©Ivan Lapyrin via Unsplash
Russian soldiers on the Ukrainian front are said to survive 20 to 35 minutes once they reach the combat zone. That estimate, which comes from Russian military bloggers and was cited by historian Peter Frankopan in "Foreign Policy", underscores just how deadly the war has become due to the dominant role of drones.
According to the British intelligence agency GCHQ, nearly half a million Russian soldiers have been killed since the large-scale invasion of February 2022. Moreover, casualties are expected to rise further in 2026, with an average of about 30,000 Russian casualties per month, while Ukraine is increasingly using relatively inexpensive drones to take out high-value targets. As a result, the war is becoming less of a battle of massive frontal assaults and more of a slaughterhouse where technology sets the pace.
Frankopan writes that, on average, a Russian recruit can die within ten days to three weeks of arriving at a training camp. Once on the battlefield, bloggers suggest that survival time could shorten even further to just a few dozen minutes. FPV drones, long-range drones, and attacks on supply lines are putting the Russian army under increasingly heavy pressure.
According to The Independent, the war is also changing on the operational level. Russia is reportedly turning more frequently to infiltration tactics using small units, as conventional artillery and large-scale attacks are becoming more difficult due to Ukrainian drone strikes. President Volodymyr Zelensky stated earlier this year that more than 80 percent of Russian targets are being destroyed by Ukrainian drones.
The human toll is also having consequences behind the front lines. The ongoing war and Ukrainian attacks on refineries, depots, and supply routes are causing fuel shortages, economic pressure, and growing discontent in Russia. According to various analysts, this is weakening not only Putin’s war machine but also his grip on domestic support.
©Ivan Lapyrin via Unsplash - illustrative image