Defensive forces suffer less casualties, and they have better access to emergency medical care that assault troops.
Ukrainian FPV and night bomber crews are very effective against Russian assault troops since they have to break cover to assault, and that is deadly in a drone patrolled battle field.
Russian KIA numbers far exceed Ukrainian KIA numbers along the front lines.
They make artillery far more effective as well as the BDA more accurate.
“As of early 2026, Russia is estimated to fire approximately 300,000 to 400,000 artillery shells per month (roughly 10,000–13,000+ daily), maintaining a significant advantage. Ukraine, restricted by ammunition shortages and logistical constraints, fires significantly fewer, generally ranging from 60,000 to 150,000+ per month (2,000–5,000+ daily), with rates heavily dependent on Western aid.”
They also help with targeting for attack aviation, missile strikes, MLRS, etc: https://liveuamap.com/
No worries, not long after it's finished, we'll make some movies where we win in some imaginary way as with Rambo. Only now, a puffy lipped American woman of 115 lbs. will save the day. Will she be black or Latino?
The Russians are doing a slow creep EXACTLY BECAUSE they are casualty averse.
Besides, they have achieved their political and military objectives:
Political: block NATO accession by Ukraine.
Military: seize the more ethnic Russian areas of eastern Ukraine.
Never was it their goal to take all of Ukraine. That’s a goal post we pulled from our @ss.
Taking all of Ukraine would be a long term nightmare as Russia will have to expend vast resources in military, Intel, security forces, money over many years (probably decades) to truly gain control. No different than us in Iraq or Afghanistan where we never truly did gain complete control.
All Russia is doing now is “keeping the pressure on.” Their military campaign now serves the political end as a deal is made (having the upper hand) and to prevent Ukraine from amassing a reserve with which they can launch a true counter offensive as in late 2023. Force Ukraine to deploy their forces, keep creeping forward little by little. The longer the war rages on, the bigger of a loser Ukraine will be.
You have over 800 miles which comprises the forward edge of battle (FEBA). Ukraine cannot cover this area effectively. At this point, to keep the pressure on, Russia merely needs to continuously asses where there is a weaker area they can creep forward and push, without falling into a trap.
As to drone warfare, that goes both ways:
Russia is employing as many as 10,00 drones per day. https://www.hudson.org/missile-defense/impact-drones-battlefield-lessons-russian-ukraine-war-french-perspective-tsiporah-fried#:~:text=Other%20drone%20variants%20have%20also,A%20Tactical%20Warfare%20Revolution
Ukraine is employing about 9,000 drones per day. https://medium.com/@hayekesteloo/ukraine-deploys-9-000-drones-daily-in-staggering-scale-of-modern-warfare-cd37afbd0758
The disparity when it comes to tube artillery, MLRS, attack aviation, longer range missiles, and conventional air dropped bombs is far greater than the drone use, and to Russia’s advantage in every aspect. But sure, Russia is suffering massive casualties and Ukraine isn’t. LOL
Russia is doing few massive attacks except in key areas from what I see (key terrain), just a constant push mostly that’s moving and eating like an ameba (where most of the 176 square miles of gained territory per month comes from). As Russia pushes, Ukraine is forced to reallocate troops and other resources, and that creates new weak spots (they can’t effectively cover 800 miles of frontage). Because this is all about smaller units and no huge formations, you don’t have the IMINT and SIGINT giving you a heads up of force concentrations about to conduct major operation.
You know the beautiful thing about so called casualty statistics?
I can make any claim I want.
These are essentially “make belief” figures.
Real figures surely do exist. They matter and influence what we do. But these figures are not being made available to the public for a very obvious reason.
You have to find sources you give some credibility; not just make you feel good.
And even then, realize that there are differences in definitions (when an MIA counted, what constitutes a WIA...), dates of when the figures were presented, or what all these casualties include and exclude: KIA, MIA, WIA, POW.
The only source I truly give any degree of credibility is long expired in its usefulness:
https://www.newsweek.com/2023/05/05/read-leaked-secret-intelligence-documents-ukraine-vladimir-putin-1794656.html
What this document really should tell you, is that our news media is trash. At the time this article ran, presenting the true figures our government and NATO were using to make their internal assessments with, our media was reporting Russian casualties being 2 - 3 TIMES greater than they actually were.
The Russians did have a bad start, even though they achieved their military and political objectives. They paid a high price. However, since then, Ukraine launched a casualty intense counter offensive and Russia has adapted their tactics as well as field new equipment which has greatly reduced the effectiveness of some of our cool toys. Most importantly, having achieved their military and political objectives, the Russians do not need to make bold moves on a map. They just need to keep pushing slowly but consistently. In fact, the slow creep is to avoid casualties, and our propaganda spin of this is that Russia isn’t taking much ground quickly. The propaganda spin is that Russia is gaining a little bit every month.
Some Western media is just now understanding what is going on and reporting about it: https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20260224-how-russia-thousand-cuts-tactic-is-straining-ukraine-frontline-forces I attempted to explain this about a year ago (the slow creep), see my old posts. BTW, France is not pro-Russian nor is that media outlet.
Use your brain. If Russian casualties were truly 2 million men like some of our media report at this point, Russia would not be able to conduct this campaign overwhelmingly with contracted soldiers (this would not be possible)... We’re just throwing around ever bigger numbers, but they are trash.
https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF12606#:~:text=Contract%20recruits%20earn%20high%20salaries,reported%20initial%20goal%20of%20403%2C000. I do not think this assessment to be a lie regards the use of contract soldiers by Russia. The Russian media has also covered this in detail since they have some policies or laws that restrict how they may use conscripts (I don’t know all the details about this). That said, look at how we phrase our bullshit Russian casualties “Some Western and Ukrainian officials estimate” LOL.
If you want to use casualty statistics as the public has available to them from our MSM, you may as well use the movie Rambo as your go to source of how the Vietnam war went.