Russia has nearly three times the population of Ukraine, a far bigger economy, and a military budget that dwarfs anything Kyiv has. Russia also recruited soldiers from Cuba and North Korea to bolster its ranks. So why does Russia not control the country it invaded? Why did a war that looked like it might be over in weeks turn into something that resembles trench warfare of the First World War?
I went looking for an answer, and each one reinforced the others. Corruption gutted the Russian military from the inside. Ukraine’s defenders had geography, motivation, and Western intelligence on their side. Most of all, cheap drones rewrote the war just as this fight began. Understanding it changes how you read every news story that comes out of this war.
For decades, Russia’s military operated a system where money meant for tanks, uniforms, and fuel had a way of disappearing before it reached the front. Independent watchdog groups tracking military corruption found that graft took a significant share of Russia’s defence budget and had become so normalised that officers and quartermasters treated it as perks of the job.
The consequences became visible once the invasion started. Soldiers had been accused of selling fuel in Belarus, grants meant for military-grade radios had been embezzled, and winter clothing had been sold off by senior officers. Convoys advancing toward Kyiv in the opening days ran out of fuel because so much of that fuel had already been sold. Reserve tanks pulled out of storage to reinforce the front sometimes turned out to be broken. When old T-72 tanks were shipped from storage depots in March 2022, they reportedly arrived without electronics, optics, or even engines, all of it looted before the war. Even the explosive-reactive armour meant to protect tank crews had been hollowed out, leaving the crews far more vulnerable than Russians realised.
In March 2022, the head of Ukraine’s National Agency on Corruption Prevention sent a formal letter of gratitude to Russia’s defence minister, thanking him for the invaluable contribution that corruption had made to Ukraine’s defence. The letter reaffirmed that Russia’s military had been quietly cannibalised long before it crossed into Ukraine.
Many of the troops involved didn’t know they were about to invade Ukraine. Soldiers had been told they were participating in routine exercises, and some continued selling off their unit’s fuel supplies until the invasion began. Trucks arrived at the front with worn-out tires. Conscripts, in some cases, had to bring along their own gear because the equipment that was supposed to be waiting for them had already been sold off by people responsible for supplying it.
None of this excuses what happened to Ukraine, but it helps explain why an army stumbled so badly. You can’t fight a modern war with equipment that exists on paper.
Russia’s original invasion plan depended on speed and a belief that key figures in Ukraine had already been paid off. The idea was to move fast enough to topple the government, then take control while global outrage was still reacting.
That plan required an airborne assault on Hostomel Airport outside Kyiv to create an air bridge with Belarus so that troops and equipment could be flown directly into the capital. Ukrainian forces held the airport against that assault, and Russia’s paratroopers couldn’t establish a foothold. Without it, Russian forces were forced to fall back on a slower conventional land invasion from the border.
There’s also reason to believe that the bribe money meant to buy Ukrainian officials never reached its recipients. A war plan built on the assumption that resistance would collapse from within left Russia with no functional backup plan once it failed miserably.
One of the oldest principles in military strategy is the defender’s advantage. An army defending a position gets to choose the ground, dig in, and force an attacker to come to them across open terrain while exposed to fire. An attacker has to cross that same terrain while carrying the fight to a prepared enemy, then somehow hold ground against counterattacks. This has shaped wars for centuries, and it’s a major reason why Russia’s early territorial gains are difficult to extend.
Ukraine’s landscape makes this advantage even more pronounced. A large portion of the country is farmland. An advancing Russian unit often has to cross open, exposed fields while Ukrainian defenders fire from cover that is already there. Add drone reconnaissance and thermal imaging, and an open field becomes a kill zone long before any Russians set foot in it.
If corruption and geography explain why Russia’s advance stalled, drones explain why it has stayed that way. This war has been fought with drones that no previous conflict has seen, and it has changed the battlefield. Ukraine, unable to afford heavy casualties the way Russia can, leaned into drones out of necessity. Ukrainian forces were among the first to drop grenades from small drones, the first to weaponise FPV drones, and the first to build ambush tactics around drone reconnaissance and artillery.
A first-person-view (FPV) drone capable of destroying an armoured vehicle can cost a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, while the vehicle it destroys can cost millions. That has turned drones into the most cost-effective weapon on the battlefield. It’s also produced strange or improvised scenes, like Ukrainian pilots flying old propeller aircraft to shoot down exploding drones with shotguns.
The economic pressure this has placed on Russia’s supply chains runs deep. Ukrainian forces have targeted Wildberries warehouses because those warehouses are a supply channel for military equipment. Russian soldiers have reportedly had to buy their own gear online because official supply chains couldn’t be trusted to provide it.
Since Russia’s invasion in 2022, America has provided a large share of its aid in the form of military equipment, ranging from air defence systems to armoured vehicles. A significant part of the money tied to that aid never left the United States at all. Much of the funding has gone toward expanding America’s own defence industrial base and replenishing stockpiles sent to Ukraine, with contracts going to American defence manufacturers to rebuild the inventory that had been sent overseas.
A large share of what gets described in headlines as aid to Ukraine is, in practice, the United States sending ageing weapons to Ukraine. The contracts to build that replacement equipment go to American companies, employing Americans in American factories. Ukraine benefits from receiving the equipment, and independent analyses have found that when you strip out administrative overhead, loan guarantees, and domestic spending, the portion that represents direct support to Ukraine is much smaller than media claims.
Corruption in Russia’s military has also poisoned the flow of information up the chain of command. Russian political officers are embedded throughout military units to monitor loyalty and enforce compliance. An officer who reports a problem honestly risks arrest or worse, which creates pressure to say that everything is going according to plan, regardless of what’s happening.
Each level of command has an incentive to tell the one above it what it wants to hear, and by the time information reaches the top, it no longer reflects reality on the battlefield. Generals with real skill or integrity have sought retirement rather than continue operating in a system that punishes honesty. Militaries built on fear of the leader rather than accountability produce dysfunction, and Russia’s current structure is an example of it.
Also, there has been growing domestic resistance to any broad draft, and the Kremlin has relied on a patchwork of incentives to fill its ranks. Reinforcements from North Korea have added numbers, but by most independent accounts, those troops have struggled with inadequate supplies, unfamiliar terrain, and limited coordination with Russians.
Ukraine’s position looks almost opposite. Facing an existential threat to their homes, having witnessed documented human rights abuses in occupied territories, and living under direct bombardment, Ukrainian society has mobilised in a way that gives its forces a level of motivation that’s difficult to manufacture through incentive payments alone.
Military strategists have long argued that wars are ultimately decided by intelligence and logistics. Knowing where an enemy is moving and being able to reliably supply your own forces matters more. Ukraine has benefited enormously from Western intelligence sharing, giving its forces a clearer picture of Russian troop movements and priority targets. Western military logistics, built up over decades of global operations, has also played a significant role in advising Ukrainian planning, even with reduced American aid.
Russia’s own logistics network has struggled throughout the war, hampered by the same corruption that hollowed out its equipment before the invasion began. Ukrainian forces have increasingly targeted Russian supply routes and depots, understanding that cutting off an army’s ability to resupply itself can be more effective than any battlefield engagement.
Understanding why this war has ground into a stalemate is a reminder that the size of an army tells you very little about how it will actually perform. Corruption, morale, logistics, and the willingness to fight matter more than raw numbers, and all of that is still unfolding. If you want to stay grounded in what’s actually happening, follow independent, well-sourced reporting, whether that’s about troop numbers, aid figures, or territorial claims.
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