WASHINGTON DC – Ukraine is now in a stronger position than at any point since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Finland’s President Alexander Stubb said at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC on Monday, arguing that the war has entered a new phase shaped by attrition, drones and battlefield calculations.
“I actually think that Ukraine is in a much better place than it has been at any stage in this horrific war,” Stubb said.
He said the first year was defined by survival, the next three by resilience and 2025 by what he called “mathematics.”
“And by that I mean to say that right now, Ukraine is on top from a military perspective,” Stubb said.
He cited what he said were mounting Russian losses and the expanding role of drones in modern warfare.
“Since December, they [Ukraine] have killed somewhere around 35,000 Russian soldiers per month,” he said. “Russia is not able to recruit enough soldiers to compensate for those 35,000. Ninety-five percent of the losses are through drones.”
Stubb also pointed to what he described as a sharp casualty gap between Russia and Ukraine.
“The ratio right now is one to five,” he said. “So one Ukrainian soldier to five Russian soldiers.”
According to Stubb, Russia had paid a heavy price for limited territorial gains.
“In 2025, Russia gained less than one percentage point of territory with 400,000 casualties,” Stubb said. “The rate at which they’re going now is roughly 150 to 157 casualties per square kilometer.”
War likely to continue
Despite his more optimistic assessment of Ukraine’s position, Stubb said the most likely scenario for this year was that the war would continue.
“We work on three base scenarios for this year,” he said. “One is that the war continues. Two is that we get a peace settlement. And three is that one party or the other is weakened for external reasons, be it war on Iran or withdrawal of someone, or a collapse of the economy of Russia, whatever that may be.”
He said the first of those remained the most probable outcome.
“Our scenario right now, the most predominant one, is one, that the war will continue,” Stubb said. “That’s why I think it’s very important now that we prepare for next winter.”
Ukraine’s expanding reach
Stubb argued that another reason for optimism was Ukraine’s growing ability to strike deep inside Russia.
“Well, here’s the second reason, I think, for Ukrainian optimism at the moment,” he said. “In the month of March, there were more drones and missiles flying from Ukraine to Russia than there were coming from Russia to Ukraine.”
He cited strikes on Russia’s oil infrastructure and missile production facilities as examples of Ukraine’s growing long-range capabilities.
“Despite the peak in oil prices, Ukraine has actually hit Russia’s oil export capacity, dealing a serious blow to the financing of its war machine,” he said.
“They have also hit factories that produce Iskander missiles,” Stubb said.
Stubb argued that Ukraine had developed the ability to project force at long range in ways that would once have seemed out of reach.
“So I’m not saying they don’t need Tomahawks anymore, but we forget that in modern warfare, actually the capacity to project power a thousand, two thousand, three thousand kilometers away has been obtained by the Ukrainians,” he said.
Ukraine has a “Trump card”
Stubb also argued that Ukraine’s know-how in drones, missiles and air defense had become relevant far beyond Europe.
“Ukrainians have another, if I may, ‘Trump card’ in this situation,” Stubb said. “And that card is that how do you defend the Gulf states?”
“Do the Gulf states have the capacity to do it by themselves without Ukrainian know-how in air defense and missiles and drones? The answer is no,” he said.
That, he suggested, gives Washington a strong reason to stay engaged.
“So there is a little bit of a trade-off here, and I am quite convinced that it’s in the interest of the United States to stay engaged,” Stubb said.
He went further, arguing that Ukraine’s current military capacity is now unmatched by all but one NATO country.
“May I just push it one step further,” he said, “and that is to say that the capacity of Ukraine right now to conduct war is at such a level that there is only one country in the alliance that can come close, and that’s the United States.”
“So I am just wondering whether instead of us thinking of American or European help to Ukraine as some kind of altruism, it’s actually we that need Ukraine more than the other way around,” he concluded.