New Delhi, July 24 -- the most lethal year of the Russian military operation in Ukraine by any measure of Russian casualties, alongside some of the most effective long-range strikes of the conflict.

Ukrainian military figures released by Kyiv's General Staff put Russian troops killed or wounded in 2026 at 193,500 as of this week, a pace that outstrips every prior calendar year of the conflict. Russia's territorial gain during the same period stands at 81.1 square kilometres. That combination of mass losses against near-zero ground taken defines a military situation that looks substantially different depending on whether one studies the casualty lists or the map.

The officials removed in the shake-up were not peripheral figures. Mykhailo...