Russia entered Ukraine expecting a quick victory. Four years later, the Kremlin faces catastrophic losses, collapsing recruitment, and a battlefield transformed by deadly drone warfare. With casualties soaring past one million and recruitment failing to keep pace, Putin’s war machine is beginning to crack under the pressure. How long can Russia sustain this devastating conflict before its manpower crisis becomes irreversible? This episode breaks down the numbers, tactics, and brutal realities shaping the next phase of the war in Ukraine.
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00:00When Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in 2022,
00:05he was confident that his so-called special military operation would succeed. It's easy
00:11to understand why. Putin had the larger army, the stronger economy, and a seemingly endless
00:17supply of soldiers and military hardware to get the job done. Yet, as the war raged on,
00:23year after year, the Kremlin's resources began to diminish. Tanks and infantry vehicles were wiped
00:29out. Fleets shrank, defenses dwindled. And now, at long last, Putin is running out of perhaps the
00:36most vital military resource of them all, people. And without people who are willing to put on helmets,
00:43strap up their boots, and march into fearsome frontline kill zones, laying their lives on the
00:48line for the glory of the motherland, Russia has zero chance of winning this war. Putin never saw
00:54this coming. When the war began, Russia had one of the largest armies on earth, with an estimated
00:59900,000 active duty personnel and hundreds of thousands more paramilitary personnel in reserve.
01:06Ukraine's army, by contrast, had fewer than 200,000 troops. Historical trends show that invading forces
01:13tend to suffer more casualties than defenders, for various reasons, so Russia's commanders likely
01:18expected to see a certain number of losses. But they couldn't have possibly imagined the sheer
01:23scale of the casualties that lay ahead for their army. As Ukraine defied the odds and demonstrated
01:28remarkable resilience, Russia's losses started to mount. In the early stages of the war,
01:34the Kremlin suffered several thousand casualties a month. By 2023, that figure had risen to around
01:4015,000 to 20,000. In 2024, it broke the 30,000 mark, even briefly surpassing 40,000 towards the
01:47end of the year. 2025 saw similarly devastating losses, averaging around 30,000 per month, and that
01:54has continued right into 2026. To put that figure into perspective, during the Soviet-Afghan war, which
02:00ran from 1979 through to 1989, the Soviets lost between 15 and 20,000 troops total, over the span of
02:08almost
02:08a decade. Now Russia loses more than that every single month. In total, it's estimated to have
02:15suffered over 1.3 million casualties, with an estimated 500,000 dead, and almost a million more
02:23wounded. That figure is over five times greater than the country's total losses from all Russian
02:28and Soviet wars since World War II combined, including the Afghan war and two Chechen wars.
02:34As the Center for Strategic and International Studies notes, Russia has endured
02:38more losses than any major power in any war since World War II. Yet perhaps the most staggering fact
02:44of all is that these horrific losses were actually seen as sustainable in the eyes of Putin and his
02:49Kremlin cronies for the first few years of the conflict. It didn't matter that tens of thousands
02:54of Russian soldiers were being sent home in body bags. It didn't matter that brothers, sons, husbands,
03:00and fathers were being slaughtered en masse or suffering life-changing injuries. It didn't matter because the
03:06army was still advancing, albeit quite slowly in most areas, and there were always more recruits
03:11ready and waiting to replenish the ranks. In fact, the Russian army actually managed to get even larger
03:17during the opening years of the war, thanks to a partial mobilization in 2022 and heavy investment in
03:23recruitment in the years that followed. Countless able-bodied men across the country willingly signed
03:29up to fight in Ukraine. Most were led to believe that the war would be over and done within no
03:33time,
03:34or that they'd only need to serve a few months before packing their bags and heading back home.
03:38Many were fooled into thinking that they could make some easy money by signing up, serving somewhere
03:43relatively safe, far from the front, and then heading home to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
03:48Some, meanwhile, were blackmailed or effectively forced to sign up,
03:51with Russian recruiters resorting to some very underhanded tactics,
03:55like pressuring ethnic minorities and threatening people with deportation
03:58if they refused to sign contracts. The methods didn't really matter.
04:03As long as enough new soldiers were entering the army to compensate for its casualties,
04:07then the Kremlin's war machine could continue its relentless assault on Ukraine.
04:11But this couldn't continue forever. Even in a country with a population of over 140 million people,
04:18there's only a finite number of able-bodied individuals who are actually willing and ready
04:22to join the fray. And the more time that went by, the more those same individuals began to realize
04:28that if they did sign up, they'd more than likely be signing their own death sentence in the process.
04:33So recruitment became more challenging, and Russia became more desperate.
04:37It went beyond blackmail, dragging rapists and murderers out of their prison cells and offering
04:43them their freedom if they'd agree to do a year at the front. It sent people with debilitating and
04:48terminal illnesses into the fray. It began new military marketing campaigns filled with lies and
04:53propaganda aimed at tricking struggling students into going to war, telling them that it would be
04:58just like playing a video game and promising that they could safely serve far from the front lines.
05:03It started issuing orders for schools and businesses to actively seek out students and
05:08employees and make them sign military contracts. It even began looking beyond its borders,
05:13leveraging its influence across Africa to fool thousands of people of other nationalities into
05:18fighting a war that they had no stake in, risking their lives for a country that didn't care about them.
05:24Out on the battlefield too, Russian commanders became more ruthless and brutal in the way they
05:29treated the troops under their command, torturing, beating and exploiting those who show even the
05:34slightest hint of wanting to desert. But none of this was enough to stem the flow of casualties and
05:40stop the Russian army from slowly but surely starting to shrink. The numbers prove it.
05:45In December 2025, for the first time since the war began, Russia officially lost more troops than
05:51it was able to recruit, with 22,000 new personnel either recruited or mobilized compared to over 30,000
05:57confirmed casualties. Optimists hoped that this was the start of something special. Pessimists feared it might
06:03just be a one-off, an isolated incident that was worthy of a celebration but unlikely to have much
06:08of an impact in the long term. Then came January 2026 and the same thing happened. And again in February,
06:15March and April. For five entire months running, Russia's casualty rate exceeded its recruitment rate.
06:22This wasn't a one-off, it was a trend and it's now becoming a trend that Russia is struggling to
06:27find any answers for as its recruitment strategies fail to generate sufficient results and its battlefield
06:32tactics continue to cause devastating losses. Indeed, in February 2026, on the fourth anniversary
06:38of the invasion, The Economist published its own modeling of Russian casualties, concluding that
06:43the country had suffered as many losses in the previous 12 months as it had suffered in the first
06:47three years of the war combined. In other words, losses are skyrocketing, right as recruitment begins
06:54to decline. It's a recipe for disaster for the Kremlin and with some estimates suggesting that around
07:001,000 Russian soldiers are wiped out every single day, either killed, wounded or captured, the country's
07:06army is almost guaranteed to get weaker and smaller the longer the war goes on. And the picture gets
07:11even uglier for Putin when we compare the country's casualties to those of Ukraine. Early on, of course,
07:17Ukraine did indeed suffer serious losses. The opening months were brutal on Kyiv's forces as they struggled
07:22to come to terms with the weight and ferocity of Russia's invasion. With enemies attacking from several
07:28sides, Ukraine's soldiers and brave civilian volunteers struggled to find their feet.
07:33The country's failed counter-offensive in 2023 was also a low point, leading to large numbers of
07:38deaths and wounded troops too. However, as the war progressed, Ukraine found ways to limit its losses.
07:45It shifted more towards drone warfare, it received game-changing aid from its Western allies,
07:50and its commanders adjusted their tactics accordingly, making the most of the resources
07:55at their disposal and refusing to copy the Kremlin playbook of simply treating soldiers like cannon
08:00fodder. As a result, the latter stages of the war have been significantly better for Ukraine,
08:05with a reduction in the number of casualties per month. In a way, the two countries have followed
08:09completely opposing paths. Ukraine had a poor start to the war, but got better as time went by.
08:15Russia started strong, but has since suffered a dramatic drop-off. So what does all of this mean
08:20for the next phase of the war?
08:30Facing such serious losses and recruitment challenges, many leaders would understand
08:34that now is the time to swallow their pride and potentially look at either starting ceasefire
08:38negotiations or at least reassessing their military objectives, but that's not Vladimir Putin's style.
08:45According to numerous reports and even insider officials within the Kremlin who have spoken
08:49to Western journalists on the condition of anonymity, the Russian president remains stubbornly
08:54set on seizing the Donbass and persisting with the war for the foreseeable future. One official even
09:00claimed that they have been pushing Putin to simply call the war off and take the territory it's gained
09:05so far. According to them, however, he keeps saying, no, I can't compromise on this. Putin even seems to
09:11think that the Donbass can be completely captured by the fall. The data, however, suggests otherwise.
09:17Because Russian forces aren't just losing men in massive quantities, they are also massively
09:22struggling to take territory with any sort of speed. According to data from the Institute for the
09:27Study of War, for example, Russian forces have captured around 220 square kilometers, 85 square miles in
09:332026 so far. That's about the same size as the city of Seattle. In response, Ukraine has managed to
09:40recapture around 189 square kilometers, 73 square miles. That gives Russia a net gain of just 31 square
09:48kilometers or 12 square miles in 2026. That's virtually nothing. And the worst part is that Russia
09:54has paid an extortionate price for that nothing. Some estimates suggest that over 300 Russian soldiers have
10:01been killed or seriously wounded for every square kilometer of land taken in the Donbass region so
10:05far this year. And the number of deaths is actually becoming significantly larger than the number of
10:11injuries. That is extremely bad news for the Kremlin. In fact, it's almost unprecedented.
10:17Typically, in modern warfare, casualties tend to be made up mostly of wounded soldiers. There are usually
10:23three troops wounded for every one killed, to be precise. In some cases, the ratio is even higher.
10:28In Iraq, for example, the US suffered around seven wounded troops for every death,
10:33meaning that the vast majority of the country's casualties weren't actually deaths but injuries,
10:37with many of those soldiers eventually being able to make full or partial recoveries and return home
10:42to their families. In Russia, the ratio has been inverted. For years, the country's meat grinder tactics
10:48meant that it suffered a higher than average number of deaths, with around two Russian soldiers wounded
10:53for each one that died. But according to some more recent reports, it's now looking like Russia is
10:58suffering two deaths for every injury, with Ukrainian sources stating that around 62% of all
11:04Russian casualties are kills, with the remaining 38% being injuries. That's one of the deadliest kill
11:10to wounded ratios in modern history. Of course, Ukrainian officials have plenty of reasons to exaggerate or
11:16pick-and-choose statistics that align with their agenda. But there is an increasingly large amount of
11:20compelling evidence to back up their claims, and it all boils down to one single thing – drones.
11:27The Russia-Ukraine war has, in many ways, become a drone war. The front lines are absolutely saturated
11:32with unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs. They soar through the skies, scanning the ground for any signs
11:38of life before striking with precision and impunity at any enemy targets they find, and they don't just
11:43operate along the front itself, but several miles either side of it. As a result, for Russian troops
11:49it's almost become a coin toss of whether they even make it to the front lines in one piece or
11:53not.
11:54For the lucky few who do get there, more drones are just waiting to pick them off. Many die immediately
12:00in the explosive blasts caused by kamikaze drones. In a way, they're the lucky ones, because those who are
12:07wounded are often simply stranded in no man's land, slowly bleeding out from their injuries,
12:11unable to be aided or evacuated, because Russian medics are also forced to navigate those same
12:16treacherous territories, evading entire swarms of drones just to get close enough to provide
12:21any sort of assistance to their wounded comrades. As Phillips O'Brien, professor of strategic studies
12:27and head of the School of International Relations at the University of St. Andrews, notes,
12:31If the Ukrainians are now killing two Russian soldiers for every one wounded, that will be
12:36notable in warfare. It does not seem implausible to me because of the accuracy of first-person view
12:41drones and the fact that the battlefield makes it very difficult indeed for wounded soldiers to be
12:45evacuated. Of course, this problem isn't limited only to Russia. Ukraine also has to deal with enemy
12:51drones along the front lines. It also has to worry about how to evacuate injured soldiers without
12:56putting more lives at risk in the process. But unlike Russia, which persists with the same stubborn and
13:01wasteful tactics treating its troops like pieces of meat rather than human beings, Ukraine has
13:06adapted. It has found smarter and more effective ways to solve the challenges it faces, like using
13:11unmanned ground vehicles to assist with EVACs, for example. Ukraine has also moved ahead of Russia in
13:17the drone race, developing a more diverse and impactful arsenal of UAVs to outwit and overwhelm its opponent.
13:23This is the biggest and most vital difference between the two sides. Russia sees problems but doesn't
13:29actually search for solutions. It just throws more men at them and hopes they'll go away. Ukraine sees
13:35problems and finds ways to fix them. It never settles, always looking for ways to improve, to become
13:40more efficient and minimize its losses. And what this all means moving forward is that the trends we've
13:45seen so far in 2026 are likely to continue. Russia is going to continue losing upwards of 30,000 troops
13:52per month. In fact, Ukraine's military leaders are eager to push that number even higher, all the way to
13:5740 or even 50,000 towards the end of the year. If they can get anywhere close to that target,
14:03it will be devastating for the Kremlin. Russia will almost certainly continue to struggle to recruit
14:09soldiers in the quantities it needs to counterbalance its casualties, and it's not hard to see why.
14:14The Russian people may have been easily duped at the start of this war, but after four years and
14:19countless failures, many of them are now able to see right through the Kremlin's lies. They know that the
14:24war has become a disaster and many of them want no part in it. Even those who do sign up
14:30aren't
14:30exactly the best of the best. They're often people from ethnic minority communities who felt pressured
14:35to fight, people who are sick or have criminal records, people from other countries who don't
14:40even speak a word of Russian, or people who felt like they were left with no other choice but don't
14:45have any kind of military experience or training to speak of. So when they get to Ukraine, the vast
14:50majority will continue to die, joining the hundreds of thousands of their countrymen who have already
14:55fallen before them. As a result, the Russian army will get progressively smaller and weaker,
15:01and there's no way for Putin to stop that decline, apart from some sort of mass mobilization,
15:05which would be greeted with extreme anger among the public. With Putin's popularity and freefall,
15:11he can't really risk incurring the public's wrath any further, leaving him stuck between a rock and a
15:16hard place with no obvious escape route. As the army grows weaker, its progress will most likely
15:21continue to stagnate and stall along the front lines, with only tiny pockets of land captured
15:27in exchange for thousands of lost lives. This, in turn, may open opportunities for Ukrainian forces
15:33to exploit. As their enemy weakens, they might find it easier to recapture even more territory,
15:39pushing the Russians further back and squashing Putin's hopes of a complete Donbass capture
15:43by the end of the year. At the same time, it's important to note that Ukraine also has its
15:48problems. As Lawrence Friedman, professor of war studies at King's College London, recently stated,
15:54While problems are mounting for Russia, Ukraine has also got serious issues. Chief among those is
15:59Kyiv's ongoing inability to recruit enough troops, resulting in a relatively porous front line,
16:04policed largely by drones. So both sides are facing recruitment challenges, and if Ukraine can't
16:10get the soldiers it needs, it too may struggle to make gains at the front. On balance, however,
16:15Russia has far greater and more numerous issues than Ukraine right now. Its losses are vast,
16:21its progress is slow, its economy is in crisis, its leadership is in turmoil, its allies have abandoned
16:28it. And the man in charge of the whole show, Putin himself, appears increasingly out of touch with
16:34reality. Five hundred thousand of his people have already died, and he appears to have no qualms about
16:40sacrificing hundreds of thousands more. The only question left is how long will the rest of Russia
16:45stand for it? You can learn more about how the war is shifting in Ukraine's favor in this video,
16:50which explores Kyiv's recent successful strike on the Novorossysk naval base. Or watch this video to
16:56learn how Ukraine located and eliminated a Russian intelligence agency base, taking out up to 100 enemy
17:01soldiers and officers in the process. Don't forget to subscribe to The Military Show for more content
17:06like this, and thank you as always for watching.
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