Early in the war I assessed the balance between Russia and Ukraine via the example of the Iran-Iraq War and judged Ukraine had the GDP edge and that Russia's population edge didn't give it the advantage you would expect. The GDP edge and casualty edge is now clearly in Ukraine's favor.
Well hello arsenal of democracy:
A prominent Russian ultranationalist military and political commentator claimed that Western economic potential is “orders of magnitude” larger than Russia’s and is becoming militarily evident as “Western-backed” Ukrainian drone strikes against Russia have increasingly involved hundreds of drones.[1] The commentator claimed that the size of such strikes will only increase, and that Russia cannot produce enough interceptor missiles to compete with Western economic potential[.]
So Ukraine has the edge in the production war, notwithstanding Europe's slow pace of restoring their defense industrial base. Not that ours is blazing fast except by comparison.
And to add insult to injury:
The European Union (EU) will transfer €1.4 billion in proceeds from frozen Russian assets to aid Ukraine.
As for casualties, Ukraine seems to be inflicting KIAs at more than twice the numbers overall, with 200,000 Ukrainian troops killed and 460,000 Russian troops killed (using maximum estimates for both).
Over the last year Ukraine has leaned into a thin line that trades space for time to kill Russian soldiers. That seems to indicate Ukraine has a much higher kill ratio than the overall ratio.
The cumulative effect of that attrition combined with Russia's communications problems have translated to changes on the battlefield (back to the ISW report):
Russian pro-war information space voices are beginning to acknowledge Ukraine’s frontline successes, mid-range BAI campaign, and drone adaptations. A prominent Russian ultranationalist milblogger complained on March 26 that Russian forces will be unable to reverse an unfavorable battlefield situation in the coming months and that “rather successful” Ukrainian counterattacks have disrupted Russia’s ability to pursue offensive efforts in 2026.
Back in July 2022, based on a comparison to Iran and Iraq in their 1980s war, I wrote that Russia didn't necessarily have an advantage in people and economic strength that would enable Russia to bulldoze through Ukraine in the short run:
Like Iran, Russia has a 3:1 advantage in population. But Russian morale as a conqueror, that is clearly not liberating people from Nazis, is not superior. This could break Russia before Ukraine. Just how do we define the transition from the short run to the long run?
What about GDP and defense spending? You'd think Russia clearly has the edge with a 9:1 GDP advantage.
But Russia is under Western sanctions that will harm Russia's ability to go to war production levels. Russian Soviet-era stockpiles will run low in time--or reach the material and ammo almost more dangerous to Russian users than Ukrainian targets.
And Ukraine is being supplied by the West, which has an immensely greater GDP advantage than Russia's advantage over Ukraine. So you can't just count the value of the arms and services provided to Ukraine when comparing the economic advantage. You'd have to count the research and development and logistics value on Ukraine's side of the ledger that provides the weapons, supplies, and services.
Russia’s position on the battlefield has changed over the past six months (October 2025 through March 2026) as Ukrainian counterattacks and mid-range strikes, the block on Russia’s use of Starlink terminals in Ukraine, and Kremlin efforts to throttle Telegram have exacerbated existing issues within the Russian military.
Maybe this is just a blip in Ukraine's favor. It is tempting--and safer--to say things tomorrow will be the same as yesterday. And after the same old thing for years now, with only the obvious blip of Ukraine's 2024 offensive into Russia's Kursk region to break the trend, it would be easy to call this another blip that doesn't change the trajectory of the war.
But it seems significant. Is the war on the knife's edge finally tilting in Ukraine's favor?
NOTE: ISW updates continue here.
NOTE: Also, I put war-related links and commentary in the Weekend Data Dump on Substack. You may read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved.
NOTE: Territorial change chart from ISW.
