Putin's Terrible Mistake

• 19.08.2026, 8:24

What the aggressor country has lost—and what can never be restored.

For decades, Russia has led the entire world (including its own population) to believe that, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is not only the legitimate successor but has also inherited the status of a great superpower. A great maritime power, a great space power, a great resource empire with the strongest army in the world... But the war with Ukraine has not only undermined these claims but completely nullified them. Moreover, we are witnessing yet another stage of this process right now, writes OBOZ.UA.

A Blow to Space Ambitions

On the night of August 15, a strike by Ukrainian “Flamingo” missiles destroyed destroyed buildings 106A and 106B of the “Progress” enterprise, where the final assembly of the “Soyuz” family of launch vehicles takes place under highly sterile conditions. To date, these are the primary launch vehicles that Russia continues to use to carry out reliable space missions.

Depending on the extent of the damage to the buildings that were hit, it will become clear whether Russian spaceflights are a thing of the past or whether there is still hope for resuming final-stage assembly. For now.

Russia has always positioned itself as a space superpower, but in recent years it has barely managed to carry out just over two dozen launch vehicle launches per year. For example, in 2025, Russia launched only 17—the same number as New Zealand—while the United States launched 176 and China launched 92.

In total, from 2020 to 2025, the U.S. launched 583 launch vehicles, China launched 385, and Russia launched 115. And the overwhelming majority of Russian launches were carried out using Soyuz-2.1a and Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicles.

In other words, the war with Ukraine has led to a situation where Russia may not only lose its status as a space power but also, overall, find itself dependent on other countries’ launch vehicles for the development of its own space programs. But, frankly speaking, this is not the first time that Russia has lost one “superpower” status or another due to the war with Ukraine.

No Longer the Second-Largest Army in the World

For many years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian army was called the second-largest in the world, and this was only partially justified. The basis for this status was one of the world’s largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons and the inherited armored vehicles, numbering in the tens of thousands.

At the time of the Soviet Union’s collapse and in the decades that followed, Russia exploited this quantitative superiority in a situation where a potential adversary did not understand how to stop—let alone defeat—this military machine. But the war in Ukraine solved this problem by making the process of destroying Soviet/Russian equipment as simple and inexpensive as possible, rendering the use of armored vehicles on the battlefield unprofitable and pointless for the Russian Armed Forces.

As a result, the Russian Armed Forces’ total losses since 2022 of all types of equipment—ranging from tanks to aircraft and ships—have exceeded 230,000 units! These are the enemy’s most extensive and severe equipment losses to date, which have virtually emptied their warehouses and storage facilities and created a shortage of standard-issue equipment within their forces.

In turn, the level of professionalism and training among Russian military personnel, as well as their consistent tactic of relying on numerical superiority to win battles, has already become a byword.

The war in Ukraine has completely shattered the decades-old myth of an invincible and powerful Russian army.

No Longer the “Mistress of the Seas”

Russia has long held the status of a maritime superpower, dominating the seas and oceans. And although shipbuilding in the Russian Federation lagged significantly behind—and even faltered—after the collapse of the USSR compared to Soviet production scales and the quality of its products, few dared not only to challenge this status but even to cast doubt on it.

The war with Ukraine, however, led to a country without a fleet—or even a flotilla—completely destroying the Russian Black Sea Fleet. And now, with its status reduced to that of a flotilla, it is being finished off in Novorossiysk, where the last ships were shamefully withdrawn from Sevastopol.

Furthermore, Russia has not only lost control of the Black Sea, suffering total losses of more than 35 ships, but has also been unable to do anything about the blockade of the Sea of Azov, cannot avoid attacks on the Caspian Flotilla, and is also suffering attacks in the Baltic Sea.

In other words, Ukraine has not only destroyed the Russian Black Sea Fleet but is also expanding the scope of its strikes against the Russian Navy in other waters.

This demonstrates Russia’s vulnerability and helplessness, completely stripping it of its fabricated status as a maritime superpower and “mistress of the seas.”

No Longer a Gas Station

On March 16, 2014, U.S. Senator John McCain referred to Russia as a “gas station country” during an interview with CNN. For many years, this comparison became a byword, vividly describing Russia’s role in the world order. However, the war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine has led to the Russian Federation beginning to lose this status starting in 2025—due to regular strikes by the Ukrainian Defense Forces on oil refineries and the resulting fuel crisis in Russia.

As of today, the total loss of functionality at Russian refineries already exceeds 50%!

Exports of petroleum products by sea plummeted in July by 33.3% compared to the previous month and by 54.7% compared to the same month in 2025. By port route, the decline was as follows: 85.4% for Arctic routes, 49% for routes through the Black Sea, and 16% for Baltic and Far Eastern ports.

In addition, the volume of domestic oil refining in Russia fell to 3.6–3.9 million barrels per day, while actual oil production plummeted to 8.89 million barrels per day.

Could John McCain have imagined that a war with Ukraine would lead Russia to a severe fuel shortage, the shutdown of a number of refineries, a drop in exports, and the start of gasoline imports from other countries—in particular, India, Kazakhstan, China, and even Belarus!

As a result of the war, Russia has lost even the status that was considered secured for it, if not for centuries, then at least for decades. But the situation has changed dramatically in a matter of years and even months. And this is despite the fact that Ukraine has no intention of reducing the intensity of its strikes on oil refineries; on the contrary, it will only escalate them. This is especially true given the steady but systematic increase in the range of strike drones.

Conclusions

The war with Ukraine has become a mistake for Russia not only because it is a protracted conflict with heavy losses of personnel and equipment, but also because this war is eroding Russia’s inflated status.

Russia has lost its status as the country with the second-largest army in the world. It has lost its status as a maritime superpower. We are witnessing it lose even its derisive status as a “gas station.” Before our very eyes, it is losing its status as a space power as well.

But most importantly—Russia will never be able to restore these statuses, since it no longer possesses the technical and technological capabilities to do so in the face of the destruction and losses that have already been inflicted and will continue to be inflicted.