Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine plans to significantly increase the lethality of its armed forces, arguing that sustained Russian losses are key to breaking both battlefield and diplomatic stalemates.
Speaking to military personnel on Monday, Zelenskyy said Ukrainian units must inflict damage at a rate that exceeds Moscow’s ability to replenish its forces.
“The mission is to reach a level of destruction where Russian losses are greater than the reinforcements they can deploy each month,” he said, adding that “around 50,000 Russian losses per month” would be the optimal threshold.
Rising Casualty Claims, Independent Verification Lacking
Zelenskyy said video analysis showed 35,000 Russian personnel killed or severely wounded in December 2025, up from 30,000 in November and 26,000 in October. He later clarified that the figure included combatants who would not return to the battlefield.
Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskii, offered a more cautious assessment, saying confirmed Russian fatalities in December exceeded 33,000.
Kyiv estimates that since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, approximately 1.2 million Russian troops have been killed or wounded.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies has separately estimated Russian casualties at around 1.2 million, including at least 325,000 deaths, while putting Ukrainian casualties at up to 600,000, with as many as 140,000 killed.
Those figures cannot be independently verified, and Al Jazeera has said it cannot confirm casualty estimates from either side.
Front Lines Largely Frozen
Despite the heavy losses, the war remains largely stalemated. Russia initially seized more than a quarter of Ukrainian territory in March 2022, but Ukrainian counteroffensives later pushed Russian forces out of northern regions, including Kyiv, Kharkiv, Sumy and Chernihiv.
By late 2022, Ukraine had forced Russian withdrawals east of the Oskil River in Kharkiv and from the west bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson. Russia’s territorial control fell to about 17.8 percent of Ukraine, before slowly rising to roughly 19.3 percent over the past three years.
Russian forces have struggled for months to capture two towns in eastern Donetsk despite deploying around 150,000 troops.
“In Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad, our forces continue to contain enemy infiltration attempts by small assault groups,” Syrskii said last week.
Moscow claimed last month to have seized Kupiansk, but Russian military bloggers later reported that Ukrainian forces had retaken much of the city and encircled Russian units inside it.
Drones Become the Core of Ukraine’s Strategy
Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s strategy relies heavily on domestic drone production and improving operator skills, noting that drones now account for about 80 percent of battlefield strikes.
“Over the past year alone, more than 819,000 targets were hit by drones,” he said. “Every strike is carefully recorded.”
The military has expanded a points-based incentive system that rewards drone operators based on the number and accuracy of their hits. The approach builds on a program launched in April 2024 that offered cash bonuses for destroying Russian equipment, with top payouts for capturing tanks.
Earlier this month, Zelenskyy appointed Mykhailo Fedorov as defence minister. Fedorov, formerly minister for digital transformation, has begun assembling a team focused on scaling drone production and technological innovation.
Russian Strikes Continue Amid Stalled Talks
Ukraine’s military push comes as Russia continues to strike civilian infrastructure. Last week, Moscow launched its largest attack in months, firing 375 drones and 21 missiles at Ukrainian cities and energy facilities while ceasefire talks were underway in Abu Dhabi.
The strikes knocked out power to about 1.2 million homes nationwide, including thousands in Kyiv. Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said hundreds of thousands of households remained without electricity following repeated attacks.
Russian drone strikes this week killed multiple civilians, including a young couple in Kyiv whose four-year-old daughter survived after their apartment building was hit.
Diplomacy Still at an Impasse
Ceasefire talks in Abu Dhabi ended without agreement. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was unwilling to compromise on its territorial demands, particularly in Donetsk.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said negotiations remain focused on Ukraine’s refusal to cede the remaining Donetsk territory still outside Russian control. Talks are set to resume this weekend.
Zelenskyy Criticises European Hesitation
In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Zelenskyy accused European allies of hoping the Russian threat would fade without decisive action.
He questioned whether NATO would respond decisively if Russia targeted Baltic states or Poland, warning that Europe remains unprepared without U.S. backing.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte echoed those concerns this week, saying Europe could not defend itself independently of the United States.