Ukraine Spy Chief: Putin Can Fight Two Years

Ukraine's top spy says Vladimir Putin has, at most, two more years of war in him.

Lt. Gen. Oleh Ivashchenko, the head of Ukraine's foreign intelligence service, said this week that Russia's troop losses, falling morale and struggling economy will exhaust its ability to wage war by 2028.

"Russia has military and economic resources for the next year, but we estimate it will end in 2028," Ivashchenko told The Times, speaking at the Ukrainian military intelligence headquarters in Kyiv.

The claim landed the same week British military intelligence assessed that half a million Russian soldiers have been killed in the full-scale war, according to Sky News.

The Numbers

Ivashchenko said Russia recruits roughly 1,000 men a day, sometimes 1,200, but is losing them faster than it signs them up. "Yesterday it was 1,410, the day before it was 1,511," he said of casualties. "Of those, around 60 per cent are killed in action."

Western intelligence services are reported to assess that Russia is losing 6,000 more soldiers each month than it can recruit. Ukrainian estimates put total Russian losses since 2022 above 1.5 million troops, including as many as 450,000 dead. Figures cited in the reporting project that another 18 months of fighting would cost Russia a further 765,800 casualties — 459,480 dead and 306,320 wounded.