Oleksandr Kovalenko / Obozrevatel
On February 24, 2022, Russian occupying forces invaded Ukraine to conduct a lightning and devastating general military operation to capture most of the country. However, from the very first days, everything did not go as planned for the Russian Armed Forces, and today this war has become the bloodiest in the history of both modern Russia and since the times of the USSR after the Second World War. But how destructive has it been specifically for the aggressor—Russia?
Four years ago, Russia invaded Ukraine with a group totaling 180,000 occupiers. Of course, this number of forces and means was critically insufficient to conduct a general military operation to seize our country, as a result of which the Russian Armed Forces quickly began to feel a lack of resources and suffered defeat after defeat.
At the same time, the peak indicators of territory capture in Ukraine by Russian occupiers were noted precisely at the beginning of 2022, when, however strange it may sound, the Russian grouping was smallest in its number.
This material, I think, should become the litmus test that reflects the real capabilities of the Russian army and will allow us to assess the further potential of the Russian Armed Forces under absolutely different scenarios of events, including the declaration of general mobilization by the Putin regime.
Enemy Losses
For several years now, I have been collecting statistics and analyzing enemy losses in proportion to the captured areas of Ukrainian territory—on a weekly and monthly basis. This allows not only to derive an averaged indicator of the dynamics of increasing or decreasing effectiveness of enemy offensive actions but also to assess the resource consumption of such actions.
I think it will surprise no one if I note that in the war against Ukraine, the Russian army lost more people in four years than in all wars and conflicts combined during the existence of the Russian Federation. Moreover, even if we sum up the USSR’s losses in all wars and conflicts after World War II and add these to the losses during the war in Ukraine, the so-called “Special Military Operation” would still be bloodier.
However, at the same time, the current war has also proven to be the least effective in proportion to the captured territories of all the wars in which the Russian Federation or the USSR has ever participated.
2022
As mentioned, at the time of the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian occupying group numbered 180,000 personnel. These were fully staffed battalion tactical groups (BTG), which did not feel a shortage of equipment, ammunition, and other material and technical support.
The group alone had about 2,500 tanks—out of 3,200 operationally ready tanks in the Russian Armed Forces at that time.
I think it is important to mention how much equipment Russia had in total before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Not only operationally ready within the forces but also those in storage bases inherited from the USSR.
This is, approximately, such an arsenal:
tanks – over 7,200 units;
APCs – more than 26,000 units;
IFVs – over 7,700 units;
APCs – more than 11,300 units;
artillery – about 24,000 units.
I will describe what these reserves are like now below – by the end of 2025. But how did 2022 end for the Russian occupiers?
After the first year of full-scale war, the Russian Armed Forces occupied 64,733 km² of Ukrainian territory, with total losses of 92,920 personnel.
Due to catastrophic losses, Russia was forced to urgently conduct a hybrid general mobilization, called “partial.” This enabled the recruitment of 300,000 people into the Russian Armed Forces, gradually sent to the front in 2022-2023.
By the end of 2022, the Russian grouping increased to 360,000 people.
2023
In 2023, the Ukrainian Defense Forces conducted a counteroffensive operation, allowing them to regain 200 km² of Ukrainian territory, resulting in a net loss of territory for the Russian Armed Forces by the end of the year, despite their offensive that intensified in October.
Overall, the enemy suffered losses of 253,290 personnel throughout 2023.
However, during the year, the grouping grew from 360,000 to 490,000.
2024
From 2024, a clear trend emerged of a disparity where the enemy had a much larger grouping than at the start of the full-scale invasion—yet simultaneously, the occupied territories shrunk by dozens of times.
By the end of 2024, the Russian Armed Forces occupied 3,318 km² of Ukrainian territories, with losses of 440,790 personnel and an increase in the grouping size during the year from 490,000 to 600,000.
2025
In 2025, the Russian army captured 4,329 km² of Ukrainian territory—with losses of 418,010 personnel and an increase in the Russian Armed Forces grouping from 600,000 to 710,000.
In fact, the areas of territory occupied by the Russian Armed Forces compared to the first year of the war decreased 15 times—with losses increasing 4.5 times, but the grouping size grew fourfold.
Thus, the increase in the grouping did not positively affect the effectiveness of offensive actions, considering the Russian Armed Forces shifted primarily to infantry component operations.
Moreover, in 2025, two peculiarities in the Russian Armed Forces’ losses were noted.
The first—from the second half of the year, the Russian grouping of 710-715,000 did not change in size. That is, the Russian Armed Forces’ command compensated monthly losses through mobilization measures to zero.
The second peculiarity—from October 2025, in the statistics of monthly Russian Armed Forces losses, the number of killed was about 65% of the total. Typically, the average killed-wounded ratio is 1 to 3 or higher. But the Russian army became one of the first in the history of wars and conflicts where the proportion reversed, nearly 3 to 1.
But the feature of 2026 was that in January, for the first time, Russia mobilized fewer people in a month than it lost at the front. According to Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine General Oleksandr Syrskyi, in January, mobilization in Russia amounted to about 22,000 people, while losses were 31,710.
And what about the arsenals? They currently look like this:
tanks – over 2,000 units;
AFVs – over 9,500 units;
IFVs – over 2,300 units;
APCs – over 5,000 units;
artillery – about 9,000 units.
A separate issue is the condition of the remaining equipment, about a third of which in each category is irreparable. But the main thing is something else…
Conclusions
After four years of full-scale war, the Russian occupation group, despite its constant increase in quantity, demonstrates a proportional decrease in the effectiveness of offensive actions and an increase in losses.
During this period, Russia lost so much equipment that it not only affected the combat capability of its army but also the Russian military-industrial complex will never be able to compensate with its own production.
Negative trends have affected not only the effectiveness of combat operations, but also the ability to expand the group, compensate for losses, mobilize the required number of personnel.
Russia will never recover from the human and military-technical losses, not to mention the economic, resource, reputational, and other losses it has already suffered over the past four years of its self-initiated war.
This material was published as part of a joint project by OBOZ.UA and the “Information Resistance” group.
