Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against the people of Ukraine is having disastrous consequences for workers in uniform, with Russian casualties growing at the highest rate since the invasion began nearly four years ago. Moscow continues its murderous bombardment of Ukrainian cities but is failing to crush the determination of working people there to defend their country’s national sovereignty.
Moscow launched a massive drone and missile attack against Kyiv Dec. 26. Two people were killed, 32 were injured and over a third of the capital lost power and heat.
For the last two weeks of December, Odesa, the largest port in Ukraine, was pounded by Russian drones and missiles in the worst shelling of the city since the war began. Docks and power stations were targeted with at least nine people killed.
President Donald Trump is pushing the U.S. rulers’ own interests as he tries to broker concessions from Kyiv to convince Moscow to end its war. Washington’s National Security Strategy, published in November, says its goal is to “reestablish strategic stability with Russia,” to open opportunities for profits and expanded influence. The U.S. rulers seek to tear Moscow away from its close ties to Beijing.
Putin’s regime would welcome a normalization of relations with Washington but remains determined to fight on to conquer more of Ukraine.
In 2025, Moscow suffered just under 400,000 casualties, the most in any year of the war. Yet Moscow’s forces only seized 1% more of Ukraine’s territory, without gaining any strategic objective.
“I would never have signed a contract if I’d known what it’s like out there. Our television is lying to us,” Fyodor, a soldier from Siberia, told the Washington Post. He was on a bus of wounded Russian soldiers in Olkhovatka, south of Moscow. He didn’t give his full name to avoid repercussions for criticizing the war.
Fyodor had his lower leg blown off by a mine two days before as the remnants of his unit advanced on Lyman in Ukraine. He was one of just 10 people left of the 110-strong unit he joined two years ago. Losing his leg “means that I can finally go home — alive,” he said.
“We’re fighting for fields that we cannot even take,” soldier Kirill added.
Moscow currently controls about 75% of the Donetsk province, and around 99% of neighboring Luhansk in the Donbas region. The Kremlin is demanding Kyiv’s surrender of the rest. “Either we liberate these territories by force of arms or Ukrainian troops leave,” threatened Putin. The Kremlin boasts of its short-lived battlefield gains as it tries to tilt any proposed settlement of the war further in its favor.
Russian commanders have been throwing troops into suicidal attacks to capture the ruined city of Pokrovsk. They are using a meat processing plant behind the lines to store the dead bodies of Russian soldiers because of the unprecedented number of casualties.
Business has boomed for Russia’s funeral industry. Prices for coffins have almost doubled in the past year, while the cost of gravedigging has risen. Profits for the top five burial companies rocketed in 2024 over the previous year.
Youth in Russia oppose Putin’s war
At home, the Kremlin keeps tightening its repression, hoping to stifle and break opponents of its war.
Members of the band Stoptime, Diana Loginova, known as Naoko, and Alexander Orlov, were quietly released from detention Nov. 23. They had been arrested in St. Petersburg in October for performing songs in opposition to Putin’s regime and its war to an enthusiastic crowd and many online followers.
Musicians in cities across Russia publicly performed similar songs in solidarity with them. Some were also charged as police moved to shut down dissent.
After their release, the Stoptime duo fled to Yerevan, Armenia, where they resumed performing the same songs that got them arrested. In December, Naoko performed in Lithuania in a trio with Noize MC and singer Monetochka, whose songs she was arrested for singing in Russia.
Yegor Balazeikina is one of hundreds of youth arrested for protesting the war. “Stoptime was singing what so many people already had on the tip of their tongues,” his mother, Tatiana Balazeikina, told the Post Dec. 30. “The only way for this state to remain what it is, is to cut off all these signs of dissent right at the root.”
“These young people, who essentially have nothing to lose except their freedom, are very dangerous,” she said. “And if those young people are not only capable of thinking but can also sing what they think … that’s an even bigger threat.”