Putin argued that his troops had won since the beginning of the year 4.9 thousand km² of Ukrainian territorybut experts are skeptical about these words. Both Ukrainian and Western sources estimate that the real gains are at most approximately 1/3 of this areai.e. less than 0.5 percent. territory of Ukraine.
Retired British air commander quoted by the rp.pl website Sean Bell he estimates that at the current pace of the offense The Russians need another 2-3 yearsto take control of the four Ukrainian oblasts whose annexation Putin demands – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson.
Russia is losing people. More and more foreigners in the Kremlin's ranks
As rp.pl writes, on the front it is clear that Moscow is desperately trying to capture any city that could be presented as a success. Heavy fighting takes place, among others: in the area Kupiańskawhere Russian soldiers managed to cross the Oskol River and take a bridgehead on its other bank. Putin announced that he has already taken over two thirds of the cityalthough in fact it only controls its northern part, from which The Ukrainians are starting to displace the Russians.
“They give us an order to use our drones to look for a hiding place suitable for ours, because their positions are constantly covered by Russian fire… The guys run inside, and there are Russians with an automatic machine,” reported one of the Ukrainian drone operators, describing the situation around Kupiansk.
Similar scenes are taking place in the area Nowopilawhere – as a soldier from Vladivostok says, “Six people survived out of a hundred who went into battle. The entire company was wiped out.”
According to the president Volodymyr Zelenskyin recent days the Russians received an order to attack “at all costs“positions near Pokrovsk, which resulted in a sharp increase in losses on the aggressor's side.
The Russian army is also running out of soldiers. Officially, the Kremlin is silent on this matter, but the data from the front speak for themselves. One Western analyst revealed that by July 2025, foreigners already constituted 49 percent. prisoners of warwhile in 2022 it was only 1%. While this does not necessarily fully reflect the structure of the army, it does point to this fact serious staffing problems in Putin's forces – increasingly dependent on foreign mercenaries.
