The Kremlin criminal is running out of men to use as cannon fodder
As Vladimir Putin theatrically announces a one-week pause in attacking civilian targets in Ukraine, and is duly rewarded with misplaced praise from President Trump, we should be under no illusion. Putin is offering to stop his war crimes for just seven days. This is not the gesture of a confident commander; it is the manoeuvre of a leader whose army is close to breaking.
The Russian Armed Forces are in a state of profound decay. Reports now confirm that wounded convicts, many missing limbs, are being forced back to the front line to fill critical manpower gaps. Some have not even been provided prosthetics and are expected to return to combat on crutches. This is not resilience; it is desperation.
After suffering well over 1.5 million casualties in Ukraine, Putin has been scraping the bottom of the barrel for manpower. He has bought and spent 15,000 North Korean troops. Russian press gangs have scoured Africa for mercenaries. The prisons have been emptied. And now, even the limbless are being thrown back into the fight. For anyone under Putin’s rule of fighting age, or indeed anyone who can just about stand and hold a rifle, this should be a chilling reality check.
This tells us two critical things.
First, the Russian Army is haemorrhaging combat power. Independent analysis shows Russia is advancing more slowly than armies did in the trenches of the First World War, and at a comparable cost in lives. Over the past two years, Russia has seized just over 1 per cent of Ukrainian territory at the cost of more than 500,000 casualties and continues to lose around 1,000 men a day. Since early 2024, Russian forces have advanced between 15 and 70 metres per day, a damning indictment of their tactics and leadership. This would be deemed a failure even by the standards of Passchendaele and Verdun in WW1.
This is attritional warfare at its most brutal. These injured soldiers are being used as expendable “bullet catchers” in the hope that Ukraine will eventually run out of ammunition. That will only happen if we in the West allow it to.
Second, it exposes the Kremlin’s utter disregard for its own people. While ordinary Russians endure crippling inflation and soaring interest rates, Moscow pours what remains of its resources into missiles and drones to terrorise Kyiv rather than into looking after its own people. To the Kremlin, the Russian Army is simply cannon fodder. Convicts and foreign recruits are worth even less, if that is possible.
The irony is stark; if this truly reflects the state of the modern Russian Army, a relatively modest increase in Western support would almost certainly allow Ukraine to prevail.
Yes, any pause in the fighting, even for a week, should be welcomed if it leads to genuine progress. Talks in Abu Dhabi this weekend, between the US, Ukraine and Russia continue, but territory remains the central obstacle. Russia continues to demand the Donbas in full; Ukraine rightly refuses. And even as diplomacy proceeds, President Zelensky has warned that Ukrainian intelligence has detected preparations for another large-scale Russian offensive, timed to coincide with an impending cold snap.
Given how little ground Russia has taken over the last two years, it is inconceivable that this illegal invasion should be rewarded with more Ukrainian territory. UK Ministry of Defence assessments previously suggested it would take Russia another four years and around a million additional casualties to seize the provinces it wants by force. And we must not forget: Putin remains an indicted war criminal at the International Criminal Court for the abduction and indoctrination of thousands of Ukrainian children.
All indicators suggest the Russian Army is approaching its culminating point. Ukraine should be negotiating from a position of strength, not dancing like a performing bear to appease Washington while indulging Moscow’s fantasies. Once again, Europe’s most capable Nato militaries are being sidelined at the negotiating table, yet still expected to carry the burden of any eventual peace.
There have been many false dawns in this war. But with Putin rapidly running out of men to throw into the Donbas meat grinder, this may be a moment of real leverage. President Trump has a genuine opportunity to secure a historic peace, but only if he applies pressure where it belongs: on Putin, the man who can end this war, not on Zelensky, the man who cannot.
