UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps has called Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine as "Putin's pointless war".
ADVERTISEMENTThe UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has estimated that half a million Russian personnel will have been killed and wounded by 2025 if current casualties continue on the same trajectory.
In a post on X, the MoD said the average daily number of Russian casualties in Ukraine has risen by almost 300 during 2023.
They claimed the increase "almost certainly" reflects the degradation of Russia's forces and its transition to "a lower quality, high quantity mass army".
The MoD estimates it will take Russia at least five and up to 10 years to rebuild an army of highly trained and experienced military units.
British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps commented on the post, describing Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine as "Putin's pointless war."
Comparing the scale of death and injury to the Soviet-Afghan war which ran from 1979 to 1989, Shapps wrote:
"In [Vladimir] Putin's pointless war, if casualties continue at the current rate through next year, by 2025 Russia will have sustained over half a million personnel killed & wounded over 3 years of war.”
The comments come as Russia launched a fresh drone assault on Ukraine on Saturday night, saying it was retaliation for strikes apparently ordered by Kyiv earlier in the day on the Russian border city of Belgorod.