Outside the Beltway

Russia Has Lost the War in Ukraine, But the Killing Goes On

Winning is impossible, but stopping is too painful.

James Joyner · Sunday, May 24, 2026 · 1 comment

St Andrews strategic studies professor Phillips Payson O’Brien explains why “Putin Can No Longer Hide His Catastrophe.”

Regimes that go to war usually work hard to convince their population that the decision to fight was justified and that any sacrifices will be manageable. In this spirit, Russian President Vladimir Putin has tried for more than four years to protect the population of Moscow from the consequences of his invasion of Ukraine. Festivals and other events have gone on much as they did before, and the effects of supply shortages in the capital have been limited. Even though more than 1 million Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded, the government has apparently avoided enlisting too many from Moscow or St. Petersburg, preferring to take its cannon fodder from faraway Russian imperial possessions.

But Putin can no longer lull Muscovites into thinking that his war does not involve them. Earlier this month, the annual parade commemorating the defeat of Germany in World War II was startlingly short and devoid of most of the usual military hardware, because the Russian dictator was terrified of Ukrainian drone attacks. A week later, Ukraine launched hundreds of drones and cruise missiles on the Russian capital. The action, an audacious counterstrike to a mass Russian attack on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities two days earlier, showed that multiple rings of air defense around Moscow have been thoroughly compromised. The narrative that Putin has constructed—about a mere “special military operation” that need not trouble Russia’s elites or middle class—is now unraveling completely. Any pretense that Moscow itself can stay out of the war has vanished.

In armed conflicts between nations, major momentum shifts occur when one of the combatants loses control of events—when its rulers can no longer convincingly tell themselves or their public that their side is on the cusp of victory. Although the 1968 Tet Offensive by North Vietnam and the Vietcong was a military failure, the attacks along the length and breadth of South Vietnam made many Americans conclude that the U.S. effort to prop up the Saigon government was doomed.

[…]

How the news of Ukraine’s growing strength—and Moscow’s exposure to future attacks—will alter public opinion in Russia is difficult to judge, not least because of censorship. To keep the population ignorant, Putin’s government has tightened restrictions on the use of the internet. But in recent days, videos have circulated of Russians expressing shock at their capital’s vulnerability. Russian newspapers have been forced to write stories about Ukrainian capabilities. One even referred to the drone attack as “audacious.”

Ukraine previously struggled to deploy accurate long-range-weapons systems but now appears to have improved its targeting capabilities and production capacity. In the counterstrike on Moscow, Ukrainian systems undeniably hit a range of strategic targets: an electronics-component factory, oil infrastructure, and other facilities. Even Moscow’s main airport shut down for a while because of the attack. Having penetrated Moscow’s defenses once, Ukraine will almost certainly do so again. President Volodymyr Zelensky is signaling as much.

If Zelensky is correct, Putin will have to be more honest with the Russian people about the catastrophe he has unleashed on them. More than four years into what was supposed to be a three-day campaign, Russia is not on a trajectory to victory.

Scholar-practitioners Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, William B. Taylor, Cedric Leighton, and Steven Tian take to Time to explain, “How Ukraine Found the Cards To Win, Without Help From the U.S.“

On the battlefield, drones have been useful to Ukraine in three ways. First, they are effective at striking deep into Russia, penetrating supply lines, energy infrastructure and munitions factories; second, they save Ukrainian lives by reducing the military personnel at risk; and third, they shake Russian arrogance and confidence.

Some question whether this is a sustainable advantage as Russia plays catch-up, but we are told by senior Biden and Trump Administration sources that Ukrainian drone and anti-drone defense technology are heavily reliant in part on unparalleled U.S. technology, which Russia does not have access to, such as Motorola’s Silvus infrastructure-less solutions, which are utilized by Ukraine to operate its drones. All of which suggests that Ukraine’s technology, innovation, and cost advantages are durable. In fact, it has been reported that the U.S. has directed billions of dollars in direct investments into Ukraine’s drone industry across both the Biden and Trump years.

It is hard to overstate just how transformative drones have been for Ukraine’s position on the battlefield. First, with these powerful drones, designed and produced in Ukraine, it is now systematically striking high-value military and industrial targets located over 1,000 kilometers inside the Russian Federation, wreaking havoc on the logistics and supply chains that sustain the invasion. Recent operations have successfully targeted aviation bases in Voronezh and executed precision strikes on the VNIIR-Progress plant in Cheboksary—a facility nearly 1,000 kilometers from the border that manufactures vital electronic components for Russian Su-34 fighter-bombers and S-300 air defense systems. Furthermore, by methodically striking offshore Lukoil platforms in the Caspian Sea and major refineries in Saratov, as well as repeated bombardments of the Tuapse oil export terminal on the Black Sea, Ukraine is physically dismantling the energy infrastructure that funds the Kremlin’s war effort. Indeed, these drones have enabled Ukraine to bypass misguided restrictions from both the Biden and Trump administrations alike about using Western missiles to strike deep into Russia.

Second, Ukrainian drone strikes are severing crucial logistics chains within Russian-occupied territory, while preserving Ukrainian lives and precious military personnel, with technology enabling Ukrainian counterattacks to liberate those regions. Ukraine recently liberated over 400 square kilometers in the southern theater and recaptured significant sectors near Kupyansk, with independent military assessments reporting that Russia is suffering a net loss of occupied territory for the first time since 2024, simultaneously imposing catastrophic human costs on the invading forces. Total Russian casualties have now eclipsed 1.35 million personnel since the start of the war, according to Ukraine’s count, with Moscow losing upwards of 1,000 soldiers daily and, in the first five months of 2026 alone, sustaining over 141,000 casualties.

Third, Ukrainian drone strikes are catalyzing profound morale issues within Russia itself, methodically shattering the illusion of domestic security cultivated by the Kremlin, as the Kremlin tightens its grip over society, including through the suspension of popular messaging apps such as Telegram.

As Jake Sullivan, former National Security Advisor to President Biden, told us, “Something is clearly happening with respect to the Russian authorities and security services. They’re feeling the pressure, which is leading them to crack down on the internet and popular messaging apps”.

In the first months of the war, we all marveled at Ukraine’s resilience. As the war has dragged on, it has been coupled with admiration for their remarkable ingenuity. They are now arguably the world leaders in both drone and counter-drone technology.

It certainly appears that Russia is losing the war. There is simply no plausible way for them to achieve even tertiary political objectives at this point. Putin is likely even beyond being able to declare victory and go home.

As CSIS analysts Seth Jones and Riley McCabe (“Russia’s Grinding War in Ukraine“) described it back in January:

First, Russian forces have suffered approximately 1.2 million casualties (killed, wounded, and missing) and as many as 325,000 killed since February 2022. No major power has suffered anywhere near these numbers of casualties or fatalities in any war since World War II. Second, Russian forces are advancing remarkably slowly on the battlefield. In the Pokrovsk offensive, for example, Russian forces advanced at an average rate of just 70 meters per day. This is slower than the most brutal offensive campaigns over the last century, including the notoriously bloody Battle of the Somme during World War I. Russian forces have gained less than 1.5 percent of Ukrainian territory since the start of 2024. Third, Russia is becoming a second- or third-rate economic power. Its economy is showing strains because of the war, though it has not buckled. Russian manufacturing is declining, consumer demand is weakening, inflation remains stubbornly high, and the country faces a labor crunch. Economic growth slowed to 0.6 percent in 2025, and Russia continues to fall behind in key technologies such as AI.

And that’s to say nothing of the loss of international prestige or the fact that NATO added two quite capable new allies as a result of the war.

But Russia losing is not necessarily the same as Ukraine winning. Jones and McCabe estimate Ukrainian forces suffered somewhere between 500,000 and 600,000 casualties, including killed, wounded, and missing, and between 100,000 and 140,000 fatalities between February 2022 and December 2025. The UN has confirmed 60,000 total civilian casualties, which includes some 15,000 confirmed deaths, but cautions that the actual totals are likely considerably higher. While Russian territorial gains have been slow, they have not been nonexistent.

As has been the case throughout the war, I am unable to conjure an end state that will allow the fighting to stop so long as Putin remains in power. He’s clearly willing to sacrifice many more Russian lives to avoid the humiliation of admitting defeat. Nor can I see Zelensky accepting Russia holding an inch of Ukrainian territory after inflicting so much death and destruction.