Shoigu added that Russia could achieve its military goals with “consistent implementation of the measures in the action until 2025.”
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin and allies like Shoigu have repeatedly stressed the need to keep Ukraine inside Russia’s sphere of influence, and to defeat what they describe as Ukraine’s “Nazi regime”.
Both countries can probably sustain these high losses if they are only willing to keep committed. If we look at WW numbers.
Just a rough calculation: If Ukraine was to send 5% of their population to the front lines, they could lose 200k each year, for more than nine years. Russia obviously more.
From what I see based on the numbers, Russia only has around 1.3 million troops (including reserves, and paramilitary, who already showed disloyalty to Putin). Ukraine has around a half million.
But Russian losses have been disproportionately greater, so they could run out of fighters sooner, if things keep up the way they’ve been. But considering that Ukraine is now getting more advanced weapons and support, Russia could lose more soldiers and high-value targets faster than before.
When you factor in that Russian soldiers have almost no motivation to fight, while Ukrainians have every reason to defend their home, things don’t look good for Russia.
What can tip the balance is whether other countries decide to support Russia, then the world would be in trouble.