MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Peace efforts in the Russia-Ukraine war appear to be going nowhere. Neither side appears ready for significant concessions. The fighting remains intense. So how long can each side wage war at this level? Well, we've called on NPR's Charles Maynes in Moscow and NPR's Greg Myre, who is just back in Washington after a month reporting in Ukraine. Welcome to both of you.
GREG MYRE, BYLINE: Hey, Mary Louise.
CHARLES MAYNES, BYLINE: Hi there.
KELLY: So Greg, I'll let you kick us off. Ukraine is a big country, but it's a lot smaller than Russia. Where is it weakest as this war grinds on and on and on?
MYRE: It's really troops. Ukraine has fewer troops than Russia, and the strain just grows as the war grinds on. Many of their front-line troops have been killed or injured, and they're having trouble replacing them with other well-trained recruits. Now, to compound the problem, Ukraine has really bad demographics. It has a shortage of young men and it doesn't conscript them until they reach the age of 25. They can volunteer before then, but not that many do. When I was walking around the streets of Kyiv and other cities, it's striking how many young, civilian men you see in these places.
Now, Ukraine has launched a recruitment program this year for 18- to 24-year-olds. They can receive a sizable bonus if they sign up. We haven't been able to find any hard numbers but so far, the response appears pretty limited.
KELLY: That's something, Charles, they've tried on the Russian side, too - right? - big signing bonuses, like thousands and thousands of dollars. Is that the main way that they're raising troops for the Russian army?
MAYNES: It wasn't always. It's important to remember that Russia lost most of its elite troops early on in the war, really due to a huge miscalculation by Putin and his generals who thought there would be minimal resistance with the invasion. So there have been, really, stages of Russia trying to reassemble its fighting force. Partial mobilization in the fall of 2022 dragged 300,000 civilians into the army. But it was very unpopular. I think you may remember those images of thousands of young, Russian men fleeing the country.
KELLY: Yeah.
MAYNES: They've also tried recruiting convicts, essentially giving them a chance to fight for their freedom, which, of course, was controversial but also limited in scope. And so, you're right. You know, the solution has been money. There are huge payouts and signing bonuses for Russian contract soldiers and newfound privileges for military families. And this has all been effective in attracting people from Russia's poorer regions, in particular. These are small towns and cities in Russia's interior. So Russia seems to have enough soldiers to fight. The problem is these troops often aren't well-trained. They're just not prepared for the battle.
KELLY: Yeah, well, which leads to the next thing I want to ask you about, which is casualty figures. These have been hard to pin down on both sides. So I want you to catch us up on what we know. Greg, you first, then Charles.
MYRE: Yeah, Mary Louise, we know the numbers are staggering, but it's just been impossible to get solid figures since neither side gives an overall number. Now, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently cited what he described as a fairly typical day. He said Russia had about a thousand dead, wounded or captured, collectively. Ukraine had about 340 troops in those three categories.
KELLY: And again, this is per day.
MYRE: Per one day.
KELLY: Yeah.
MYRE: One day. And he said this was a normal day, both in the numbers and the ratios. And it is pretty much in line with other estimates. So overall, since the full-scale war began, Ukraine has suffered perhaps somewhere around 400,000 military casualties. This could include up to 100,000 dead, 300,000 injured. This is an estimate by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
KELLY: Just staggering. Just staggering. Charles, what about on the Russian side?
MAYNES: Yeah, you know, various monitoring groups and think tanks put the Russian casualty toll - that's dead and wounded combined - are at around 1 million, with about a quarter of those fatalities. Russia's defense ministry now hasn't officially updated its figures since the early days of the war. President Vladimir Putin only talks in ratios. He claims, in fact, the opposite of what Greg describes, that for every Russian soldier lost, there are exponentially more lost on the Ukrainian side.
What I can say is that if you visit a graveyard, a substantial amount of plots are devoted to war dead. And increasingly in the city - in cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg, for example, you see at train stations and airports men missing limbs or otherwise disfigured, often dressed in fatigues.
KELLY: So I want to put to you, Charles Maynes, the question that I kicked off with Greg Myre. The - where is Russia most vulnerable in a sustained war, which is clearly what we're heading toward?
MAYNES: Well, the most obvious concern here is running out of money to pay these soldiers. Russia's economy has surprised many with its resiliency despite an onslaught of Western sanctions. But there are signs of trouble. The economy is increasingly shown weak growth, and there are high interest rates that continue to squeeze borrowing and, you know, skyrocket prices here. Signing bonuses for troops are actually going down now in some regions, meaning that at least some governors are looking at their budgets and realize they can't keep this up.
Meanwhile, Russia's vulnerable in other ways. You know, Ukrainian attacks on oil refineries are causing problems, including outright gas shortages in some regions. And there's always the threat, again, on and off, of Trump - President Trump issuing sanctions on Russian energy exports, which is what drives the Russian economy. Will Trump go that far? Well, he's repeatedly backed off previous threats, but I don't think anybody really knows, including Russia.
KELLY: So we have talked through manpower or lack thereof. Let me turn you to hardware, to weapons. Greg, where is Ukraine going to get weapons now that President Trump effectively is halting U.S. military aid.
MYRE: Ukraine is really ramping up their own production. They say they make about 40% of their own weapons now, and that's rising pretty rapidly. This is most evident with drones. Ukraine says it makes more than 90% of the drones it uses, and they keep getting better and hitting deeper and deeper inside Russia. Now, Ukraine also says they've developed a powerful missile that can travel 1,800 miles. It's called the Flamingo. Ukraine hopes to start full-scale production soon, so it's not yet proven but a clear sign of what Ukraine is trying to do. I just attended a conference on Ukraine's rapidly growing defense industry. I met a guy named Yaroslav Azhnyuk, who runs two new companies making drones and drone parts.
YAROSLAV AZHNYUK: Well, I lived in Silicon Valley for six years. I went through a very classic startup journey. Ukraine today is the defense valley of the world. You sit in a cafe in Kyiv and you met one defense founder, and then 30 minutes later, another defense tech founder passes by. The energy here is just incredible.
MYRE: So Ukraine still needs the West for larger, more powerful weapons. Europe is trying to step up under this plan where it can buy weapons from the U.S. and give them to Ukraine. We'll have to see how that works out.
KELLY: And meanwhile, Russia is relying on foreign support from the likes of China, also Iran, North Korea. Charles, how's that support holding up?
MAYNES: Well, the scenes out of China this week, where Putin met with the leaders of China, North Korea and Iran, suggest they're holding up quite well. You know, Iran was central to helping Russia develop its domestic drone industry. China remains the key lifeline to Russia's economy, both through its purchase of Russian energy, but also export of dual-use technologies back into Russia. So we're talking computer chips that find their way into some weapons. But North Korea has proven itself essential to Russia's actual military campaign. One estimate by the Open Source Centre - this is a U.K.-based research group - found Pyongyang had provided some 40% of all shells fired by Russia since 2023, and that looks unlikely to change.
KELLY: NPR's Charles Maynes in Moscow and NPR's Greg Myre, who's just wrapped up a reporting month in Ukraine, now back here in Washington. Thanks to you both.
MAYNES: Thank you.
MYRE: Thanks, Mary Louise.
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