As Russian Losses Rise, Ukraine Is Increasing Putin's "Strategic Pain"

The Ukrainians are sensing that Putin is feeling increased strategic pain, both economically and militarily. They are determined to enhance that level of discomfort as much as they can not so much that Putin will do anything new as his survival is now tied to continuing the war but so that the intended target of the pain is the oligarch class and the mass of Russians who will go along until they sense vulnerability in the Kremlin. JL

Mick Ryan reports in the Lowy Institute:

The Russians suffered 43,000 casualties in July, the highest since January. This is a major increase on the average of 30,000 Russian casualties per month over the last year. The southern offensive appears to have had a dual focus of liberating territory and causing as much destruction to Russian ground forces as possible. The Ukrainians need to increase the strategic pain felt by Putin, and they might do this by mounting more offensive campaigns to take back significant amounts of Ukrainian territory over the next year. This might form part of a one-two punch (in combination with mid and long-range strikes) against Putin.

The most recent chart prepared by Russia Matters, which shows Russian gains and losses since May 2022, is below. It is unclear whether this includes the territory that Ukraine has liberated in its southern offensive operations this year.

Image: Russia Matters

Related to this has been increased Russian casualties in July. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence estimated that the Russians had suffered almost 43,000 casualties that month, one of the highest monthly totals of the war and the highest since January. This does not yet meet the requirement of 50,000 Russian casualties set by the Ukrainian president at the beginning of this year but is a major increase on the average of 30,000 Russian casualties per month over the last year. The southern offensive appears to have had a dual focus of liberating territory and causing as much destruction to Russian ground forces as possible.

This was certainly assisted by the multi-month-long mid-range strike campaign that has been undertaken by the Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces. This operational interdiction campaign has destroyed Russian tactical and operational logistics, which has limited support to both frontline and reserve Russian ground force units.

The real question about this southern offensive is whether it was designed from the start as a test of new Ukrainian ground offensive techniques or whether it began as a series of local attacks exploiting Russian weaknesses and then evolved into the broader campaign that President Zelenskyy described this week. It is fair to assess that it might well be a combination of both.

This is relevant because the Ukrainians have demonstrated throughout this war the desire and the willingness to trial evolved forms of combined arms tactics that exploit aerial and ground drone technology to dominate the tactical reconnaissance battle, to exploit the impact of Ukrainian artillery when it breaks up concentrations of Russian troops, to create the space for ground maneuver using mounted and dismounted combat troops, and to provide an array of support functions such as EW, resupply, point defence, casualty evacuation, mine emplacement and clearance and psychological operations against the Russians.

At the same time, the Ukrainians have embraced the old art of deception more and more as the war has progressed. This was a crucial enabler before the 2022 Kherson and Kharkiv offensives and before the 2024 Kursk operation and is likely to have played an important role during the southern offensive operations conducted over the past seven months or so.

What the Ukrainians are demonstrating here is a willingness to try new ideas on a battlefield which has become more visible (but not transparent) against a larger, adaptive adversary. At the surface level, the purpose is to be able to defend their territory and liberate lands occupied by the Russians. But more fundamentally, Ukraine needs to develop more effective military tools to hurt Russia even more on the ground. While it is stepping up the number of casualties it causes among the Russians each month, it needs to continue to increase Russia’s monthly casualties to 50,000 each month and perhaps even higher than this to fend off the insertion of more troops if Russia mobilises next month.

More importantly, despite the impact of the long-range strikes inside Russia over the past year against energy, defence factories, air defence systems and dual use logistics hubs like the Wildberries warehouses, Putin has not yet demonstrated any willingness to compromise on his maximalist objectives for his war against Ukraine.

Therefore, the Ukrainians need to increase the strategic pain felt by Putin, and they might potentially do this by mounting more offensive campaigns – undertaken by one of more Corps – to take back significant amounts of Ukrainian territory over the next year. This might form part of a one-two punch (in combination with mid and long-range strikes) against Putin. Not only might it change Putin’s strategic calculus, it would probably shift further the willingness of the Trump regime to support (but still not embrace) the Ukrainians as “the side that is winning the war”.