"WSU Has Done Something That Has Never Happened In History."

• 24.02.2026, 17:00

A military expert summarized the results of four years of full-scale war.

Today is exactly four years from the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

What is the state of the Ukrainian Armed Forces as they approach this date? What can be said about the army of the occupiers?

About this, Charter97.org spoke to Ukrainian military and political observer of the group "Information Resistance" Alexander Kovalenko:

- The AFU was, is and will be smaller in number than the Russian army because of the ratio of territories. The Russian army was considered the second army in the world. They had one of the leading numbers of tanks, both operational and in storage, armored fighting vehicles, artillery, shells, strategic and tactical aircraft. No Western analyst could have imagined a long war between Ukraine and Russia. Four years later, where are the Russian tanks, armored combat vehicles, and shafts of fire barrel artillery? What happened to strategic aviation? They started out with breakthroughs with tank fists, mechanized columns, bombing of cities and strikes with a diverse range of missiles on Ukrainian territory. And now what? On the battlefield they are fighting "chmobiks". Not shelled, not trained, without experience - just a biomass that moves around on Bukhanky, Zhiguli, Niva, motorcycles, electric scooters, horses and donkeys. One could say that this is an anecdote, but it is not an anecdote, but verified truth, and now it is the fifth year of the war.

Analogously on the rear strikes. Russia has set itself the task in 2024, without getting quick results on the front, to terrorize the Ukrainians with strikes on the rear using missiles, bombs, and kamikaze drones. But, as we can see, they failed to break the Ukrainians.

In turn, swarms of kamikaze drones are also starting to arrive in Russia. Some Russian cities and even regions are plunged into blackout, like Belgorod, Bryansk, and Orel. Not only Ukrainian missiles are starting to hit Russian military-industrial complex enterprises. This is what Russia has come to at this stage. It is also interesting to compare the characteristics of how Russia started the war and how it continues it. In 2022 Russia captured more than 64 thousand square kilometers of Ukrainian territory. In turn for the last year, 2025, it was 4,300. And in 2024th about 3700-3800 square kilometers. At the same time, when the invasion began, Russia fought against Ukraine with a contingent of 180 thousand, and at the end of 2025 it is 715 thousand.

That is, the contingent has increased almost 4 times, but at the same time the rate of capture of territory collapsed in 17-18 times compared to 2023. Losses, on the other hand, have increased 4-fold. In 2022 Russia lost more than 93 thousand people, and in 2025 more than 410 thousand. That is, the losses have increased more than 4 times. Can these figures be called effective? No.

Russia has certainly degraded significantly over these 4 years. And the Ukrainian army is gaining experience in a war with such a serious enemy, with such a serious potential. We can see this even literally from the recent exercises, when the Ukrainian branch, in fact, defeated two NATO battalions. And it's good that it was only an exercise.

- What would you single out as the main successes of the AFU? The most daring operations?

- I can call this war a war when for the first time something was done that had never happened before in history. There were many such examples: from the tactical, situational, when the first helicopter was shot down with an anti-tank missile system.

And for the first time an ATGM was used to destroy a boat, and for the first time a Russian submarine was destroyed with an air-to-surface cruise missile. Then, of course, for the first time in 40 years of conflicts, the flagship of the fleet, the missile cruiser Moscow, was destroyed.

If we talk about something more global, then first of all, in 2022, the counteroffensive in northern Ukraine, the counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region and the counteroffensive in the Kherson region. These are three major military operations that had a significant impact on the further development of events. Then there is the operational and tactical level of operations, or the conduct of special operations on the territory of the Russian Federation itself. In particular - the elimination of war criminals.

The hunt for Russian generals who took part in the war against Ukraine and are war criminals. Ukraine has put simply on a stream of hunting and shooting of Russian officers, Russian generals and not only. Including scientists who take part in the development of this or that type of weapons and so on. This is, of course, the special operation "Spider's Web" on June 1, 2025, which is a unique historical event in general. No one has ever conducted such an operation in the world. It is unique both in terms of complexity and effectiveness. Dozens of Russian long-range strategic airplanes, which are part of the aviation wing of Russia's nuclear triad, were destroyed and damaged. In fact, this has completely disarmed Russia in the use of this component. It now has a minimum number of capable aircraft of this type, which, of course, critically affects its combat effectiveness, defense capability, and ability to terrorize Ukraine with Ha-101 missile strikes.

This is an operation to completely squeeze Russia out of the Black Sea. As of today, Ukraine has dominant control of the Black Sea. Ukrainian naval drones have actually completely destroyed the combat-ready part of the Russian fleet and forced Russia to flee Sevastopol for Novorossiysk. Now in Novorossiysk, the maximum Russia can count on is quick withdrawals of ships to sea to launch "calibers" at Ukraine and immediately back into the bay. But also, as we could see, the bays do not save them, because recently even in the bay of Novorossiysk the submarine "Varshavyanka" was hit by a Ukrainian drone. So we can get there too.

Now, of course, it is in 2022 that the Kerch Bridge operation is worth mentioning. Of course, we would like to see its extravagant repetition, but so far it has not happened. Nevertheless, in 2022 it was certainly a crushing reputational blow to Russia, for whom the Kerch Bridge is a symbol of its occupation of Crimea.