A source familiar with a declassified US intelligence assessment given to Congress said that Russia has lost an amazing 87% of the active-duty ground troops it had before it invaded Ukraine, as well as two-thirds of its tanks from before the attack.
Even though a lot of people and things have been lost, Russian President Vladimir Putin is still determined to move forward. The war will have been going on for two years early next year, and US officials are saying that Ukraine is still very vulnerable. The much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive didn’t move forward in the fall, and US officials don’t think that Kyiv will make any big wins in the next few months.
The report was sent to Capitol Hill on Monday. It comes at a time when some Republicans don’t want the US to give Ukraine more money, and the Biden administration is pushing hard to get more money through Congress.
On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is in Washington, DC, meeting with US politicians and President Joe Biden in a last-ditch effort to get the military and economic help he says Ukraine needs to keep fighting Russia.
Russia has been able to keep up its war effort despite heavy losses by lowering the standards for joining and using old equipment that was stored there during the Soviet era. The report did say, though, that the war has “sharply set back 15 years of Russian effort to modernize its ground force.”
The assessment says that of the 360,000 troops that Russia sent into Ukraine, both contract and regular soldiers, 315,000 were killed on the ground. The estimate says that 2,200 of the 3,500 tanks have been lost. A loss rate of 32% means that 4,400 out of 13,600 infantry battle vehicles and armored personnel carriers have been destroyed.
“As of late November, Russia had lost more than a quarter of the ground forces equipment it had stored before the invasion,” the assessment says. Russian offensive operations haven’t made big progress in Ukraine since early 2022 because of this. They are simpler and smaller than they used to be.
CNN has called the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., to get their story.
However, the political situation in Washington may be the most dangerous thing for Ukraine. Some Republicans are strongly against any extra money, and Republicans in the Senate want it to be a part of a bigger spending plan that also includes money for Israel, Taiwan, and the southern border of the US. The Biden government is telling Ukraine that the US will soon run out of money.
On Sunday’s CNN’s State of the Union, Ohio Republican Sen. J.D. Vance said, “The idea that Ukraine was going to throw Russia back to the borders of 1991 was ridiculous.” “What we’re telling the president and the rest of the world is that you need to say what the goal is.” What will $61 billion do that $100 billion hasn’t already done?”
As a National Security Council spokesman put it, “Russia seems to believe that a military deadlock through the winter will drain Western support for Ukraine and ultimately give Russia the advantage, despite Russian losses and persistent shortages of trained personnel, ammunition, and equipment.” This information was previously reported by CNN and is now public.
A spokeswoman for the NSC, Adrienne Watson, told CNN, “Since starting its offensive in October, we estimate that the Russian military has lost more than 13,000 soldiers along the Avdiivka-Novopavlivka axis and over 220 combat vehicles, which is the equivalent of 6 maneuver battalions in equipment alone.”
The CIA says that Russia had about 900,000 active-duty troops before the invasion. This includes ground troops, airborne troops, special operations troops, and other uniformed people. For the past few months, Russia has said it wants to add 1.5 million more soldiers to the military. The Russian Ministry of Defense has announced several rounds of recruitment. The first round, which is usually in the fall, starts on October 1.
Also, Russia has relied on prisoners brought in by the Wagner Group and raised the age limit for some Russian citizens who want to stay in the reserve of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.