Russia is approaching a "terrible turning point": the US has exposed Putin's strategy and given advice to Trump
utin seeks to exhaust Ukraine and allies.
According to new data from the US Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Russian forces have failed to advance effectively in several directions in Ukraine, have captured little territory, lost significant amounts of equipment compared to the Ukrainian army, and suffered extremely high casualties since January 2024.
"Despite the fact that some politicians and experts claim that Russia holds "all the cards" in the war against Ukraine, available data indicate that its armed forces are demonstrating relatively weak results on the battlefield," the analytical report says
The report was authored by military strategy experts Seth G. Jones and Riley McCabe.
They predict that in the summer of 2025, Russia will cross the “impressive and terrifying milestone” of 1 million casualties.
“This shows Putin’s complete disregard for the lives of his soldiers. For comparison: Russia has lost five times more soldiers in Ukraine than in all wars since World War II by 2022. The number of deaths in just over three years of war in Ukraine is 15 times higher than the losses of the USSR in the 10 years of the war in Afghanistan and 10 times higher than the losses in the two wars in Chechnya,” the article says.
At the same time, Russian troops advanced an average of only 50 meters per day, for example, in the Kharkiv region, which is slower than one of the most grueling offensives on the Somme during World War I, when French and British troops advanced 80 meters per day.
“Russia has captured only about 5,000 km² of territory since January 2024 — less than 1% of Ukraine’s territory. And these gains are largely confined to the Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kharkiv regions. Such meager gains are especially striking given the conquest of 120,000 km² in the first five weeks of the war and Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the spring of 2022, which liberated about 50,000 km²,” the report says.
Russia has also suffered significant losses in equipment on land, in the air, and at sea. In particular, since the beginning of last year, it has lost approximately:
1,149 armored combat vehicles;
3,098 infantry fighting vehicles;
300 self-propelled artillery mounts;
1,865 tanks.
"Moreover, Russia's losses of equipment significantly exceed those of Ukraine in a ratio of 5:1 to 2:1, not in its favor," the experts emphasize.
They recall how Russia launched a new offensive in the Donetsk region in October 2023 and, after one of the fiercest battles of this war, captured the city of Avdiivka in February 2024.
"From that moment until April 2025, Russian troops advanced approximately 60 kilometers westward to the city of Pokrovsk - an average of only 135 meters per day."
In the Kharkiv region, in November 2024, the Russian occupiers launched an offensive near the city of Kupyansk, crossed the Oskil River and advanced westward, trying to encircle the city.
"Over the next five months, they advanced about 8 kilometers at the furthest point — that's only 50 meters per day on average. In other areas of the front, Russia has made almost no significant progress since January 2024," American analysts note.
