Thread by @GrahamTAllison

1/ Ukraine War: Who is winning, who is losing?

At the end of the 4th year of the full-scale war in Ukraine, many are asking: who is winning and who is losing? The answer is obviously complicated, but for comparing narrative vs. numbers, consider the following questions:

2/ Who has achieved more of its core objectives? When he ordered a massive invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Putin intended to erase Ukraine from the map. Most Western intelligence agencies gave him better than even odds of succeeding. Remarkably, Zelensky and his colleagues remained determined to fight for the survival of their country. Despite huge physical losses, Ukraine is a stronger nation today than it was before it was invaded.

3/ Who has seized more territory? Over the past four years, Russia has captured 29,191 square miles of Ukrainian land (13% of the country, or roughly equivalent to half the U.S. state of Illinois). Ukraine’s brief adventure into the Russian oblast of Kursk was stymied and completely reversed.

4/ Who has more citizens displaced? Nearly 1/4 of all Ukrainians have been displaced following the outbreak of the war, with 6.9 million migrating within the country while the other 3.7 million have gone abroad. While up to a million Russians initially left the country in 2022, somewhere between 15% and 45% of them have since returned.

5/ Whose economy has suffered more? Despite announcements about Western sanctions strangling Russia’s economy, in the first three years of the war, Russia’s economy grew by 8%. Since the start of the war, Ukraine’s economy has shrunk by more than 20%.

6/ Who suffered more casualties? Western sources estimate that Russian casualties (dead and wounded) are about twice those of Ukraine: 1.2 million vs. 600,000. But the Russian population is more than three times the size of Ukraine’s. Moreover, as Napoleon, Hitler and others would testify: no one has ever won a war of attrition against Russia.

7/ For a more refined and detailed assessment of the Russia-Ukraine War, I recommend
@RussiaMatters’ weekly Ukraine War Report Card.
russiamatters.org/news/russia-uk…