Sacked Ukrainian Commander Says Russia Cannot Advance
In his first interview since being removed this summer, General Oleksandr Syrskyi says Ukraine has stabilised the front and broken Russia’s ability to advance. He puts Russian losses at six times Ukraine’s, and says Moscow took a net 61 square kilometres in the first half of this year. The claim is his own.
The territorial half of the argument is independently supported: the Institute for the Study of War has confirmed the same trend, finding Moscow lost more ground than it took in September. The casualty ratio is a different matter and does not survive comparison with published estimates. He says Russian losses run six times higher, “and if you count only dead, then it’s up to 11 times”; British intelligence estimates around 500,000 Russian dead since 2022, while one Washington institute put Ukrainian deaths at up to 150,000 by June, a ratio closer to three to one. Neither side publishes its own dead. On his removal he aims not at the president but at the former defence minister, saying procurement created an “imbalance” that prioritised drones while the army went short of unmanned ground vehicles, pick-ups and motorbikes, and even on drones received “only half of what they needed”. Drones now account for 80% of Russian losses. His message to European governments was the plainest thing he said: prepare now, and “drop all illusions” that war will not come.