #military #modernwarfare #militaryanalysis
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00:00When it invaded Ukraine, Russia had almost every conceivable advantage on its side.
00:05It had the larger and stronger army, the bigger military budget, more powerful military equipment,
00:12more experienced commanding officers and smarter strategies,
00:16which should have all added up to a swift and crushing victory.
00:19Instead, years went by, but victory never came.
00:23Now, Russia spent more time fighting its war with Ukraine
00:27than the legendary Red Army of the Soviet Union spent fighting the Nazis in World War II.
00:33And it's no closer to victory today than it was back in 2022.
00:38What's more, its many advantages have been whittled away, one by one.
00:42And even its final advantage, its ability to sustain a long war of attrition,
00:48is slowly starting to become more of an expensive and unsustainable weakness rather than a benefit.
00:54So, to understand how we got to this point, and the true shocking scale of Russia's unprecedented failure,
01:02it's first important to look back over the course of the war so far.
01:06Back in February of 2022, the World Watch would bated breath as Russia amassed its enormous army beside the borders
01:14of Ukraine.
01:15Facing almost insurmountable odds, Kyiv seemed on the brink of complete collapse,
01:20with experts and intelligence agencies around the world expecting the Russian war machine to rampage across the border at any
01:27moment,
01:28and steamroll through whatever meagre defenses the Ukrainians might manage to erect.
01:33Almost no one expected Ukraine to be able to properly defend itself,
01:38not against such a mighty and massive force as Russia,
01:41which had so much military experience and such a strong reputation in the battlefield.
01:46With hindsight, it's easy to see how wrong these views turned out to be.
01:50At the time, however, they made total sense.
01:53Russia was rolling into war with one of the world's largest and toughest tank fleets,
01:58tens of thousands of armored vehicles estimated at 190,000,
02:03and vast amounts of jets, bombers, artillery, and other equipment.
02:06Ukraine, meanwhile, was certainly not regarded as any sort of major military power at the time.
02:12It had a relatively small selection of old Soviet tanks and armored vehicles to choose from,
02:18along with other equipment which largely dated back to the days of the Cold War.
02:22Its domestic defense industry was small and undeveloped,
02:26and in every metric that mattered, it simply couldn't come close to matching Russia.
02:31In short, the stage was set for Russia to easily achieve its military objectives.
02:36It appeared that the days of the Ukrainian government were numbered,
02:40and Russia's Federal Security Service, FSB, was already in the process of planning its next steps,
02:46preparing Kiev apartments for the new Kremlin-backed officials it intended to install.
02:51Ukraine, it seemed, was destined to become another of Moscow's puppet states,
02:56similar in style to Belarus,
02:58and Russia's President Vladimir Putin would get exactly what he wanted,
03:02just as he had so many times before.
03:05However, as history has proven so many times before, war is unpredictable.
03:11It's not merely a matter of numbers or which side has the stronger or larger force.
03:16Instead, war is chaotic, dynamic, and organic,
03:19changing and evolving over time,
03:21and influenced by a vast web of variables.
03:24And even a significantly smaller and weaker force can surprise the world
03:28and defy the odds through sheer grit and determination,
03:32like a wounded animal backed into a corner.
03:35And that's exactly what Ukraine did.
03:37While Russia made sightable gains in the early stages,
03:40as Ukraine initially struggled to get to grips with the conflict,
03:44the tide soon started to turn.
03:46And all of the assumptions that much of the world,
03:49including Russia, had made about the war soon started to unravel,
03:53along with its many advantages.
03:55Many expected Russia's massive army would quickly be able to isolate Ukrainian forces,
04:01for example.
04:02But that didn't happen,
04:03as countless Ukrainians decided to volunteer and defend their land.
04:07Even with minimal or zero military experience,
04:11a multitude of men and women showed remarkable courage
04:13and genuine willingness to lay down their lives for their country.
04:17Russia's commanders also thought that their army's overwhelming strength
04:21would see them march all the way to Kyiv,
04:24a mere matter of days after invading.
04:26Again, it didn't happen.
04:28Despite suffering losses and seeing its citizens fall victim to horrific war crimes,
04:33in places like Bucha,
04:35the country rallied against Russia's invasion.
04:37It mounted stern resistance,
04:39proving a much tougher nut to crack than the Kremlin could have anticipated.
04:43And Ukraine was also helped by Russia's arrogance.
04:47The Kremlin's commanders could and perhaps should have made more of their early advantage,
04:52using their vastly larger, stronger aerial forces to take control of the skies
04:56and pave the way towards further gains.
04:59Instead, they went into the war almost believing that they would win by default
05:03and so made many mistakes along the way.
05:06They failed to capitalize on their initial gains,
05:09never truly attained aerial superiority,
05:11and started to lose large numbers of tanks, vehicles and troops
05:15due to a lack of tactical planning and forethought.
05:18All of a sudden,
05:19Russia's many advantages no longer seemed as large and influential as they originally seemed.
05:24And they only diminished further when Western countries rallied together
05:28and came to Ukraine's aid,
05:30sending everything from missiles to air defense systems
05:33to help Ukraine not only defend its land and airspace from Russian attacks,
05:38but also strike back against its enemy.
05:40What should have been a brief so-called special military operation
05:44was about to become a long-running conventional war,
05:47with all the casualties and complications that entails.
05:51Neither side was truly prepared for that,
05:53and the playing field slowly but surely started to tip in Ukraine's favor.
05:58Its ranks also started to swell as more and more volunteers joined the fight,
06:02evening the odds against Russia's enormous army.
06:05Kyiv also began to benefit from the invaluable sights of Western intelligence agencies,
06:11while unlocking new offensive and defensive capabilities,
06:14as more weapons and systems were delivered from places like the United States,
06:18United Kingdom, Germany and France.
06:21Ukraine even managed to launch a couple of offensive operations of its own,
06:25in regions like Kherson and Kharkiv.
06:28In response, Moscow became increasingly desperate.
06:31It launched a partial mobilization, sending hundreds of thousands more troops to the front,
06:36while also investing heavily in expanding its military defense industry.
06:41It eventually enjoyed one notable victory in the Battle for Bakhmut,
06:45after many months of brutal and bloody conflict.
06:47But the war effectively entered a kind of stalemate situation from that point on,
06:52with Russia making only small gains here and there,
06:55but struggling to capture a single major town or city of note.
06:59During that time, Ukraine found ways to nullify or counterattack almost every advantage Russia had.
07:06The immense power of the vast Russian tank army, for example,
07:10was quickly counteracted by Ukraine's shrewd use of mines, drones and other anti-tank weaponry,
07:16which forced the Kremlin's commanders to rethink their tactics.
07:20Russia also had an enormous edge in the air back when the war began,
07:24with a vastly superior and stronger air force.
07:27It could have used that to take control of the skies over cities like Kyiv and Kharkiv.
07:32Again, however, Ukraine found ways to eliminate this advantage,
07:36setting up one of the world's smartest, strongest layered air defense networks,
07:40featuring everything from advanced radars and missile systems,
07:43to AI-operated turrets and mobile defense teams.
07:47In terms of artillery, too, Russia went into the war with an unmatched quantity of systems and munitions.
07:53Its commanders intended to lean heavily on their enormous artillery power,
07:57relentlessly bombarding Ukrainian strongholds in order to overwhelm and wear down their opponents over time.
08:04Again, Ukraine found a way.
08:06With the help of its allies and its own domestic innovations,
08:10it found ways to strike back,
08:12locating and taking out Russian stockpiles and ammo depots,
08:16giving the Kremlin far fewer shells to work with.
08:18Even when Russia thought it had found a new advantage,
08:22Ukraine consistently found a way to combat it.
08:25When Russia invested heavily in droneware, for example,
08:28and started to launch dozens, then hundreds of drones,
08:31towards Ukrainian cities on a nightly basis,
08:34Kyiv's commanders found stronger and more efficient ways to defend against them,
08:38with the aid of their Western allies.
08:41Ukraine then went one step further,
08:43developing its own domestic drone industry,
08:45launching attacks against Russian targets,
08:48laying waste to everything from oil refineries to air bases.
08:52One at a time,
08:53Kyiv undermined almost all of Russia's conventional advantages
08:57in mass, armor, air power, and firepower.
09:00It didn't have the budget or resources to match or exceed them,
09:04but it still found ways to cancel them out.
09:06Which leads us all the way up to the current state of play in the war,
09:10and Putin's last rapidly diminishing advantage.
09:13His country's ability to keep a war of attrition going,
09:17week after week, month after month.
09:19But before we go deeper into that,
09:21if this is the kind of insight you want more of,
09:24make sure you're subscribed to the military show.
09:27We break it down like this every week.
09:30Now, as soon as it became clear that conquering Ukraine
09:33was going to take much longer than originally expected,
09:36many military experts still felt that Russia
09:38would ultimately be able to grind its way to a win.
09:41That's because, even when facing multiple waves of economic sanctions
09:45and suffering heavy battlefield losses,
09:48Moscow has consistently demonstrated
09:51a remarkable ability to simply keep going.
09:54When hundreds of thousands of its soldiers
09:56have been killed or wounded,
09:58it devised effective methods
10:00to keep on recruiting more to replace them.
10:02When tanks and armored vehicles have been destroyed,
10:05it's turned to its vast Soviet stockpiles to find more.
10:08When former allies have turned away,
10:11it's strengthened connections with other countries
10:13like Iran and North Korea
10:15to keep its war machine afloat.
10:17And even when its economy has been pushed to breaking point,
10:20it's somehow scrambled and found solutions
10:23to stave off an unprecedented recession.
10:25But time continues to pass,
10:28losses continue to mount,
10:30and progress on the ground remains remarkably slow.
10:33As long as that continues,
10:35Russia's advantage will continue to erode,
10:38and that's exactly what Ukraine is counting on.
10:41Indeed, Ukraine's entire strategy
10:43effectively revolves around making the war
10:46as futile and unsustainable as possible for Russia.
10:49Kiev's commanders knew
10:50they were never going to actually win a war
10:52with such a bigger and stronger opponent.
10:55Instead, they focused on minimizing territorial losses,
10:59pushing Russian casualties as high as they can possibly get,
11:02and inflicting as much damage on the Russian economy as possible,
11:06primarily via drone and missile strikes on high-value targets
11:09like oil refineries and fuel depots.
11:13Moscow, meanwhile, continues to rely on that same brute force,
11:17overwhelming strength strategy
11:18it's pinned its hopes on from day one.
11:21It keeps on piling pressure along the front lines,
11:24expecting that eventually big breakthroughs will come,
11:27while Ukraine will suffer enough infrastructure damage
11:30and economic losses
11:32that its leaders will agree to end the war.
11:34The trouble is that Moscow's manpower advantage
11:37is no longer anywhere near as effective as it once was,
11:41and here's why.
11:42In the early stages of the war,
11:44the front lines were clearly defined,
11:46which enabled Russia's commanders
11:47to precisely plan out their next moves
11:50and launch large-scale assaults
11:51against Ukraine's positions.
11:53As the war has progressed,
11:55the battlefield dynamic has shifted massively,
11:58reaching a point where the front lines
11:59are no longer defined,
12:01but vague and porous instead.
12:03It's no longer clear which side
12:05holds which patches of ground,
12:07with the entire front line area
12:09feeling more like an amorphous, cloudy kill zone,
12:12dominated by drones,
12:13with pockets of Ukrainian fortifications here and there,
12:16and small Russia squads
12:18doing their best to encircle them.
12:20The roads here are covered in counter-drone netting,
12:23vehicles are equipped to electronic warfare systems,
12:26and personnel carriers are covered in nets and spikes
12:29and other makeshift defences
12:30in a desperate bid to withstand drone attacks.
12:33In short, the entire zone is a bloody and brutal mess,
12:37and while both sides spent much of their time
12:40battling to control it throughout 2025,
12:43both struggled to assert any kind of dominance.
12:45But that's actually much better news for Ukraine
12:49than it is for Russia,
12:50because as long as Russian troops and resources
12:52are tied up in the kill zone,
12:54they're not making any real progress
12:56or taking control of truly crucial locations
12:59that would actually allow them to push on towards victory.
13:02Instead, they're simply throwing more men and resources
13:05into the meat grinder,
13:07weakening their forces bit by bit in the process.
13:10And if Russia persists with its current strategy,
13:13its losses are only going to get greater,
13:15with very little to show for them in return.
13:18Because this approach isn't working.
13:20Using small groups of infantry
13:22and lightly motorized troops
13:24to bypass Ukrainian positions
13:26is simply not enough to generate sufficient momentum.
13:29Even if those small squads
13:30manage to evade the drones long enough
13:32to breach the enemy's defences,
13:34those breaches are too small
13:36to turn into genuine breakthroughs.
13:38As such, Russia's once powerful, structured offensive,
13:41which rampaged over Ukraine's borders
13:44and captured vast swathes of land
13:46in the early weeks and months of the war,
13:48has devolved into a messy,
13:49directionalist slog,
13:51utterly incapable of generating genuine gains.
13:54And that's not the only problem.
13:57For years, it didn't necessarily matter
13:59that Russia's tactics were wasteful and reckless,
14:01or that it suffered such colossal numbers of casualties.
14:04It was always able to keep on recruiting more men,
14:07hitting its targets,
14:08and even at some stages,
14:10recruiting more new soldiers
14:11than it lost in any given month.
14:13It did this via various means,
14:16including offering hefty financial incentives
14:18to able-bodied men who were willing to fight,
14:21as well as exploiting ethnic minority populations,
14:24threatening immigrants with deportation
14:26unless they signed up,
14:28and even taking prisoners out of their cells
14:30and shipping them off to the front lines too.
14:33From 2022 to 2024,
14:36these tactics worked.
14:38Recruitment was so strong, in fact,
14:40that Russia was actually able to expand its army,
14:43which grew from around 190,000 at the start of the war
14:46to around 1.3 million by 2025.
14:50However, throughout 2025,
14:53much of Russia's recruitment,
14:54which amounted to around 30,000 new faces each month,
14:58was used purely to replace combat losses.
15:00In other words, the army finally stopped getting bigger.
15:04Then, it started to shrink.
15:07By the end of the year,
15:08the number of unrecoverable casualties,
15:10meaning those who had either been killed
15:12or too seriously injured
15:13to ever have any chance of returning to the fight,
15:16began to exceed the number of new recruits.
15:19Russia still has a large manpower advantage over Ukraine,
15:23but its army is no longer able to expand indefinitely
15:26or counterbalance its constant stream of casualties.
15:29Instead, it appears that unless the country
15:31can solve its impending recruitment crisis somehow,
15:35its numbers will now start to dwindle,
15:37and every loss will hit that much harder as a result.
15:40And the Kremlin should have seen this coming.
15:43For years now,
15:44it's boasted about being able to withstand Western sanctions
15:47and continue fighting,
15:48year after year,
15:49no matter what.
15:51It arrogantly assumed that its people
15:52would keep on willingly signing up,
15:54allowing themselves to be shipped off to their dooms
15:57on Donetsk and other occupied regions.
15:59But attitudes have slowly started to shift.
16:03Many of the Russians,
16:04who are actually willing to accept money
16:06and fight in the war,
16:07have already done so.
16:08And those that are left behind
16:09are largely people who have no interest
16:11in signing up for what they see
16:13as little more than a futile suicide mission.
16:16Moscow must now resort to other means
16:19to keep its numbers up.
16:20It's already been forced to call up reservists
16:22in order to guard important sites of infrastructure
16:25from Ukrainian drone attacks.
16:27But even a country of such vast size
16:29doesn't have an infinite number of people to call on.
16:32The quality of its personnel has also started to slip,
16:35with so many of the more recent recruits
16:37having little to no military experience,
16:40making it even more difficult
16:41for the Kremlin's commanders
16:42to orchestrate effective offensive maneuvers.
16:45This doesn't necessarily mean
16:47that Moscow is running out of men,
16:49but it's finding it harder and harder to recruit them,
16:52and it's losing more than it's gaining.
16:54The longer that continues,
16:56the more the country's war machine will suffer,
16:58with individual units becoming weaker
17:00and increasingly imbalanced
17:01as combat losses continue to mount.
17:04In turn, it will become even harder for Moscow
17:07to achieve the breakthroughs it so desperately craves,
17:10and the prospect of any kind of victory
17:12will become more remote and unattainable.
17:15Putin, meanwhile, is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
17:18He's too far gone with the war to back out now,
17:21and his country's economy has become too heavily intertwined
17:24with the military-industrial complex.
17:26If he waved the white flag or ordered some sort of retreat,
17:30he'd face absolute ruin.
17:32At the same time, despite his boastful public pronouncement,
17:35the facts are staring him right in the face.
17:38His army isn't making anywhere near the kind of progress
17:41it needs to make on the ground,
17:43and it's getting weaker by the day.
17:44Added to this is the fact that Ukraine continues to carry out regular strikes
17:49on Russian infrastructure,
17:50disrupting the country's fuel supplies,
17:53damaging its economy,
17:54and crippling its war machine even further.
17:57This all makes it harder for Moscow to sustain the war financially,
18:01leaving the country facing a growing deficit,
18:04numerous regional budget crises,
18:06plummeting oil prices,
18:07and declining revenues.
18:09With Western sanctions also intensifying,
18:12the problems are mounting up,
18:14but there are absolutely zero solutions for Putin to latch onto.
18:18He's trapped in an unwinnable war,
18:20and while he may still, for now,
18:22have the money and resources to keep it going at least a little longer,
18:25he has no hope of emerging from the situation in any sort of positive way.
18:30It's only going to end badly for him and his country,
18:33and the only card he has left is to simply keep it going as long as possible,
18:37delaying his inevitable demise.
18:39In 2025, the Russian president had two big hopes.
18:44The first was that sustained military pressure
18:46would eventually lead to a collapse in the Ukrainian lines.
18:49The second was that the US and other Western nations
18:52might finally stop supporting Kyiv.
18:54Neither one worked out the way he wanted,
18:57and neither will this war.
18:59Russian troops are starting to realize this too,
19:01with more and more of them turning against the Kremlin
19:04and expressing their anger towards Putin,
19:06which you can learn all about in this video.
19:09Alternatively, check out this video
19:11for a look at how Ukraine's remarkable search-and-destroy units
19:14are picking Russia's war machine apart,
19:17one piece at a time.
19:19And make sure to subscribe to our channel too,
19:21so you can stay informed and up-to-date
19:23on all the latest news from this war
19:25and other important military matters around the world.
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