Putin's War: 'The Largest Self-Inflicted Defeat By a Major Power In the Modern Era'

The scale of Putin's miscalculation in choosing to invade Ukraine is becoming clearer by the day. 

In terms of military might, economic thrust and overall reputation as a nation with global standing as a power and a potential threat, Russia has been exposed as a fraud. It's armies, air force and navy have been embarrassed in their failure to perform against a much smaller, less well equipped enemy. It's weapons - once a key source of export revenues - are less effective than those of the west. It's inability to defend its infrastructure from Ukrainian drones has become a financial disaster. And its corruption, delusional self-worth and dependence on a smaller, backward nation like North Korea, as well as its fealty to China, of which it is now effectively a vassal state, means that Putin, for his own personal reasons, has sacrificed all that he and his predecessors had built and for which their people sacrificed so much. JL

Joseph Orefice reports in The Geopolitical Economist:

Measured against every one of its own stated objectives, Putin's 'special military operation' has failed, and the scale of that failure is massive. History will report this as the largest strategic miscalculation by a major power since the Second World War. Before 2022, the Russian military was widely feared as a juggernaut. Four years later, that reputation is spent. Putin’s war doubled the length of NATO’s direct land border with Russia, the precise outcome the invasion was meant to prevent created the most significant collateral damage Russia’s invasion produced. And Europe, long dependent on cheap Russian gas, spent the war severing that dependence, and has been rearming at a pace not seen since the Cold War, a larger, better-funded, more unified alliance pointed directly at Putin. It is the largest self-inflicted strategic defeat by a major power in the modern era.

The Reasons Why Russia Can't Stop Ukraine's Drone Attacks

There are many reasons why a technologically advanced and militarily powerful country like Russia cannot seem to stop Ukrainian drone attacks. 

First, the country is vast and there are not enough air defense systems to protect everything and everyone. Secondly, the Russian political and military tends to prefer assigning blame, thereby eliminating rivals, rather than rewarding success. Thirdly, having agreed to cede authority to the Kremlin, the Russian people do not yet see air defense as their responsibility. As a result, Ukraine's drones will continue to have success identifying and striking targets across Russia at will. JL

Elvira Bary reports in Medium:

Ukrainian drones are reaching deep into Russia and hitting the infrastructure that keeps the country moving. Russia calls itself a superpower. How is this possible? For centuries, Russia’s size was its best protection. Russia was too large to invade easily. But now look at the same map through a drone operator’s eyes. You see thousands of targets spread across enormous territory. Every target wants protection. But there are not enough systems. Secondly, Russia's military is strictly top-down, only requiring command and obedience. People first ask: who will be blamed? Drones move fast and require people in many places to make fast decisions with incomplete information. (But) the person making the decision often does not know whether the system will back him if something goes wrong. So he prefers to do nothing. 

Due To Heavy Losses in Northern Ukraine, Russian Army Misleads Kremlin

Desperate to claim they are making gains along the front this summer, the Russian command has issued a series of misleading reports of advances both to the media - and, according to independent analysts - the Kremlin. 

Objective reports indicate that Russian attacks on the northern Kursk and Kharkiv fronts have been repeatedly repulsed with heavy losses. JL

New Voice of Ukraine reports:

Ukraine's Border Guards eliminated seven Russian assault groups on the Kursk front. Russian forces sent the assault groups into battle one after another, but Ukrainian troops repelled each of them. Institute for the Study of War has reported that Russian military command is misleading the Kremlin about the scale of the occupying army's "successes" in northern Ukraine in order to reinforce a narrative of an active Russian offensive along the entire front line.

Moscow Bombing That Killed 5 Aimed At Chief of Russian Aerospace Forces

An improvised explosive device that killed five people and wounded 21 at an exclusive Moscow restaurant was intended for a birthday party being held there for the Commander-in Chief of Russia's Aerospace Forces, which have carried out many of the terror bombings of Ukrainian cities. 

The bomber was a young woman who was stopped by a security guard when the bomb detonated. Both of them were among those killed. No one has, as of yet, taken credit for the attack, which is sure to increase tensions in Moscow as its elite increasingly feel targeted by drones, bombings and other threats. This will also further challenge the Putin regime's claim that it is 'winning' the war against Ukraine. JL

Anna Chernova and colleagues report in CNN and Roman Petrenko reports in Ukraine Pravda:

A bomb blast at the Balzi Rossi restaurant on Kudrinskaya Square in Moscow that killed as many as five people and injured 21 others was an improvised explosive device. Russian media outlets and Telegram channels have suggested the target may have been a private celebration of the 55th birthday of Aleksandr Chayko, Commander-in-Chief of Russia's Aerospace Forces. As evidence, they point to a sign reading "Alexandr 55" on the restaurant's stage. An unidentified woman attempted to enter a private event. The bomb went off, killing the woman, security guard who stopped her and others.

Russia Admits Ukraine Drones Have Closed the Southern Supply Highway

Russia tried to claim that Ukraine had reduced drone attacks because they were ineffective. But the reality was that Russia did not have enough air defense resources to protect the highway. 

Even more ironically, one of the air defense problems was that the Kremlin could not supply its forces with logistics, including fuel and ammunition because the Ukrainian drone attacks were so pervasive and accurate. So, Russia's primary highway connecting Crimea with the land bridge into Russia is now largely inoperable due to Ukraine's drones. JL

RFU News reports:

Russian sources have admitted defeat and that they’ve lost control over the southern highway, as regular transport has become extremely difficult. Repeated Ukrainian drone attacks have made the R 280 highway too dangerous for regular Russian supply traffic. Russian units tasked with protecting their logistics network could no longer be supplied by that network. Interceptor drone units began running out of fuel because their forward launch positions could no longer be resupplied reliably. The vehicles responsible for transporting interceptor drones, replacement batteries, fuel, and other supplies to frontline launch teams also required fuel to operate.

Embarrassing the Kremlin, Ukraine Shares Captured Russian Weapon Specs

By making public a digital database of captured, and frequently damaged, Russian weaponry, Ukraine is accomplishing two objectives: the first is to make it easier for its allies to understand what they are up against and how they can design their own weapons to outfight the Russians.'

But Ukraine is also implicitly undermining and mocking Russian weapons simply by demonstrating that they have either been captured by Ukrainian forces and/or that they have been destroyed, which serves to degrade the Russians' reputation for fearsome military competence. JL

Ilan Berman comments in the Wall Street Journal:

Ukraine launched an online platform this summer called TrophyLab, a digital repository devoted to the analysis of captured Russian military equipment. The portal is a “shared space for enemy weapons research” that provides researchers, governments and defense firms with the specifications of Russian capacity. It undermines one of the Kremlin’s most valuable strategic assets: its reputation as a first-rate military power. Consumers of Russian arms  have long relied mostly on official spec sheets and the Kremlin’s triumphalist narrative rather than real-world trials of battlefield systems. TrophyLab lets Russia’s prospective arms clients get a better sense of the systems they are buying from actual captured and damaged Russian weapons. Ukraine’s new information platform provides the ability to evaluate the Russian military hardware that the world has long feared and evaluate their limits and vulnerabilities.

Russia Suffers Record 42, 860 Loss In July, With KIA 14 Times Higher Than Ukraine's

Ukrainian forces inflicted a record number of casualties on the Kremlin in July - 42,860 - as Russians killed in action are 14 times as high as those of Ukraine. 

At the start of the year, Ukraine's established goal was 50,000 Russian casualties a month - far more than the Kremlin could recruit to replace its losses. Russian losses have exceeded 30,000 per month since the start of 2026. At 42,000 Russian casualties, the Ukrainians are getting close to the level where Russia can no longer field sufficient troops, which is why Putin wants more North Koreans and may be forced to impose a politically unpopular mass mobilization. JL

Kateryna Tyshchenko reports in Ukraine Pravda and Kateryna Danishevska reports in RBC-Ukraine:

Russian forces suffered record personnel losses in July 2026, the highest since the start of the year – 42,860 people. Over the first seven months of 2026 as a whole, Russia's personnel losses totaled 238,650. Russian military losses in the war are significantly higher than those of Ukraine's Defense Forces. Russia's military death toll is approximately 14 times higher than Ukraine's.