No, Russia Is Not Winning This War

And we should stop pretending they are

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Let me say this as clearly as I can — because too many people either don’t understand, or are choosing not to:

Russia is not winning in Ukraine.

I know that’s not what Vladimir Putin’s cheerleaders on the far-right want to hear. And I know it undercuts the narrative pushed by isolationists who’d rather abandon Ukraine than defend democracy. But let’s put aside the political spin and look at the facts on the battlefield.

Imagine it’s 2006 — three years after the United States invaded Iraq. Now imagine that after all that time, all we’d managed to control were a few dusty scraps of desert — and we’d lost 800,000 troops doing it.

Would anyone in their right mind call that a victory?

Of course not.

Yet this is exactly the situation Russia finds itself in today. After three years of brutal aggression, after launching the largest land war in Europe since World War II, all Russia has to show for it is a narrow sliver of eastern Ukraine. And the cost? Nearly one million casualties — dead, wounded, maimed, or mentally shattered. They’ve burned through elite units, armored divisions, and their modern war machine. What’s left is a grim caricature of military might.

This isn’t strategy. It’s survival wrapped in bloodshed.

Today, Russia’s advances are propped up by conscripted men barely trained for combat. They’re deploying human wave attacks — sending soldiers into gunfire with little more than rifles and hope. They’re using donkeys to haul supplies because their logistics networks are collapsing. They’re fielding tanks so old they belong in museums, not battlefields. And they’re turning to Iranian drones and North Korean troops to prop up what remains of their offensive.

Let’s be blunt: This is not what victory looks like.

This is what it looks like when a dictatorship runs out of options — and starts praying its enemies run out of patience.

People forget something fundamental about war: when you’re the defender, you don’t have to conquer. You just have to endure. Hold the line long enough, and the invader runs out of momentum, morale, and matériel. That’s what’s happening to Russia — slowly but surely.

Putin’s regime has lost its best soldiers, wasted its best weapons, and crippled its economy in a war it thought would last weeks. Now he’s betting that if he keeps grinding forward, the West will falter. That we’ll get tired. That we’ll walk away.

That’s why continued support for Ukraine is not just morally right — it’s strategically essential. We are witnessing a rare and critical moment in history: a democracy standing firm against imperial aggression — and holding the line.

If we stay the course, Ukraine can and will outlast Putin’s war machine.

And let’s be honest: if your path to victory includes 1940s tanks, mules carrying mortars, and North Korean foot soldiers, you're not conquering. You’re collapsing.

So the next time someone insists that Russia is “winning,” ask them this:

Would you feel like a winner if your last hope was a mule, a North Korean conscript, and a Soviet tank built before Elvis recorded his first song?

Didn’t think so.

We didn’t let Russia win the Cold War. We sure as hell shouldn’t let them pretend they’re winning this one.