Is Russia losing the war?
Is Russia losing the war?
Major media such as The Financial Times and Le Figaro have in recent days provided extensive coverage on the status of the Russia-Ukraine war, presenting strong arguments for our reconsidering who in fact is winning and who is losing.
As these media point out with reference to Ukrainian monitors reporting gains and losses of territory, the Russian spring offensive this year has produced dismal results, capturing in May something like 130 square kilometers of Ukrainian held Donbas, whereas a year earlier the Russian advance was 10 times greater. The explanation they offer is the progressively more impactful and destructive Ukrainian drones which are raining down on the battlefield and make large troop formations impossible.
I note that the Russian state news remains entirely silent on these reports. They are not challenged, meaning they are likely correct.
I offer a possible alternative explanation of the paltry territorial conquest this May: since last October, the Russian armed forces have concentrated not on advances in open fields but on capturing the major defensive city of Konstantinovka, which is the path through which they must pass to take the last fortified towns in Donetsk, Kramatorsk and Slavyansk. The fighting is still intense for capture of one or another district in Konstantinovka and it is surely costly in men on both sides.
Meanwhile, the latest reports in the FT make the point that I had been making in past weeks, namely that the drone warfare is a great leveler. A force of 10,000 to 20,000 drone operators is all that Ukraine needs to hold its own against the half million Russian soldiers deployed in the Special Military Operation. The fact that Ukraine has lost millions of soldiers to death, severe injury and desertion now counts for nothing.
Where Western propaganda comes in is to be found elsewhere in their reporting. They are alleging that the vast numbers of more effective and farther-reaching Ukrainian drones in operation today are the result of the clever work of Ukrainian designers and manufacturers, who stay several steps ahead of the Russians in this domain. To be sure, there is no publicly available information to deal with this question either way. The fog of war, meaning close military censorship, deprives us of any reliable information. However, I will wager that the breakthrough in the Ukrainian cause on the ground is being provided by the United Kingdom and other NATO countries shipping their latest drones to Ukraine in quantity.
This presents the Russian leadership with a stark question: is it prepared to use its unstoppable hypersonic missiles to destroy the drone factories in England, France, Denmark, Sweden, etc? I maintain that the risk of escalation to all-out Russia-NATO war resulting from such attacks would be nil. Europe is utterly unprepared to go into full scale direct war with Russia today. It is not clear that it will be ready in two or three years. There is, consequently, a window of opportunity for Russia to take charge and change the security landscape in Europe here and now while also bombing and destroying the Zelensky junta in Kiev.
Will President Putin rise from his timid, now self-destructive strategy of non-response to the growing threats to Russian national security? Or will he be overthrown in a palace coup? These are the key questions of the day
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026
Postscript, 24 June: Today the Russian website of news and commentary Свободная Пресса (Free Press) has published a Russian translation of the foregoing article in entirety.
https://svpressa.ru/war21/article/520940/?ysclid=mqs5cebuk636131378
The publisher’s introduction reads as follows:
“In his article posted on the portal Substack, the well-known political analyst and authoritative Russianist in the West (doctoral degree in Russian history from Columbia University) Gilbert Doctorow reviews the situation that has emerged at the present moment in the Ukraine-Russia conflict - and draws conclusions that are not comforting for us.’’
Russia is still 'winning'. For example, Konstantinovka is about to be taken. But, there is a real question on whether it is going to 'win' (unless winning means surrendering to the West).
As soon as people began to talk about a 'war of attrition', I questioned whether you really want to do that, when your enemy is 1 billion people. People love to mock the weakness of NATO, and maybe they are right. On the other hand, if you give them enough time, meaning years, things may not go well for you in the end.
One might say, well the drones have changed everything, and nobody could have predicted that. But, there are a LOT of smart Scientists and Engineers in the West, and you are also fighting them and that could be predicted. Give them long enough, and again you might not like the outcome.
Whether Russia could have or could, win the war in days (without using nukes) is questionable, I think. It's very trendy to say 'hypersonic' with every other sentence. Iskander is also 'hypersonic' and cannot be stopped. The Oreshnik is a unique type of weapon, but those who think it is comparable to a nuclear weapon, are very much mistaken. You can calculate the energy delivered by an Oreshnik, in terms of kinetic energy, and high explosives, and it is a small fraction of even the smallest nuclear warhead.
However, we cannot know, ... unless Russia actually tries. A favorite example of course, are the Dnieper bridges. There was a Russian guy (forgot his name), who had a website called 'Anti-Empire', which was very good. He was asking why the Dnieper bridges were not being attacked ... in March/April of 2022! Incidentally, he also stated absolutely that Russia was about to invade Ukraine, based on satellite images of troop/equipment concentrations on the border.
Another guy, with only a nickname ... 'Slavlander' who publishes the Slavland Chronicles, which you might check out, was claiming very early on, that Putin intended to surrender. I thought that was ridiculous, but am no longer so sure. At the beginning he hoped the goal of the war would be to 'unite the Eastern Slavs' ... but that was not to be. He is a something of a religious philosopher as well, with a lot of complicated ideas along those lines.
Since I am listing websites I look at, or did in the past, there is also 'Events in Ukraine', with a ton of detailed inside political analysis, as well as military and technical stuff. Once you get inside the personalities and inner machinations, you realize politics in Russia and Ukraine are no simpler than they are in the US, etc.
I find these guys a lot more useful than listening to Ritter, Macgregor, McGovern, Johnson et. al.
Another major problem for Russia is the Central Bank Governor, Nabiullina. Since 2022 I have made comments that her policies are insane. She has this simplistic refrain that high interest rates, and I am talking about interest rates over 20%, is the only way to 'fight inflation' and support the value of the ruble against the dollar, ignoring all the other reasons for price rises (sanctions??).
She is crippling the Russian economy. Slowly the rates have been lowered recently to 14.5%. But, there is a loud consensus that her policies are destructive. Putin basically ordered lower rates a week ago. Her response was to lower the rate by 0.25% to 14.25% !! She is spitting in his face, and telling the Russian President that she is in charge. She also opposes increases in spending to fight the war and has done what she can to limit Russia's support for Iran. In a word, she is on the side of capitulation to the US, along with Ushakov, Siluanov, and Medvedev. Putin continues to support her.