We support our Publishers and Content Creators. You can view this story on their website by CLICKING HERE.

Key Points: The Russian army has endured staggering losses in Ukraine, with casualties reportedly nearing 700,000. Despite this, Vladimir Putin’s forces continue their grinding offensive, relying on mass conscription, prison recruits, and relentless artillery barrages.

-While green troops and outdated tactics reveal weaknesses, Russia holds 18% of Ukrainian territory, leveraging airpower, hypersonic missiles, and fortified defenses.

-With Ukrainian forces stretched thin and U.S. aid potentially decreasing under a Republican-led administration, Russia appears poised to sustain its war of attrition.

-A potential U.S.-brokered peace plan could incentivize negotiations, but until then, Russia’s battered but persistent military presses forward.

Can the Russian Army Keep Fighting?

The Russian army has struggled mightily in Ukraine since 2022. Vladimir Putin’s forces are not scared of taking casualties. This reminds me of World War Two, when the Red Army lost 8.7 million troops. They often use the same tactics with large-scale frontal assaults to overwhelm an outnumbered enemy. 

While it is difficult to confirm the actual statistics, the dead and wounded body count for Russia in the war against Ukraine may be as high as 700,000. 

What makes matters worse: Putin doesn’t seem to care and chalks it up to the price of doing business. 

The Russian dictator claimed on December 16 that the “tide is turning in Russia’s favor.” More volunteers are joining the army. As many as 427,000 new Russian troops have been sworn in during the past year. 

That is much more than the previous year when 300,000 enlisted.

The big question: can the Russian Army keep this going? 

Russia Keeps Grinding Forward

The mass conscription strategy is starting to show benefits even though Russia can sometimes lose at least a thousand troops per day during offensive operations. 

In the last 24 hours, the army has been advancing slowly and methodically in the eastern Donetsk region. 

It will probably take the Pokrovsk area in the coming days. The Ukrainian forces are becoming exhausted as they fight hard, but massive forces are bearing down on Volodymyr Zelensky’s troops.

How long is Russia willing to go for such small territorial wins? And can it sustain this war of attrition into 2025? Things should be slowing down as both sides dig in for winter. The strategy for Putin is creating a larger buffer zone to protect against Ukraine’s future attacks. If peace negotiations ensue next year, Putin could be operating from more strength if his generals can take more territory.

Anybody With a Pulse Is Heading to the Front in the Ukraine War 

Putin won’t admit this publicly, but he appears desperate for anyone to fight for the Motherland. 

He even ordered sailors assigned to the cursed aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov to fight in Ukraine this autumn. 

This is a laughable deployment as these personnel can hardly fire a weapon.

The Russian leader has been emptying his prisons and sending convicts to the frontlines for months, if not years. 

Those green troops are unlikely to turn the tide, but they offer more meat for the grinder as the Russian war machine chugs along with more and more casualties.

Green Russian Troops Have Failed

In August, when Ukraine made its successful incursion into the Kursk region of Russia, the marauding troops found that merely rookie border guards stood in their way. 

These young and inexperienced troops were so afraid that they surrendered gladly. 

Russia’s T-90 tanks. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Putin has since ordered counterattacks with battle-hardened Russian troops re-deployed from the frontlines in the Donbas region. This still showed how weak some of the Kremlin’s forces were.

However, Russia stingily occupies about 18 percent of Ukraine. Zelensky’s generals are frustrated and know that they are outmanned and outgunned and that Russia is willing to withstand more casualties in a war of attrition. 

Putin’s forces lost a myriad of tanks and vehicles. Still, it appears to Ukrainian frontline troops that an unlimited amount of armor can enter the battlefield at any given time.

Russia has also focused on the Kharkiv region in the northeast, where it has begun a new combat zone. 

This will strain Ukrainian troops even more as they must defend several hundreds of miles of the front line from the marauding Russians.

Putin’s Generals Adjusted to Battlefield Realities

Thus, the Russian army is down but not out. 

It has been bolstered by the Air Force, which has learned to fly out of harm’s way and fire deadly glide bombs. 

Russian rocket forces send missiles and hypersonic weapons to bomb enemy positions and cities. 

Old-fashioned artillery is still a massive component of Russian combined arms tactics. They are strong at defense, often stopping Ukrainian counterattacks, and they just keep coming on offense.

Tank from Ukraine’s armed forces firing. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

This means that Russia will continue to fight hard into 2025. Also, the new Trump administration and a Republican-controlled Congress are likely to slow down or even fully stop American aid to Ukraine. 

The defenders will run low on ammunition and must ration artillery shells again. All that Zelensky could do was to look for help from European allies, but without the United States, the situation would have looked grim.

Russia is showing that it can take a pounding and still surge forward. Ukrainian troops are tired and could use a considerable amount of reinforcement. This may never happen. Russia thus has an upper hand and will continue combat operations until there is some type of ceasefire. 

Will the Americans’ Peace Plan Work?

The new American special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, has already devised a peace plan. Under Kellogg’s concept, the United States will stop all aid until Ukraine is negotiating. If Russia continues to fight and does not agree to a ceasefire, then the United States will start the military aid to Ukraine again. Thus, both sides are incentivized to stop fighting. Then, there could be a Korea-like armistice and demilitarized zone – a peace plan I have devised and outlined in my recent book.

Russian T-90 Tank. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Russia will then keep fighting until Kellogg begins working toward his plan. I see a ceasefire happening by the spring of next year, and Russia’s army will survive until then. Ukraine has fought valiantly, but it could not deliver the knockout punch.

Russia is the wobbly boxer who lost the early rounds but then came charging back to even the score. It is now time to end this fight and declare a draw. 

About the Author: Dr. Brent M. Eastwood 

Brent M. Eastwood, PhD, is the author of Don’t Turn Your Back On the World: a Conservative Foreign Policy and Humans, Machines, and Data: Future Trends in Warfare, plus two other books. Brent was the founder and CEO of a tech firm that predicted world events using artificial intelligence. He served as a legislative fellow for U.S. Senator Tim Scott and advised the senator on defense and foreign policy issues. He has taught at American University, George Washington University, and George Mason University. Brent is a former U.S. Army Infantry officer. He can be followed on X @BMEastwood.