Russia Ukraine war: the numbers Putin doesn’t want you to see

It's hard to believe, but Russia's war with Ukraine has now lasted longer than the First World War.And longer than the Soviet fight against Nazi Germany in the Second World War.But unlike that triumph of Russian might, this conflict will go down in Moscow's history books for very different reasons.Ukraine is punishing its invader.Right now, according to Russian military bloggers, the estimated survival time for a Russian fighter on the battlefield is just 20 to 35 minutes.Kiev has stifled Russia's advances along the front line, and they're taking the war deep into Russia's heartlands.

A massive drone operation has targeted the Kremlin's oil refineries and industrial infrastructure, straining Russia's economy and bringing the war to the residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg.So is Ukraine actually winning this war, enough to bring Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table?Or if Putin and his people think the tide has turned and the war could be lost, will the Kremlin throw everything they have left to seize Ukraine, whatever the cost?We're speaking to the experts and our own correspondent witnessing this conflict from the front lines.To answer those questions in this episode of Foresight.First, let's get up to speed with what's happening on the battlefield.

The front line in Ukraine is largely static following the initial months and years of this war of Russian aggression.After the invasion in February 2022, Russian forces advanced in the east and from occupied Crimea.They tried and failed to take the capital Kiev and eventually withdrew in April.Ukrainian forces showed strong resistance and by the end of 2022 they had retaken territory in Kharkiv and recaptured the city of Kherson.Since then, both sides have made a series of offensives to break the stalemate.The Russians managed to take Bukhmut in May 2023, but they suffered some

100 ,000 casualties.The following year, Ukraine launched the Kursk Offensive, claiming territory inside Russia and holding positions there into 2025.But now both sides are struggling to make up ground.According to the Institute for the Study of War, Russia seized just 0 .8 % of Ukrainian land last year.And even that pace has slowed in the months since.Around Konstantinovka, Russian forces are advancing on average just 50 metres a day.

Near Pokrovsk, 70 metres.Near Slovyansk, 90.These are average daily gains similar to the Battle of the Somme during World War I. To better understand what it's really like on the ground in this region, I spoke to Porik O 'Brien.He's our foreign affairs correspondent who's reporting on the fighting firsthand.

So you're in Dnipro, but I know that you've been in Kramatorsk right on the front line.

I mean, what's it like?What's it like when you're there?

It's a really strange sort of dystopian city at the moment.I was there in the first year of the full -scale invasion in 22, and the city was still bustling.There were lots of soldiers out on the street, they were in the cafes, they were in the bars.This time round, the city had emptied out.We reckon there's about 50 ,000 soldiers in that city and in the environment, but you don't see them.They're underground, they're in apartments, they're in hiding, basically.

They're keeping a really low profile, and that's because of the drones.There was one instance where we were in a neighborhood and suddenly the sound of a drone just filled up the air.All around the neighbourhood, automatic gunfire.Everywhere around us, trying to shoot it down.We had to run for cover.It was, yeah, it was a frightening moment.

What we've been reading back here is this idea that the Ukrainians have really upped the ante when it comes to drones.Is that what you've seen in terms of that?them having this newfound ingenuity?more drones, whatever.

A hundred percent.So for example, we're driving with a unit from the Ukrainian army and back and forth on that dirt track, dozens of military ground drones trundling back from the front, bringing ammunition and logistics and supplies.They're evacuating wounded soldiers.Some of them are mounted with machine guns.killing Russian soldiers.They are everywhere.

There's this whole network of workshops all around Kramatorsk where hundreds of army engineers are rejigging drones, fitting them with new machine guns, testing the tires.It's this underground grassroots drone manufacturing and adaption network.It was something else to see.I've never seen anything like it.

Porik, thanks for talking to me and stay safe.Thanks, Ciarán.What Poryk is seeing is a revolution of warfare spearheaded by Ukraine, where short -range drones now dominate the front line and Russian troops are paying the price.In a single 24 -hour period, Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, the first military branch in the world dedicated entirely to drones, say they struck 1 ,559 Russian targets.311 of them were Russian soldiers.And that's not a one -off.

Military experts say Ukraine has sharpened how it integrates drone attacks with conventional infantry and artillery assaults, which has led to fewer Ukrainian casualties and more on the Russian side.just as Moscow is struggling to replace the soldiers it's losing.

The problem that the Russians had is for years they've gotten by by offering higher and higher bonuses, paying people to join their army.But right now even the high bonuses are not having quite the effect because people, one, they've gone through the people who would sign up for that financial incentive.And secondly, signing up for the Russian army now is not a very attractive proposition for people because your lifespans are so short.

Side note, Ukraine is also struggling to recruit soldiers, with draft dodging a recurring issue.Now, neither side gives data on their military losses.Ukraine's President Zelensky recently recorded his country's fatalities at 55 ,000, though some estimates run as high as 150 ,000 and as many as 625 ,000 casualties.That measures those killed, wounded or missing.On the Russian side, UK intelligence says nearly 500 ,000 Russian soldiers have died since the war began, with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies putting total Russian casualties at around 1 .4 million.It's numbers like these that help explain why this May, Russia suffered its first net loss of territory since 2023, according to the Ukrainian monitoring group Deep State.

But the front line is only part of this story.Ukraine isn't just using drones to hold ground.It's using them to take the war deep into Russia itself.It starts with mid -range strikes aimed at cutting off Russian logistics.As one Ukrainian commander put it, the goal is to leave Russian troops with no food, no ammunition, no night vision, no batteries, wearing them down, in his words, in every sense.Nowhere is that clearer than Crimea, the peninsula Russia annexed in 2014, long considered the jewel in Putin's crown.

Now, drones are hitting the trucks and trains carrying fuel, ammunition and reinforcements there, and the effects are being felt well beyond the military.Fuel is scarce with queues weaving around Crimean petrol stations.Power and water are regularly being cut off.Prices are rising.And this summer, Crimea's tourism industry is reeling.

If you look to the number of strikes, to the situation on the European as well, the Russians are not controlling it at all.

Ukraine has matched that pressure at sea.In July, Kyiv said it hit more than 100 Russian vessels in the Sea of Azov in just nine days.part of an effort to cut Crimea off entirely.

It has created a real problem with that peninsula for the Russians because Crimea doesn't have any oil.Everything needs to be shipped in.That is the Ukrainian attempt to turn Crimea from what had been a strategic asset to the Russians into a strategic liability.

So that's the mid -range drones.Then there's long range.

For the second time in four days, Ukrainian drones striking unopposed deep into Russia's territory, into its economy.Two huge logistic centres belonging to wild berries.Russia's answer to Amazon being turned relentlessly to ash and smoke.

Ukraine has struck the Kaputnya oil facility, just 10 miles from the Kremlin.It's hit Russia's largest refinery in Omsk, more than 2 ,500 kilometres from Ukrainian territory.By early July, nearly all of Russia's 83 federal regions were reporting fuel shortages, rationing, or restrictions.

Russians doesn't remember anything like that since late 1980s, when still, you know, at the end of the Soviet Union, there was shortage of gas.All of a sudden, they have to stay hours in lines, in queues to get gas.

And the real concern for Moscow is what could happen longer term.

We're hearing reports that they're buying a lot of oil from Indian refineries now.And that means every oil that they have to buy from the outside is a huge money loser, because they used to sell, now they're buying.

But it's not just an economic story.Russian citizens are now having to deal with drone attacks in major cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg, aware that their air defences are not as strong as they might have hoped, an issue we'll come back to later in this piece.

Especially in Moscow, they're stunned.All of a sudden, after four and a half years, they realised that the war came to their homes.

how has Ukraine pulled this off?Partly, it's production.Kiev has become a global leader in drone manufacturing, aiming to build 8 million this year, up from 4 million last year and 2 million the year before.For most of the war, the number of drones sent from Moscow to attack Ukraine has always been higher than those sent to Russia.Today, the Ukrainians are matching their counterparts.And it's not just Ukraine.

just quantity.They're producing superior technologies too.Take the Ukrainian company Wild Hornets, who have pioneered interceptor drones that shoot Russian drones out of the sky.

It's not only the quantity, but also the ability to learn the lessons from the frontline.We cut the distance between the producers and the forces.So now the engineers can just join the unit, for example, to see what is happening with the actual use in the war conditions, and very quickly to come with the solutions how to improve it.

Put it all together, short range, mid range, long range, and it's clear, while Ukraine's drone campaign hasn't won the war, it's completely changed the narrative.And here's the thing, none of this happened in a vacuum.

You don't have the cards right now.

When Donald Trump returned to office, he cut USA to Kiev, and it looked like it would be a disaster for Ukraine.You're gambling with World War III.But there's an irony here.Washington urged Ukraine not to strike deep inside Russia.But with the fear of angering a now hostile Washington gone, some believe Zelensky is free to do exactly that.

They didn't have to worry about the U .S.administration.They didn't have to worry about offending Donald Trump.They could fight the war they wanted to fight.And that was the way they reacted.

OK, you're not going to help us.Therefore, we're not going to listen to you when you tell us to be nice to the Russians.

So what's Russia's response been?On the surface, there are signs of a softening.There are rumors that China iscould play a role in peace talks.Putin recently called the Ukrainian leader Mr. Zelensky for the first time in ages.Usually he refused to use the president's name.

In May, Russia's famous Victory Day parade, normally this grand display of military might, was scaled back significantly.And in July, the annual Navy Day parade that was supposed to see 200 ships sail the River Neva in St. Petersburg was cancelled because of the risk posed by Ukraine's drones.But crucially, we need to be cautious about seeing any of this as a defeat or retreat from Putin.Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities have intensified.Cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, drone attacks, on military, energy, and civilian sides.

Ukraine seems to be almost out of Patriot interceptors.And that means they are really struggling to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles.And Putin knows this.The Russians know this.

Russia is pushing to exploit a real weakness here.Current Patriot production is not enough to meet the growing demand for protection against ballistic missiles.This is Russia's last major advantage.The U .S.

isn't sending Ukraine more Patriots.But at the NATO summit in Ankara, Trump floated letting Ukraine build its own.We're going to give a license to you to make Patriots, that's pretty cool, right?It was a vague promise made on the spot, with the president admitting he hadn't even spoken to the companies that make the Patriots.And even if Trump gave the go -ahead, it would take ages for Ukraine to produce their own.Side note, I'm actually on a reporting trip in the US at the moment and managed to get an interview with the Senator Chris Coons.

Lovely to meet you.In order to ask him whether Trump is really going to help Ukraine.That's a separate video, so watch that next.While Ukraine is struggling with air defense, it's still right now got the upper hand militarily.And Ukraine's hoping that that advantage forces Putin to make a run for it.unpopular decision.

If he really wants to try and gain land on the front line, Russia may have to introduce mass mobilization, perhaps from places like Moscow and St. Petersburg, the very cities Putin's worked hardest to insulate from the wall.

When you mobilize, they're not paid people.There are people whom you force to go, and he knows what's going to happen.There will be outcry.So no, it's not rational for him to go for mobilisation.

Yevgenia argues that the real aim of Ukraine's tactics is to change the mood inside Russia, not among ordinary people, but among the elites, the oligarchs, and those closest to the president.And that's beginning to show.One of Russia's most powerful oligarchs, the multi -billionaire industrialist Andrei Melnichenko, gave a big interview to The Economist, not to criticise Putin, but to call for a change in events and an end to the war.

If they want to go back to the kind of life that they had before the beginning of Russian invasion of Ukraine, the only way for them to get this life back is to stop the war.

Washington is trying to capitalize on that pressure.

The Ukrainians are making great progress.

The US Senate introducing legislation for more sanctions on Russia, specifically targeting Russian officials, oligarchs, and their family members.

I believe that without the serious change inside of Russian regime, the actual end of this war is impossible.

But as Ukraine and its allies hope to pile the pressure on Russia, Zelensky's government is showing some cracks of its own.Protesters took to the streets after popular defence minister Mikhailo Fedorov was sacked just six months into the job.Fedorov had clashed with the army's commander -in -chief, Alexander Serzhsky, accusing him of blocking reforms and splitting the country.In response to the public outcry, Zelensky then sacked Serzhsky too.To get a sense of the impact of that change in Ukraine and what might happen next, I spoke to Mark Gagliotti, a historian and a leading expert on Russia.Mark, I just want to start by talking about the political turmoil in Ukraine, the sacking of the defence minister, we've seen protests.

I mean, it's not all sunny on the Ukrainian side, but Do you think that would dent the advantages they seem to have at the moment when it comes to the frontline drone warfare, et cetera?

It's clear that the Russians are thoroughly enthusiastic about the political chaos.It's getting a lot of coverage in the Russian media and so forth.But at the same time, they are quite realistic that this is more about the political froth.than the real essence of the war.And there, look, the Russians are very well aware that in some ways there's several wars going on at once.There's a ground war that is happening in which the Russians are grinding forward at terrible human cost, but nonetheless making advances.

And then there's an economic war that is taking place in both countries because of the long -range drone strikes.And there is a sense, frankly, that the Ukrainians have moved onto the offensive there.And regardless of who's the defence minister in Kiev, that's going to continue.So I think the Russians will gladly capitalise on any political turmoil but not expect it to really change anything much.

And when it comes to what Ukraine's doing, Crimea seems to be quite crucial here in terms of Ukraine hitting that peninsula, its importance to Putin.Can you just talk to me a bit about how that and what's going on there is really crucial?

Yes, I mean, I think Crimea matters politically as well as militarily.I mean, militarily, it's a useful base from which the Russians can launch air and missile and drone attacks into southern Ukraine.But in some ways, that is secondary, I would say, to its political importance.From the point of view of ordinary Russians, ordinary Russians are on the whole have never really been that enthused by this war.They've never been sitting there saying Russia is incomplete without the cities of Slavyansk or whatever.Crimea, though, matters.

Crimea is a place that pretty much every Russian, regardless of whether they're pro or anti -Putin, thinks is rightfully Russian.And therefore the thought that Ukrainian strikes really to break all the various road, rail, air and sea routes, allowing resupply of Crimea, so that in some ways holding Crimea becomes increasingly difficult, maybe even untenable, that poses a political challenge to Putin.If he loses Crimea, that would be a massive political blow.And it's the kind of thing that could conceivably tilt the balance within the elite and within society as how far they're willing to accept this war.So I think from his point of view, he regards this as existential.So he cannot allow that to happen.

And he'll have to escalate, in my opinion.

When you talk about that political reaction, is the emphasis there on the elites rather than the population because, I mean, the pressure on Putin won't come from, you know, people rising up or anything, will it?It will come from the circles and those around him?

Yes, I mean, I think, look...In some ways, I think that the best insight we had into the feelings of the elite, including the security elite, we had a couple of years back with the mutiny by the Wagner mercenary army.Now, it wasn't a mutiny aimed at toppling Putin, but rather at persuading Putin to sort of back against his main rival, the defence minister.But nonetheless, what was really striking is you had a couple of thousand soldiers marching up while driving up the motorway towards Moscow with huge amounts of security apparatus, troops and so forth along the line of march.They didn't join the mutiny, but in the main they didn't do anything to stop it either.So yes, that's where the real struggle for control of Russia comes.

But we shouldn't exclude the Russian people.If they start to show real resistance, for example to a new mobilisation wave, which could be a real flashpoint, the importance of that is that it makes the eliteto make a hard choice.Do you back Putin all the way, or do you decide that he's become too dangerous?So that's where the masses, the elite and Putin connect.

And when it comes to that mobilisation, I just want to talk about that.I mean, is the concern there that if that were to happen, the risk for Putin is less him having to go to cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg but more other smaller cities and towns where he gets more of his support?What's the concern for him there?

In some ways it will be a break of an implicit social contract.Essentially Putin's social contract with the Russian people has been up to now, look you may not like this form but just accept it and in return I will make sure that it won't really affect you, unless you're one of the people who volunteer, being offered huge sums of money to go and fight in this terrible campaign.However, with immobilisation, suddenly this is a war that reaches into potentially every single family in the Russian Federation.It's a breach of that social contract.It makes him have to make tough decisions about whether or not, in effect, he taxes of human lives.The areas which are more politically marginal, and yet where he's regarded more positively, or in the real heartlands of Moscow and St Petersburg.

And remember, he would be doing this in the lead up to elections, there are elections in September to the Parliament.And although sure, these are going to be fake elections, it's a fake democracy.But nonetheless, if you end up with a massive groundswell of anger in society, And then you try and tell people that three quarters of them have voted for Putin's party.That will look incredibly illegitimate.And, well, the last main protests we saw in Russia were again triggered by a sense that elections have been rigged.

If he won't risk that until after those elections, can places like Crimea hang on that long?

We really have no idea.This is why Crimea is such a wild card.Even the Ukrainians.Some of them are saying, oh, we imagine that Crimea will become untenable within the month.That may be rather too optimistic.Others say, well, it might just simply be that we can degrade it to a certain level, but no more.

It is the real gamble.

As someone who is an expert on Russia, who's been covering this war for the last couple of years, do you think you're any closer to understanding Putin and what he might do next.

I mean, I think the primary thing we have to realise is Putin is often driven by fear, fear of what he doesn't know, fear of the consequences.And I think there is that sense now that he is aware that he has dug himself into this war, that this war has not gone the way that he intended.And even in the short term, I think he's given up this hope that he can turn Ukraine into some kind of vassal state, but that he's dug himself into a position in which all of the Donbass, the whole of the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, has to be, quote -unquote, liberated.From his point of view, there is a question of he's balancing off a whole series of fearsome possibilities, that his troops just bogged down and can't advance any further.that he can't raise enough troops to continue fighting without an unpopular mobilisation, that the pressures of the war, possibly including a mobilisation, drive the country into some form of unrest or resistance.And this is why I fear that he might go for an escalation, particularly involving a mobilisation, because of the seduction of being told, look, It's going to be quick and nasty, but in effect we'll be ripping the bandage off in one quick go.

We mobilise, no one's going to like it, but we throw a few hundred thousand troops at this, we take the Donbass, and then you can quickly declare peace and make things go better.The idea that there's come some kind of quick and easy solution might become just a little bit too tempting for him.

Mark Galliati, thank you for talking to me.