Extract from ABC News
Analysts believe Vladimir Putin will continue pursuing war, despite the losses Russia has faced. (Reuters: Maxim Shipenkov/Pool)
Among the many grim milestones of a bloody war in Ukraine that has now been going for four years was one reached recently: for the first time since its invasion, Russia has lost troops faster than it can replace them.
"In the last month, Russia actually lost more people in terms of those killed in action and grievously wounded than it's been able to actually recruit," said Fiona Hill, a renowned Russia analyst and foreign affairs expert.
"That is something of a milestone. People have always looked at that as a kind of tipping point.
"I wouldn't say that it actually is at the moment."
There are several reasons why the milestone is not a tipping point.
Few analysts are predicting an end to the hostilities in Ukraine any time soon, despite the regular flurries about peace talks.
Even fewer believe Vladimir Putin will desist from pursuing the war unless he achieves his aim: complete control over Ukraine.
In part, that's because they note that, despite the bitter winter, Russia has not been able to accelerate its ground operations or make gains.
It also reflects the fact that, while Russia has been able to continue spending about 9 per cent of its GDP and 40 per cent of its government budget on the war effort, low oil prices and constraints on its resource exports are gradually becoming a constraint.
Dr Hill is a renowned expert on Russian affairs who worked as an advisor to US President Donald Trump during his first term in office.
She gained particular fame for her blunt rebuttal, in 2019 testimony before Congress, of the Trump camp's claims that it was Ukraine, rather than Russia, that had meddled in the 2016 US elections in favour of the Democrats.
Dr Hill also confirmed that Mr Trump had tried to extort Ukraine for personal political advantage.
Fiona Hill testifies in 2019 as part of the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump.
These days, she serves as both chancellor of Durham University and as a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
The ABC spoke to Dr Hill as the fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine approached for her assessment of Russia's military and economic capacity to continue its military campaign and, as a result, what the prospects are for an end to the war anytime soon.
She paints a fascinating picture of economic questions and demographic shocks — but most strikingly, of a Russia that is likely to emerge from the war in Ukraine as a diminished force, and one that is already seen by some of its former allies and dependents as a declining power as a result of its inability to win in Ukraine.
Russia has the capacity to 'keep going' in war
That doesn't mean Russia is in any way losing the war at present either.
"I think from the point of view of anybody who's hoping for peace, the prospects are not really great at the moment," Dr Hill said.
"Russia certainly has the capacity to keep going for the foreseeable future, certainly through this year."
Russia has been signing hundreds of thousands of recruits each year. (Reuters: Maxim Shemetov)
The fall-off in recruiting numbers certainly "ups the ante for Putin" in terms of recruiting people, she says.
"This is a war of attrition, so it really does get down to your manpower, not just your equipment in terms of the availability of drones or shells or bullets or any of the material that we're thinking about in the war," she said.
"But he is still able to literally 'press gang' people into the conflict to fight on the front."
This highlights a particular aspect of this war that Dr Hill thinks people need to bear in mind: "the war is now being conducted by state mercenaries".
Former presidential advisor Fiona Hill talks about where Russia stands after four years of war.
"This is extraordinarily unusual in terms of Russian history, or the history of other modern states: that Russia is actually fighting this war essentially on the back of a mercenary war, or one of contract soldiers, not conscripts," she said.
"There are pretty high payments for people to fight. And he's particularly recruiting people from the poorest regions of Russia.
"This is actually an opportunity, as horrific as that might be."
Russia is also bringing in people from ethnic minorities such as groups from Siberia and the Caucasus, as well as sourcing soldiers from abroad, she says.
Reports have emerged of Russia recruiting thousands of soldiers through an official agreement with North Korea, as well as finding fighters from Africa, China, India, Pakistan and elsewhere.
There are now also large non-fighting workforces from Central Asia and other neighbouring countries recruited into the Russian service economy.
But tensions have arisen in recent months as a growing number of Indian students, lured to Russia by the prospect of jobs, are attacked in the street.
"So for now, Putin has the wherewithal in terms of manpower and also in terms of equipment," Dr Hill said.
"They're producing a lot of military equipment now. The economy is really geared up to be a wartime economy. They've got enough to keep this war going from their part."
A 'highly paid fighting force' could come back to bite
The heavy recruitment of mercenaries has had other effects, too, including changing the nature of the Russian military because of the high contract payments.
Dr Hill says there are many questions around what happens to the military in the longer term, too, given that Russia's army is now a "highly paid fighting force".
"The whole expectation would certainly be if you've joined the military, that if the war ends, you'll still be paid at these same kinds of rates as in wartime, which now is highly unlikely," she said.
"There's also really the longer-term question about the size of the Russian military after the war.
"If the war ever ends, certainly in the next few years, what happens to soldiers who are demobilised? How do they get jobs? What happens to people who are coming back from the front in terms of they'll expect some compensation?"
The slogan on a sign in St Petersburg reads: "Our dear ones. Our heroes. God bless you!" (Reuters: Anton Vaganov)
In the event of the war ending, it will also take some time for Russia to transition from a "wartime economy" to something more mixed, Dr Hill said.
The proliferation of highly-paid mercenaries will also complicate this transition.
"Russia may want to go back to a kind of weapons-exporting economy as it was before, at least making weapons exports part of its manufacturing mix," she said.
"But there's going to be all of these questions about how you would absorb or reabsorb the manpower that's gone off to the front.
"How you would compensate them, and do you run the risk of having a much more violent society as people with many grievances come back and start to shift the societal perspective post-war?"
In addition to shifting the economy's industrial base, the war has also profoundly changed Russia's demographics, Dr Hill said.
It's estimated that up to one million people left the country in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, and only a small number have since returned.
"Russia already had some labour shortages, ironically, before the war, and is going to have that again," she said.
"You're also going to see a decline, honestly, in Russia demographically."
Russia paying a 'high price' to keep war going
Beyond manpower, the striking feature of the Ukraine War — across many European countries — has been the transformative impact it has had on economies.
Russia relied for a long time on importing many of the new technologies, notably from Iran and China.
How Australian defence companies are benefitting from war in Europe. (The Business)
The Russian economy itself has the advantage — from a war perspective — of still being run as part of an autocracy. But its history means it has never exactly had a reputation for being flexible.
Dr Hill says Russia achieves the rare double of being "both flexible and inflexible simultaneously".
"On the one hand, they're obviously not as innovative and adaptive on the ground as the Ukrainians have proven to be," she said.
One example she points to is how, initially, Russia was behind on changes in technology and had to import most of its drones from Iran.
But "one of the real strengths of an autocratic system is you can really direct attention and resources towards something that you put as a national security priority and imperative".
"Vladimir Putin and Russia have really benefited from the fact that they actually have a crack team of economists," Dr Hill said.
"They have an excellent head of the central bank. They have all kinds of other technocrats, and they've put everybody's attention toward making sure that the Russian economy can be adapted towards the exigencies of war."
An ad promoting contract military service in the Russian army's unmanned systems forces. (Reuters: Anton Vaganov)
Maintaining the flow of components, and their cost, has been difficult because of sanctions, but "they're still getting components, especially with the help of a whole host of neighbouring and other countries".
Reports have emerged of China helping Russia with drone production and providing components.
There have also been costly workarounds, such as the "shadow fleet" used to move Russian energy exports.
"They've continued to be able to source components from the West, from the United States frankly, and also from Europe," Hill says. But it's come through all kinds of middlemen.
"So we see Putin paying a high price in terms of manpower on the battlefield — a really high price, a ridiculously high price from anyone's perspective — but also paying a high price commercially and economically in terms of the cost of being able to access the components that you need to keep the war going."
This raises the underlying question of whether Russia can afford the war.
The 'horrific cost' of Russia's war gains
Some analysts argue that the Russian economy is devouring itself to support the war effort.
Dr Hill thinks those assessments are right.
"Russia is drawing down all of its reserves, financial and material reserves, and its manpower reserves," she said.
"There will be limits, but they haven't reached those limits at this particular point. They continue to bring in revenue, particularly from oil and also from other commodities.
"Putin's bet is that the West and Ukraine and others will deplete their resources first. That's what he's banking on.
"He's banking what he can't necessarily win on the battlefield, wanting to win it politically, and also just by exhausting and grinding down Ukraine."
Vladimir Putin is banking on Ukraine depleting its resources first, says Dr Hill. (Reuters: Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool)
The Russian bombardment of Ukraine's national infrastructure — as we are witnessing with the brutal targeting of civilian power and heating in a bitterly cold winter — is central to this strategy, Dr Hill said.
She said Putin was also betting on the faltering political will of the West to intervene, particularly the United States, to tip the war in his favour.
"So as Russia was depleting its own stocks and reserves, Putin is really taking advantage in the fact that Donald Trump and the United States want to wipe their hands of all of this," Dr Hill said.
Dr Hill doesn't believe there is much chance of a breakthrough in ending the war in the next twelve months, though much rests on whether "the Europeans can really get their act together".
"If Europe can really step up and step in and help Ukraine in more concrete ways, it may enable Ukraine to really block any further ability of Russia to move forward on the ground.
"Russia is making incremental territorial gains all the time, but at horrific cost.
"And the Ukrainian strategy is, I guess, effectively rather horrible and crude: block and bleed.
"Block the Russians from being able to advance and bleed them in terms of more and more casualties in the hope that that actually stops, eventually, Putin in his tracks."
Allies' hopes to distract Trump with Ukraine dashed
The war has also brought about significant, yet often overlooked, changes in Russia's relationships with other countries and even its standing in the world.
This is a question, Dr Hill says, that people don't really consider often enough "because they're all looking at that frame about 'where is this war going to end?' and 'what about the US and Russia?'"
"What we all need to pay attention to is the fact that none of this happens in a vacuum," she said.
"The war in Ukraine has completely transformed the way other countries look at it.
"It may be the case that China, Iran, and North Korea have lent support to Russia, but it's not because of what we might think of their irreducible alliances with Russia, and the way that they think of Russia as a superpower.
"They have all lent support to Russia because they thought that this war had become a proxy war with the United States and they wanted to deal blows to the United States."
Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping pictured together in Moscow in May 2025. (Reuters: Evgenia Novozhenina)
But the idea that an ongoing war in Ukraine would drag down or distract the United States hasn't played out as they'd hoped.
"China still doesn't want Russia to lose in the war. It doesn't necessarily want it to win either," Dr Hill said.
"The Chinese have told the Europeans many times when they've been asked, 'Why are you continuing to support Russia? And why do you want Russia to win?' that, 'Well, if we wanted Russia to win, they would have won.'
"Also, if they wanted Russia to lose, Russia would probably have lost.
"China is, again, just gauging their support and playing all of this out, gaming it out, really, as to how it affects the United States one way or another."
The same is true of North Korea and Iran, she says: support for Russia has been built on antipathy towards the United States and their own beef with the United States.
Even in Europe, Russia's perceived power is diminishing
Russia has also "really lost its position in the broader region".
Former Soviet states are now looking more to the United States than to Russia for help with diplomacy, she says.
"We just had Vice President JD Vance go to both Armenia and Azerbaijan and take credit for what seems to be a sort of a successful movement in the relations between those two countries," she said.
"That relationship was already shifting and changing. But now the US can take advantage of it, rather than Russia."
Dr Hill says Russia has forfeited, in many respects, a position it had before the war. (Reuters: Sputnik/Vyacheslav Prokofyev)
More broadly, according to Dr Hill, "a lot of other countries are seeing the Russians as a spent force."
"They see Russia as a secondary power now," she said.
"Lots of other countries see the very fact that Russia's not been able to defeat Ukraine as actually a sign that Russia is declining and has declined really seriously in military power."
Other countries are also trying to take advantage of Russia's weakened position, Dr Hill said.
"Sweden and Finland are joining NATO. Europeans are talking about different military configurations at Russia's expense.
"And they are all talking about how a new European military set of arrangements has just to be better than Russia — not to replace the United States, but just be better than Russia."
Russian service members take part in a military parade in May 2025. (Reuters: Maxim Shemetov)
And although Russia "still remains a formidable military force", Dr Hill says it's widely viewed as "bogged down in Ukraine".
"Russia has actually forfeited, in many respects, a position that it had before the war in Ukraine, as a result of this war dragging on for so long," she said.
"Everyone assumed — everybody, including the Ukrainians — that Russia would be able to prevail in a matter of days, weeks, or months for sure, not years, and this special military operation would have been resolved in Russia's favour.
"Nobody thought we would be in the fifth year of this war, the largest land war in Europe since World War II, and have casualties approaching two million, or maybe over 2 million in terms of people killed and injured."
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