Ukraine has become quite efficient at killing Russian invaders. Lately, it has also shown remarkable skill at striking deep into Russian territory. The future does not bode well for Moscow.
Kyiv Post
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As of Friday, April 24, the Russian forces have sustained a staggering 1,323,460 casualties in President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation.” On Wednesday alone, Moscow lost over 1,100 soldiers. That is a little over two infantry battalions in one day.
As we have stated multiple times over the past four years, Ukraine has become quite efficient in killing Russians. And it’s taking a toll. Moscow is having trouble recruiting soldiers to replace the casualties they have abandoned on the battlefield.
In early April, TVP World reported that “Russia failed to recruit enough soldiers to replace its frontline losses for the fourth straight month amid ongoing manpower challenges.” In the first three months of 2026 the Kremlin recruited 80,456 soldiers, but suffered 85,290 casualties – coming up 4,834 short, or about the equivalent of 4 days of casualties.
Al Jazeera – using basic math – arrived at the same conclusion suggesting this trendline is valid:
“Russia aimed to recruit 409,000 contract soldiers this year, Ukraine’s armed forces said in January. That means a daily average recruitment rate of 1,120. But Ukraine’s “I Want to Live” initiative, which provides communication channels for Russian soldiers wishing to surrender, said Russia recruited 940 troops a day in the first quarter. If sustained, that meant Russian recruitment was on track for a 65,000-man shortfall this year.”
The strategy the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) is implementing to achieve this goal is notably exceptional.
A “revolution in military affairs – as we described it in The Hill back in July 2022 – Ukraine’s innovative use of drones on today’s battlefield coupled with a modern-day version of siege warfare, as we described here in July.
The Military Show brilliantly describes the strategy employed by Ukraine to achieve this objective: kill zones. There are basically three tenets to the strategy:
1. Isolate and destroy Russian ground forces in the designated kill zones;
2. Deny logistical support; then
3. Target “mass” – Russian soldiers – before they can arrive on the battlefields of Ukraine while in their assembly and staging areas outside the kill zones.
Persistent surveillance over the kill zones triggers attack drones upon movement.
The results?
Ninety percent of Russian soldiers are being killed before they even get to the front lines – and without ever confronting a frontline Ukrainian soldier; 96 percent of those casualties come from remotely operated drones.
Interdiction works! And Ukraine is using their own manufactured weapons (Fire Point1/2/5 & 7/9) – free from western restrictions – to target Russian troops as well as Moscow’s principal source of revenue to fund the war: oil.
As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, “Every dollar paid for Russian oil is money for the war.”
Ukraine’s deep fight
Concurrently, Ukraine is winning the deep fight too.
Kyiv’s version of “sanctions” has been very effective. As of late March, Ukrainian drone attacks significantly impacted Russian energy infrastructure, with estimates indicating a reduction of approximately 40 to 45 percent of Russia’s seaborne crude oil export capacity.
There seems to be no range limit – Ukraine is striking ports along the Baltic Sea coast – nor Russian air defenses to counter them.
And there has been no let-up. On April 16, then again on the 20, Ukraine struck the Tuapse Black Sea oil port, resulting in an oil slick that spread into the Black Sea. Residents described “oil rain” coating streets in a greasy film, and smoke from the burning terminal has spread over 180 miles, reaching Sochi, Anapa and Stavropol.
As Ron Popeil and his understudy Billy Mays would say pitching sales on American TV shows, “But wait, there’s more.”
On April 18, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) conducted a “successful, multi-tiered operation in Crimea, striking three Russian military vessels, critical radar systems, and vital enemy logistics.” They also struck an antenna block for the “Dolphin” communication system, an MR-10M1 “Mys-M1” radar station, and bulk fuel storage tanks at the “Yugtorsan” oil depot.
The three military vessels were the landing ships Yamal and Azov, and possibly a Project 21980 “Grachonok” anti-sabotage boat.
Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces (USF) commander Robert “Madyar” Brovdi reported at least 12 officers were killed and another 15 wounded in a Fire Point-2 drone strike on a Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) command post in the Donetsk region on April 22nd.
Ukraine is winning
During the 2016 presidential campaign then-Presidential candidate Donald Trump promised: “We’re gonna win so much, you may even get tired of winning. And you’ll say, ‘Please, please. It’s too much to winning. We can’t take it anymore, Mr. President, it’s too much.’ And I’ll say, ‘No it isn’t. We have to keep winning. We have to win more!’”
Maybe, maybe not from your own political perspective. But Trump should take note of Ukraine. There is no doubt about what Kyiv is accomplishing.
For Zelensky and his generals, the first four months of 2026 have resulted in a lot of “winning” – but he is not likely to gloat over it as long as Russian soldiers occupy Ukrainian territory and Russian ballistic missiles and drones continue to strike residential neighborhoods and critical energy infrastructure.
Ukraine is clearly on the right path. Suddenly it’s in everyone’s best interest to have Ukraine as an ally. Its drone-counter drone warfare experts and interceptors are in high demand – deployed throughout the Middle East to defend against Iranian Shahed drone attacks and provide advice on air defense measures.
Then came the defeat of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on April 12. A staunch pro-Russian advocate bought and paid for with cheap Russian energy, who consistently used his veto to block key steps in Ukraine’s European Union (EU) accession process & funding.
That changed on Thursday when the EU approved a €90 billion ($106 billion) loan package to help Ukraine meet its economic and military needs for two years after Ukraine repaired the Druzhba oil pipeline thereby resuming the flow of oil to Hungary and Slovakia from Russia.
And it doesn’t stop there. As Zelensky told reporters: “Yesterday, at a meeting with European leaders, we secured financial guarantees for our resilience. Today, we are advancing our agreements with Saudi Arabia in the areas of security, energy, and infrastructure.”
Russia is losing
But the icing on the cake must be Russia’s reaction to all this “winning.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently told reporters that Russia no longer considers peace talks with Ukraine a priority.
Losing has a way of doing that.
Putin is not pleased with the EU decision to economically and militarily backstop Kyiv, which is a major setback to his aspirations after the US stopped new military aid appropriations to Ukraine after Trump returned to office in January 2025. That led to a nearly 99 percent drop in new US defense aid.
Moscow likely views the €90 billion loan as a strategic maneuver that keeps Ukraine in the war, damaging its expectations of a swift victory.
Putin has gone back to saber rattling and setting conditions for false flag operations again – this time accusing Lithuanian authorities on April 23 of creating a “hotbed of tension” near the border with Kaliningrad Oblast and militarizing the country under the guise of a “Russian threat.”
The Institute for the Study of War concludes “these statements are part of the Kremlin’s ongoing cognitive warfare narrative aimed at falsely framing NATO as an aggressor in response to the Kremlin’s military aggression in Ukraine and long-term posturing.”
Earlier in the week, the Russian Defense Ministry issued a warning to European countries over their continued support for Ukrainian drone production. Kremlin officials accused European leaders of “increasingly dragging these countries into the war with Russia.”
Dmitry Medvedev was more direct, stating the Ministry’s statement should be taken “literally” and that these manufacturers are “potential targets for the Russian armed forces.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry has also accused the Baltic states of assisting Ukraine in its campaign against Russian oil terminals in the Baltic Sea region, issuing “veiled threats against Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and blaming them for allowing the use of their airspace by Ukrainian forces.”
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko got in on the action as well, warning his “western neighbors and Ukraine against any aggression toward Belarus.”
The last thing Putin or Lukashenko need right now is a war with NATO – especially with Poland. Russian atrocities during World War II remain fresh in many people’s minds.
Summer is going to be very hot for Putin as it is, courtesy of Zelensky, his generals, the AFU and the valiant citizens of Ukraine.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.
Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as a military intelligence officer and led the US European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012 to 2014. Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy. They are the co-founders of INTREP360 and the INTREP360 Intelligence Report on Substack.
