The war mongers in the U.S., in the European Union and in Ukraine have decided to ditch U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace attempts and to prolong the war until he leaves office.
Today’s headlines at the Ukrainian outlet Strana include (machine translation):
- Europe is confident that the war in Ukraine can last up to 3 years
- The commander of the National Guard believes that Ukraine can fight for several more years
- Zelensky instructed to prepare for the continuation of the war for another three years – WSJ
From the last link:
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky instructed his closest advisers to prepare to fight for another three years.
This was stated in a podcast on Spotify by The Wall Street Journal journalist Bojan Panchevsky.
According to Panchevsky, the conversation that shocked the president’s entourage took place last Thursday.
“He said it directly. Everyone was in shock. No one, of course, wants another three years of war. Until then, they had essentially been working on a plan to call elections and referendums in late spring or early summer to put a possible agreement to the vote, whatever it might be, and see if voters would accept it. And suddenly Zelensky makes an internal 180-degree U-turn and says: all this is nonsense, we must prepare for a long war. This makes me even more skeptical, because it seems that for some reason he is no longer really in the mood for negotiations. I do not know what the reason is. I know three of his closest advisers, they didn’t know it themselves or, if they did, they didn’t tell me why he changed his position,” Panchevsky said.
In his opinion, Zelensky found unsatisfactory the current proposal of US President Donald Trump to end the war, so he decided to continue fighting.
In three years, the Trump cadence will just end.
Zelenski’s position is bolstered by various international pro-war outlets who depict Ukraine as not winning the war but also as not losing it. Their arguments are based on faulty estimates of Russian casualties and a misinterpretation of Russia economic potential.
One examples is the latest piece by Michel Kofman in Foreign Affairs:
Ukraine’s War of Endurance (archived)
With advances in its long-range strike capabilities and a scaled-up strike campaign against Russia’s energy export infrastructure, Ukraine seeks to make 2026 the year when Russian finances reach a breaking point and Moscow must substantially revise its demands at the negotiating table.
Like others he is citing unfounded numbers of Russian losses likely provided by the Ukrainian military:
The Russian military grew from close to 900,000 before the invasion in 2022 to about 1.3 million in 2025. But almost all of Russia’s recruitment in 2025—30,000 to 35,000 enlistees per month—was to replace combat losses.
A Telegraph report follows a similar theme:
As desperate Putin drags his feet, time is on Ukraine’s side (archived):
To compound Ukraine’s logistical and technological advantages, Russia’s manpower surplus is not what it seems. By the time its invasion of Ukraine reaches its fourth anniversary on February 24, 1.3 million Russian men will have been killed or injured on the frontlines. Ukrainian estimates indicate that Russia’s casualties have surpassed recruitment for two straight months.
…
A recent BBC investigation revealed that grocery bills in Moscow have increased by more than 20 per cent in the space of a month. After years of relative insulation, Putin’s endless war in Ukraine is finally causing severe economic damage and hollowing out Russia’s urban middle class.Russia believes that by stalling negotiations, it can edge closer to achieving its maximalist ambitions in Ukraine. Many Western leaders have mistakenly bought into this logic. The statistics suggest otherwise, and Ukraine has powerful cards to play as the war drags into its fourth year.
Both echo last month’s report by the Institute For Strategic & International Studies:
Russia’s Grinding War in Ukraine
Massive Losses and Tiny Gains for a Declining Power
The analysis has several main findings. 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.4 Russia had a grand total of zero companies in the top 100 list of technology companies in the world as measured by market capitalization.
The mistaken assumption in the above are obvious:
- Russian losses throughout the war are nowhere near 1.2 million casualties. Russian superiority in artillery rounds, drones and air/missile power over Ukraine has held up throughout the war. Given the Russian superiority Ukraine would have had to have double the losses Russia allegedly had. There is no data to support that so many were killed or wounded.
- Russia is fighting a war of attrition. How many meters are taken per day is thus completely irrelevant. What counts is the overall losses afflicted to the other side of the conflict.
- Compared to other European countries Russia’s economy, even under the stress of war, is doing exceptionally well.
Contrast that baseless analysis with the recent work by Warwick Powell who applies Lanchester’s Power Laws, an early form of Operational Research, to the current conflict in Ukraine:
Estimating Trajectories in Attritional Warfare
This essay synthesises key analytical findings from open-source data, outlines the methodology used to derive estimates of collapse timelines, and presents the raw data ranges underpinning these projections. The goal is not to forecast an exact endpoint – warfare defies such precision – but to demonstrate how known parameters allow us to sketch reasonable trajectories and cadences. By aggregating disparate estimates into a coherent framework, we can discern patterns: gradual depletion accelerating into non-linear collapse, with a plausible window of 6-9 months from now before Ukraine’s defensive sustainability falters irretrievably.
The war in Ukraine is, like World War I, a war of attrition.
In spring 1918 a German attack had just commenced and took more grounds than ever before. Hardly anyone expected it to lose the war on the western front. Six month later German forces had exhausted their potential and had to concede their defeat.
Unless something totally unforeseen happens Ukraine, and its supporters, will not be able to sustain the war for another three years.
