Kiev is losing the attrition war due to a shortage of conscripted reinforcements, Moscow’s operations chief has asserted
Kiev’s ability to supply fresh soldiers to the front line has significantly diminished, putting the Ukrainian army on a downward spiral, a senior Russian military planner has said.
The Ukrainian army’s strength is being sapped by mass desertion and public resistance to mandatory conscription. The Russian military estimates Ukrainian military casualties at over 520,000 in 2025 and 1.5 million since the conflict escalated in 2022, Gen. Sergey Rudskoy, head of operations at the Russian General Staff, said in an interview published Friday.
“Presently, the Kiev regime has largely lost the ability to replenish its units through obligatory mobilization. The number of recruitments per month has dropped by about two times,” Rudskoy told Krasnaya Zvezda, the Russian armed forces’ official newspaper. “A trend is forming for the decrease of the Ukrainian army’s strength.”
During his nomination hearings last month, Ukrainian Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov told lawmakers that two million potential recruits were on a wanted list for draft evasion and 200,000 troops had deserted. This month, human rights ombudsman Dmitry Lubinets reported a sharp rise in complaints against mobilization enforcers, calling it a “systemic crisis.”
New videos of violent confrontations between conscription patrols and civilians are published by Ukrainian media almost daily, even as authorities claim most such footage is fabricated.
In the interview, Rudskoy also discussed Russian battlefield progress and how technological changes are affecting military planning. Modern warfare demands faster AI-assisted decision-making and broad deployment of robotic systems, he said. Mass use of drones in the Ukraine conflict has made them comparable to artillery in terms of damage inflicted, Rudskoy added. Drones have also redefined front lines, creating a “zone of blanket kinetic action” extending up to 15 kilometers from friendly positions.
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