Thread by @WarintheFuture

For the first time since the invasion, Russia is losing more troops than it can recruit. Net territorial movement over the past three months has favoured Ukraine. Part 1 of my new assessment, I explore how Russia is "Losing on Every Dimension" - military, cognitive, moral, industrial and economic. 1/7 🧵

2/ MILITARY. In 2025 Russia paid roughly 200 casualties per square mile taken. In the first five months of 2026, with a net gain of 17 square miles, it paid over 9,600 per square mile. The meat grinder is grinding through Russian men faster than Russia can produce them. Tactical operations are now unified with mid-range and long-range strikes.

3/ COGNITIVE. Russia's narratives are decoupling from a battlefield made visible by open-source reporting. When Putin has to ask Ukrainian permission to hold parades, and cannot hold an international forum without a Ukrainian attack, his narrative about inevitable war crashes.

4/ MORAL. Over 180,000 registered war crimes. A Gulf realignment toward Kyiv. A contracting sphere of influence across Moldova, Hungary and Armenia. And on 7 June, a Shahed strike on a spent-fuel facility near Chornobyl. This is conduct that will be almost impossible to rehabilitate over time.

5/ INDUSTRIAL. Russian defence output grew 20 to 30 per cent a year in 2023 and 2024. It is now projected at 5 to 7 per cent. Ukraine's industry meets more than half its own needs, is targeting 7 million drones in 2026, and is embedding itself in European production.

6/ ECONOMIC. The fiscal sugar rush of 2023 and 2024 is over. Higher oil prices from the Iran war offer relief, but Ukraine's "long-range sanctions" are now degrading the terminals and refineries needed to convert that price into revenue.

7/ Five dimensions, and only one direction for Putin. art 2 turns to the conditions that could still rescue Putin's war, and to what a Russian defeat should actually mean. Read Part 1 here: mickryan.substack.com/p/losing-on-ev…