Putin's Losing Bet: 700,000 Casualties for 6,000 Square Kilometers—And It's About to Get Worse

Why Putin's GOP Allies Are Losing the Influence War

Between January 1 and August 30, 2025, the Russian military suffered 297,000 casualties—killed and wounded—in its ongoing campaign in Ukraine.

2024 (January–December): Territory gained: 3,199 km². Casualties: 425,920
2025 (January–August): Territory gained: 3,015 km². Casualties: 297,060

The casualty rate per square kilometer dropped from 133 in 2024 to just under 100 in 2025—a decline largely attributed to Russia's shift away from the relentless human wave attacks that characterized much of the previous year.

During the final quarter of 2024 and opening weeks of 2025, Russian forces continued their pattern of costly frontal assaults, driving casualty rates to unsustainable levels. Since then, Moscow has adopted a more measured approach, maintaining daily losses between 800 and 1,200 personnel.

Yet despite this improved efficiency metrics, Russia's strategic goals for 2025 remain unfulfilled. Three primary objectives set at the year's outset—the capture of Pokrovsk, the coal mining hub of Toretsk, and the strategic city of Kupiansk—all remain beyond Moscow's grasp. While Russian forces have advanced toward each target, eight months of operations have failed to deliver decisive victories in any of these critical locations.

The only gain for Russia came through capturing settlements near the lithium mines around Shevshenko—a strategic victory that now gives Moscow control over these valuable mineral resources. Ukraine needs to clear them out of this section. It will be a difficult battle, and Ukraine is probably thinking way too deep into the future, but it is still worth the effort to keep the Russian ground forces in this section under pressure.

Russia's winter and summer offensives have ultimately failed to achieve any of their stated objectives. While the Kremlin may deploy its state media to justify sacrificing over 700,000 troops to gain 6,000 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory across two years, this stark arithmetic sends a clear message to Ukraine: their enemy is losing.

Beyond the brutal casualty-to-territory ratio lies an even more telling strategic reality. Last year, Putin massed slightly under 500,000 troops for his campaign. This year, he began with 630,000—a 26% increase in available forces. Despite this numerical advantage, Moscow ordered its commanders to keep daily casualty rates below recruitment levels, yet Russian forces still failed to achieve meaningful territorial gains. More critically, Ukraine remains far from reaching its full military potential in 2025.

The imminent arrival of F-16s and Extended Range Attack Munitions (ERAMs) next month will fundamentally alter battlefield dynamics. When Ukraine can deliver precision ERAM strikes into Russian positions every few hours throughout the day, the tactical equation shifts dramatically.

Consider the Ukrainian offensive operations against Russian positions on Pokrovsk's right flank. Ground forces apply pressure from both north and south of the Russian right flank in Pokrovsk, while ERAMs can strike these same positions with pinpoint accuracy from 450 kilometers away.

This range allows F-16s to operate safely deep within Ukrainian-controlled territory, protected by multiple layers of ground-based air defense systems that create an increasingly hostile environment for Russian missile attacks attempting to reach the F-16 operational zones.

Russia will undoubtedly attempt to target both the F-16s and their operating airfields. However, Ukraine has developed innovative countermeasures against such threats. Since receiving its first F-16s in August 2024, Ukraine has lost only three aircraft—all destroyed during active combat missions rather than while stationed at their airbases. This stands in stark contrast to Russian losses, where fighter jets are frequently destroyed on the ground at their home airfields, highlighting Ukraine's unusual tactics.

This survival record isn't accidental—it reflects a revolutionary approach to air operations that Ukraine has pioneered out of necessity. Since receiving F-16s, Ukraine has deployed innovative truck-mounted mobile complexes that completely reimagine how fighter jets operate. These systems, developed by the organization Come Back Alive, replace traditional fixed-base functions with mobile command posts for mission planning, pilot briefings, and weapons preparation.

Mobile command posts for F16s: Link

Ukraine is using two new truck-mounted complexes to support its US-made F-16 fighter jets with mission planning, maintenance, and munitions, replacing functions typically confined to fixed bases. One complex includes a command post and workstations for mission planning and briefings, while another provides a workshop for testing and prepping weapons.

This mobility strategy addresses a critical vulnerability: Ukrainian airfields remain "one of the enemy's priority targets," making it dangerous to operate from fixed air bases. Ukraine also never had time to build the extensive support infrastructure F-16s traditionally require, making flexible solutions essential for survival.

Military aviation specialist Tim Robinson calls this approach "very innovative" and potentially "critical" to helping Ukraine's few F-16s survive, noting that "you actually need to keep F-16s on the move, shift these vehicles around, and allow them to keep operating in these conditions where Russia is looking for them."

There is something Ukraine could execute if European allies can coordinate this quietly—no need for public announcements. Ukraine could establish small airstrips along its borders with Poland and Romania, positioned just one or two miles inside Ukrainian territory. F-16s would take off from strips near the Polish border, complete their bombing runs, and return to strips closer to the Romanian frontier.

The key innovation would be cross-border air defense coordination: Poland and Romania position their Patriot systems and short-range air defense units just inside their own borders, engaging Russian missiles the moment they enter their operational view. To maintain plausible deniability, a few dummy Patriot launchers could be positioned on Ukrainian soil—allowing officials to claim any successful intercepts came from Ukraine's own air defense batteries.

This arrangement would create overlapping defensive umbrellas protecting the mobile F-16 operations while technically respecting NATO's rules of engagement. Russian missiles targeting the border airstrips would face immediate interception from well-positioned, battle-tested Patriot systems, dramatically improving F-16 survivability during their most vulnerable takeoff and landing phases.

Ukraine would deploy its own air defense systems to protect F-16 operational zones from the front, while allied systems provide overlapping coverage from the rear. This creates multiple defensive layers that Russian forces would struggle to penetrate simultaneously.

Too much water has flowed under the bridge. It's time Europe begins taking this enemy seriously and employs everything in the book, outside the book, and nowhere near the book to defeat Russian imperialism. The conventional rulebook that governed European security for decades has proven inadequate against an adversary that operates without constraints—matching that reality requires creative solutions that push boundaries while maintaining strategic ambiguity.

A significant number of my readers have expressed skepticism about the ERAM supply commitment to Ukraine. The scale is indeed striking—3,350 missiles now scheduled for delivery. I understand the doubt, given that this represents everything the bro gang bent on dismantling American democracy opposes. Given a choice, they would gladly halt this initiative entirely.

But here's the obstacle they're confronting: you may have noticed that nearly all of Rupert Murdoch's publications have turned resolutely against Putin. They're playing it strategically, too. Rather than the traditional "Ukraine is vulnerable and needs our help" narrative, they're pushing "Putin is dangerous and must be stopped." They're also promoting the angle that Putin is manipulating Trump, and therefore a strong Trump presidency will ultimately hurt Putin severely.

This shift reflects the U.S. defense industrial complex asserting its influence. While the bro gang represents billionaires supporting certain GOP factions, there are equally wealthy billionaires backing the defense establishment within the same party. Compared to the bro gang, the relationships of billionaires connected to the defense industrial complex run deeper and span decades.

Countless GOP senators and congressmen will drop everything when these defense-linked donors call.

These represent formidable Republican supporters with institutional power. Trump finds himself caught between these two influential camps—which likely explains why he refuses to completely abandon Putin while simultaneously making gestures to support allies. He's navigating between incompatible power bases within his own coalition.

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