Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief has said the country has stabilised the front line and “broken Russia’s ability to advance” by killing large numbers of Russian soldiers, in an exclusive interview with the BBC.
Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi spoke to the BBC in his first interview since he was removed from his post in the summer.
He said Moscow’s overall losses in the war were six times higher than Ukraine’s, adding: “If you count only dead, then it’s up to 11 times.”
Neither Russia nor Ukraine officially publishes its casualty figures, and the general’s numbers cannot be independently verified. Ukraine’s military says it inflicted record losses on Russian soldiers in September, although that claim also cannot be verified.
UK intelligence chiefs estimate Russia has lost around half a million men killed in Ukraine since the full-scale invasion began in 2022. The US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies believes Ukraine has lost up to 150,000 troops killed by June 2026.
Front line stalemate
Syrskyi attributed the current stalemate at the front to that gap in fatalities, along with technological advances and a strategy of striking weak points in Russian lines while containing Russian advances elsewhere.
He said Russia managed to seize 61 sq km in total during the first six months of 2026. “It’s an indication that the front line has been stabilised,” he said.
The Institute for the Study of War has confirmed the trend, with a recent report saying Moscow lost more territory than it took in September 2026.
Sacking and a dispute over supplies
Syrskyi was appointed commander-in-chief in 2024, after winning praise for defending Kyiv at the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022 and for leading a successful counteroffensive east of Kharkiv that autumn.
President Volodymyr Zelensky removed him this summer amid a major disagreement with then-defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who said the army under Syrskyi had blocked his initiatives instead of adapting to the changing war.
Zelensky initially fired Fedorov as tensions between the two men became public. Mass street protests then forced the president to remove Syrskyi as well, replacing him with Maj Gen Mykhailo Drapatyi, 43.
Syrskyi told the BBC he had “disagreements” with Fedorov because the former minister “didn’t take into consideration the interests of the army” when procuring weapons and supplies.
He said Fedorov created an “imbalance” in supplies by prioritising drones while overlooking key front-line equipment such as unmanned ground vehicles, pick-up trucks and motorbikes. Even on drones, Syrskyi said, the army received only half of what it needed.
Fedorov, a popular young minister known for digital and technological initiatives, was widely contrasted with Syrskyi, whom critics considered unsuited to leading a new technological arms race with Russia.
Syrskyi rejected that criticism. He said drone use reached an unprecedented level during his tenure, including deep strikes more than 2,000km (1,200 miles) behind enemy lines. Ukraine was the first country to create the Unmanned Systems Forces as a separate branch of the armed forces under his command, he said, and drones now account for 80% of Russia’s losses.
Withdrawals and force ratios
Under his leadership, however, Ukrainian troops carried out chaotic withdrawals from the eastern cities of Avdiivka and Vuhledar, and from around Pokrovsk.
Soldiers who previously served under him told the BBC they were ordered to hold their positions at any cost, and that by the time they were told to pull back it was often too late because Russian troops had almost surrounded them.
Syrskyi did not deny that such situations occur on the front line, but said Ukraine was fighting a far more powerful army. In 2025, the ratio of jets and bombs was 18 to one in Moscow’s favour, he said, and Russia had two-and-a-half times more artillery pieces and shells than Ukraine. With four million militarily trained men available to mobilise, he argued, Russian forces can create chances to push through.
One of his best-known operations was an incursion into Russia’s Kursk region that began in August 2024 and ended with a dramatic retreat the following spring, which some soldiers described as “catastrophic”. Syrskyi insisted the Kursk operation was “a necessity”.
He said Russian forces were pushing along all main directions of the front line in summer 2024 with up to six times more troops than Ukraine had. The incursion disrupted Russia’s offensive and forced Moscow to redirect troops, giving Ukraine a respite and a chance for stretched brigades in the east and south to recover, he said.
Warning to European allies
Syrskyi also had strong words for European allies who doubt that Russia may have territorial ambitions beyond Ukraine. He advised European partners to begin preparing for war now and to “drop all illusions that [it] will not come”.
He said he believed Ukraine’s war would become even more technological, with more robots, automated systems and artificial intelligence. “Even ordinary weapons now get an AI-based control system to enhance their capabilities,” he said.
Such technologies could give new life to conventional weapons such as tanks, he said, with both Russia and Ukraine racing to develop “active systems of defence” to protect armoured vehicles.
He insisted, however, that “the human role will remain definitive [on the battlefield] because [people] will need to control those systems”.
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