The large-scale Russian military campaign, launched on October 10, 2023, reveals an extremely disturbing picture of military operations. As of today - July 14, 2025 - Russian-occupied territories have grown by only 5,574 square kilometers, which corresponds to the territory of countries like Brunei or two Luxembourgs.
Statistical data reveal a shocking picture of human and technical losses. The Russian army has lost an impressive 756,330 military personnel - a population comparable to the population of an entire administrative region. In parallel, technical losses include 6,315 tanks and 13,982 armored combat vehicles, which calls into question the combat capability of the Russian armed forces.
Forced by a critical shortage of human resources, Russia took the unprecedented step of seeking military assistance from North Korea in 2024. The situation became so critical that Russian troops are forced to act as infantry, using primitive means of transportation - including motorcycles, light vehicles, and even animal-drawn vehicles.
Most telling is the fact that despite the large-scale offensive, the Russian army failed to capture a single regional center or strategic city. The advance has progressed only 30-45 kilometers towards Pokrovsk and Konstantinovka, and up to 65 kilometers towards the Dnipropetrovsk region.
The artillery shortage is so serious that Russia is literally begging for additional weapons from North Korea - self-propelled artillery systems, multiple rocket launch systems, and even mortars. This fact underscores the complete exhaustion of Soviet military reserves, on which the Russian military-industrial complex has traditionally relied.
At the moment, the Russian military leadership continues to maintain ambitious plans to occupy the Kherson, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhia regions, despite catastrophic losses and minimal territorial gains.
Military expert Alexander Kovalenko describes the situation as extremely dramatic - an army transformed into a literally suicidal formation that relies more on improvisation than on strategic planning.