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The US made another push for a peace deal a week ago, but no breakthrough has been reported.
For months, Western commentators have argued Russia’s war machine is running on fumes.
The picture from Kyiv’s military intelligence is more sobering. Labor is scarce, the federal budget is bleeding, and Russian banks are strained, but the Kremlin still has enough to keep grinding forward for years to come.
That was the message from Oleh Ivashchenko, head of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR), in an interview with Ukrinform published on Monday.
Asked how long Russia can bankroll the war, he said his agency does not rule out “that this resource will be sufficient for 2027 and 2028.”
The assessment cuts against the narrative that the Russian economy is on the verge of buckling.
Ivashchenko pointed to a severe labor shortage, a widening federal budget deficit and growing strain in the banking system, real pressures, but not fast enough to force a halt on the battlefield in the near term.
A daily toll of 1,200 to 1,500
Ivashchenko put a number on what that grind costs. Russian forces are losing “1,200 to 1,400 people” a day on average, “sometimes 1,500,” counting those killed and severely wounded, Ukrainska Pravda reported, citing the interview.
Those figures are the most specific public estimate from Ukraine’s military intelligence in months, and they help explain why voluntary contract signings are drying up inside Russia.
Ivashchenko has previously told the president’s office that the Kremlin is preparing an additional mobilization of roughly 600,000 people across 2026 and 2027, split evenly between the two years, the Kyiv Independent reported on August 27.
Front companies keep the parts flowing
The financial staying power, Ivashchenko argued, rests in part on a supply chain that Western sanctions have failed to sever.
A “vast network of front companies,” he told Ukrinform, is importing the electronic components, machine tools and specialized chemicals that feed Russia’s war effort.
He called on Kyiv’s partners to coordinate more tightly to shut those routes down, singling out enforcement rather than the design of the sanctions themselves as the weak point.
Domestic mood is turning, slowly
Ivashchenko also disclosed a GUR estimate that “more than 60%” of Russians no longer support the war, a shift he tied to the deteriorating economy and the heavy losses at the front.
He was more cautious about what comes next: “We expect public discontent to grow, though it is difficult to say whether a powerful enough protest movement will emerge.”
