Historical Event

• Kirill Rogov
• 26.05.2026, 8:06

Russia and Putin missed their last chance.

Vladimir Putin and Putin's Russia seem to have missed the chance to win the war of attrition with Ukraine. And this can be considered quite a historic event, which was hard to imagine not long ago, which has yet to be comprehended, and whose consequences Russia has yet to get used to and adapt to.

The ability to mobilize a huge resource of manpower with a low threshold of sensitivity to losses was the core of Russia's offensive strategy, based largely on the experience and mythology of victory in World War II. Today, the point is that Ukraine's "wall of drones" will be able to crush almost any number of enemy troops.

In such a situation, even another "partial" mobilization is unlikely to provide a break in hostilities. Its resource will be ground up in a few months, but will not lead to a victory that could somehow justify this expenditure. This is what determines the extremely high risks of a new mobilization for Putin's regime. The result for Russia may be more like the outcome of World War I than World War II.

The end of the "war of attrition"

When Vladimir Putin moved a 120,000-strong army and tank columns bearing the letters Z and V into Kiev on February 24, 2022, it was assumed that - except in isolated pockets - Ukraine and the Ukrainian military would not, for the most part, actively resist the invasion because it was futile. It seemed obvious that none of Russia's neighbors - including Ukraine - had the ability to resist the resource power of the "Russian bear," which also feeds on hydrocarbons from its vast taiga. And it is only a matter of Moscow's political will whether Russian tanks will reach Kiev, Lvov or the Polish border.

The flip side of this conviction was the Russian army's defeat at Kiev, when its "psychic attack" faltered. This, however, was seen as a tactical miscalculation and did not shake the overall strategic vision. The prevailing perception in both Moscow and the West was that the new scenario of military conflict was a war of attrition and that even a limited mobilization of resources on Russia's side would make its advance and military victory inevitable, albeit not so rapid and triumphant.

This view remained unshaken until 2025, when Donald Trump, having deprived Ukraine of most American aid, made it the central argument of his negotiating strategy: "Ukraine is losing people and territory, but is unable to turn the tide of the war, and therefore Kiev has no choice but to make concessions to Moscow," he implored Vladimir Zelensky, drawing essentially on the established consensus of "military realism.

But fears about the collapse of the Ukrainian front as a result of a shortage of manpower and the inevitable breakthrough of Russian troops as a result of its accumulation, which were highly relevant back in early 2025, now seem to be a thing of the past. Already during 2025, the war of attrition began to look at least a bilateral challenge. Russia had to deploy significantly more economic and human resources on the offensive than the defending Ukraine, but without achieving a meaningful result. The economic optimism fueled by state investment was fading fast, and the budget problem was growing. And the rapid development of the drone component of warfare was changing the very notion of critical resources for military success.

In the first half of 2026, the situation took another step forward. Ukrainian drone attacks are now hitting economic and military infrastructure in nearly most of Russian territory, causing significant moral and economic damage. But even more importantly, it is now getting to the point where Ukraine's "wall of drones" will be capable of grinding down almost any number of enemy troops.

It is the latter that looks like a turning point in the course of both this war and - in a sense - Russian history as a whole. The ability to mobilize a huge resource of manpower with a low threshold of sensitivity to casualties was the core of Russia's offensive strategy, based largely on the experience and mythology of victory in World War II. Russian tank armies, accompanied by untold and unsparing infantry, were the main instrument and proof of Soviet and Russian military might. Tanks have been out of business for a long time, but the advantage in manpower was still the main stake of Russian offensives in Donbass in 2024-2025. However, their results have shown: facing a "wall of drones," a manpower advantage is no longer a critical resource for the success of an offensive operation.

World War II or World War I?"

The model of commercial contract recruitment that has fueled Russia's doctrine of war of attrition for three years appears to be in crisis (→ Re: Russia: The contract is broken). But this crisis is probably more systemic than meets the eye. It's not that there are fewer people willing to sign the contract, but that even if there were more, it probably wouldn't help either. Russia's very doctrine of war of attrition is in crisis. And even if Putin were to announce another "partial" mobilization and recruit 200,000 men again, it would probably move the front line somewhat, but probably not lead to a turning point in the war or a major change in the balance of power. The intensity of Russian casualties could rise from today's 30,000 per month to 45,000-50,000. The resource employed would be ground up by the drone curtain within months, and Putin would simply send another 200,000 Russians to their deaths, but not achieve a victory that could be justified in any way.

The likelihood of such an outcome increases the Kremlin's risks in its decision to mobilize. In a situation where discontent with the war in Russia is visibly growing and threatens to become almost universal, throwing into the furnace of the offensive not those who agreed to it voluntarily, for monetary reward, as it was in the past three years, but those who were forcibly mobilized, and in the end failing to succeed, is a very big risk.

The public reaction to the announcement of mobilization may turn out to be completely different from the last time. In the fall of 2022, the Russian authorities succeeded in creating a feeling among at least some Russians that "the fatherland is in danger." After three years of reports that "the special operation is progressing as planned," this is unlikely to be repeated. But the main difference is that last time, the Russian common man did not yet have the understanding that the entire tactic of the military command consists of meat assaults and piling the enemy's firepower with the corpses of their own recruits, and that the average command staff is a layer of racketeers and ruthless robbers of their own soldiers. Today, this perception is quite widespread.

In such circumstances, the new mobilization for the sake of another offensive attempt in the Donbass may become a replica of the Russian army's Brusilov breakthrough in the summer of 1916. The breakthrough strategy similarly relied on superiority in manpower (one and a half to two times) to launch a simultaneous offensive in several directions at once. However, after the initial success, the operation faltered and did not lead to a turning point in the course of the war. According to many historians, the failure of the operation against the background of colossal losses (at least half a million killed and wounded) undermined the legitimacy of the tsarist regime and started the process of disintegration of the Russian military machine, which ended with the Revolution and the Civil War. The victory myth of the Second World War, which feeds the Kremlin's propaganda discourse, may turn out to be a repetition of the history of its defeat in the First, caused not by intervention but by internal breakdown and a crisis of legitimacy.

The consequences of Russia's failure to realize its advantage in manpower as a resource for victory in a war of attrition in the face of a drone army will not be limited to the conflict with Ukraine. It may be the beginning of a new era in the history of Russia and its relations with its neighbors. The image of the "Russian bear" and the notion of its unchallenged military advantage in conventional warfare are a thing of the past. Containment of Moscow's expansionism is becoming a matter of a renewable resource of drone troops rather than an irreplaceable resource of manpower. And Russian militarism will no longer be able to feed on the myth of the inevitability of Russian victory with "little blood," used as a threat in foreign relations and as confirmation of "great power" status in domestic politics.

Kirill Rogov, re-russia.net