Key Points – While Russia has not been definitively defeated, a closer look at the data challenges the narrative that it is winning the war in Ukraine.
-According to Ukraine’s General Staff, Russian casualties reached the one million mark (killed and wounded) on June 12, 2025.
-Russia has suffered these staggering personnel and equipment losses for minimal territorial gain, with its rate of advance in some areas slower than in World War I.
-Furthermore, Putin’s primary strategic goal of halting NATO expansion has failed spectacularly, with Finland and Sweden joining the alliance.
-These immense, unsustainable costs suggest Russia’s war effort is faltering.
Has Russia Lost The War In Ukraine?
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, but the war started eight years before that when they seized Crimea and parts of the Donbas, with the appearance of “little green men.”
While the war of attrition has stalemated both sides, the Russians insist they are winning with their propaganda releases, and the West has generally been swayed by this idea. President Trump insisted that Russia “holds all the cards.”
Russian President Putin has bragged that Russia is decisively winning on the battlefield. “Overall, we can see what is happening right now. Our troops have the strategic initiative along the entire contact line.”
He added that “we have reason to believe that we are set to finish them off. I think that people in Ukraine need to realize what is going on.”
However, while he continually claims everything is going to plan, the facts tell a very different story.
Are the Russians losing the war with Ukraine?
Russia’s Losses Are Staggering And Getting Worse:
The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces reported on Thursday that Russia has suffered one million troops killed or wounded in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Kyiv says the one million mark is not just a statistic, but “a symbol of resistance and resilience.”
According to the General Staff’s report, Russia has also lost 10,933 tanks, 22,786 armored fighting vehicles, 51,579 vehicles and fuel tanks, 29,063 artillery systems, 1,413 multiple launch rocket systems, 1,184 air defense systems, 416 airplanes, 337 helicopters, 40,435 drones, 3,337 cruise missiles, 28 ships and boats, and one submarine.
“The overall losses of the Russian occupying forces in manpower since the beginning of the full-scale invasion have reached 1 million,” The General Staff added. “More than 628,000 occurred in just the past year and a half.”
Euronews reported that in 2022, Russia lost an average of 340 troops per day, totaling 106,720, according to the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces.
In 2023, the losses more than doubled to an average of 693 troops per day and 253,290 soldiers. In 2024, daily losses exceeded the 1,000 threshold, totaling 430,790 troops. This year, Russia has been losing on average 1,286 soldiers per day.
None of the strategic objectives that Putin had set out to accomplish have been achieved. One of his main objectives was to prevent NATO from expanding further eastward. His invasion of Ukraine has had the opposite effect.
Finland, which shares an 840-mile border with Russia, requested and was granted NATO membership, along with Sweden. The Finnish people have no love lost for Russia. Putin’s miscalculation of how the West would react has cost him a million casualties, an incredible number of vehicles, aircraft, ships, artillery, and equipment lost, and now NATO is on his border in the strategic Arctic region.
Have The Russians Lost The War?
While Russia has not outright “lost” the war in Ukraine, the situation on the ground there is far from rosy as Putin likes to claim. Russia has not achieved its initial strategic objectives and is suffering significant battlefield setbacks.
Speaking on a YouTube podcast about the initial invasion in February 2022, Ed Arnold discussed how the plan was fraught from the outset.
“The Russians were so concerned about the plan getting out and Ukraine being able to prepare that they actually didn’t tell their soldiers. If you don’t tell soldiers what they’re about to do, they can’t achieve their objective. There were actually some soldiers who thought they were there on an exercise. They didn’t actually believe that a military operation was taking place.
So that inability to allow your soldiers to prepare for what you are going to do means that just there’s no chance that they’re going to be able to carry out their task.”
In 2024, Russia took territory in Ukraine equivalent to the size of Rhode Island. But that small area of land cost the military about 440,000 casualties. At the current rate of advance, it would take Russia more than 150 years to conquer the remaining area of Ukraine.
Efforts to recruit new troops are slowing down, despite the government offering increased monetary incentives equal to three times the national average to join. The public is also opposed to another call-up of reserves.
The massive loss of tanks and armored vehicles is unsustainable. Numbers vary depending on the source, but Russia is bringing back old, obsolete Soviet stock for a reason.
Surveys show growing numbers of Russians are unwilling to fight in the war. Some 81 percent of those aged between 18 and 30 oppose another round of mobilization to feed the “meat grinder” at the front, where as many as 234,000 have been killed and hundreds of thousands wounded.
In a January 2025 poll, ending the conflict was the top priority for 68 percent of Russian respondents, who wanted its successful conclusion.
While Russia is in no way defeated, the data suggests the conflict is not going well for Putin and Russia. Their inability to achieve key objectives, coupled with the high cost of the war in terms of human and material resources, paints a picture of a military that is struggling to maintain its initial strategic goals.
And it isn’t getting any better.
About the Author
Steve Balestrieri is a National Security Columnist. He served as a US Army Special Forces NCO and Warrant Officer. In addition to writing on defense, he covers the NFL for PatsFans.com and is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA). His work was regularly featured in many military publications.
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