There's A Tipping Point Ahead
- 30.01.2026, 10:17
A very interesting trend has emerged in Russian losses.
Interesting analytics from the Center for Initiatives "Come Back Alive": the share of finally eliminated warriors in the structure of the Russian army personnel losses has grown and amounts to 56%.
This is not just a statistic. The ratio of killed to wounded has always been a key indicator of an army's viability. In classical warfare, there are many times more wounded than dead. In World War II, the conventional ratio was one to three. In the American campaign in Afghanistan, it was one to ten. Until recently, it was believed that in modern warfare, with its medicine, evacuation and logistics, the wounded must survive.
But the Russian army does not fight according to the laws of modernity. It fights according to the laws of utilization. As of the end of 2025, the ratio of Russian losses looks almost absurd: about 12 killed per 10 wounded. More than half of the losses are irrecoverable. This means only one thing: the enemy's human resource is being wiped out at an unprecedented rate. To simply keep numbers on the battle line, Russia needs to drive more than 35,000 new creatures to the front every month. This is getting harder every month.
The reasons are obvious. First, there's the drone war. Targeted hits leave almost no chance. Second, our enemy's systemic and fundamental lack of evacuation: a wounded soldier is not a person but statistical noise for the Russian command. Third, the abandonment of massive mechanized assaults has led to the fact that small infantry groups remain virtually naked on the battlefield. Finally, and most importantly, there has been a general increase in the effectiveness of the Ukrainian Defense Forces.
This effectiveness is unstoppable. The planned goal announced by Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov - to bring enemy personnel losses to 50,000 per month - no longer looks like an abstraction. In the second half of 2025 alone, the number of defeats inflicted by the Unmanned Systems Forces increased by 270% (incidentally, today more than a third of all targets hit are the result of the work of UAS).
With this background, the source of replenishment of "cannon fodder" in the swamps is rapidly shoaling. The Kremlin's main bet is contract workers from marginalized segments of the population. But even the Russian media are forced to admit that in 2025 there were a quarter fewer recruits than in 2024, and their "quality" is a matter of frank complaint to recruiters.
Russia's serious, almost critical problems with the recruitment of contract soldiers were known as early as last fall. In October, analysts at the Institute for the Study of War stated that even record lump-sum payments had ceased to work as an incentive. Representatives of Russian recruiting offices admitted bluntly: the number of those willing to join the army is not growing because "everyone who wanted to earn money in the war has already left."
The new so-called "volunteers" are mostly elderly people with chronic illnesses, and financial issues remain the only motivation, they said. Thus, the current staffing difficulties of the Russian army are not a sudden glitch, but a long-term trend. Does the enemy have a chance to reverse this trend? For example, by increasing payments for mercenaries?
There is another factor that comes into play here: money. Or rather, the lack of it. Budget deficits at all levels in Russia are growing. The flow of oil and gas revenues is shrinking. The share of revenues from oil and gas exports in the Russian budget has fallen to a two-decade low.
So the enemy has a simple choice: either to reduce the intensity of the war, or to find new ways of mass utilization of its own population. The war of attrition that Russia has imposed on Ukraine is increasingly becoming a trap for Russia itself.
Ahead is a turning point. The first option: the path to a just peace. The second option: Russia chooses a crooked road to self-destruction, which will lie through military humiliation, social explosions, economic crises and man-made disasters. History does not throw up a third scenario. Glory to Ukraine!
Yury Fedorenko, Facebook