Finnish President Alexander Stubb argues that Russia's losses are unsustainable. He claims that as many as 65,000 Russian soldiers have died in the past two months alone.
If that death toll were correct, it would be a huge increase in a short period. Estimates of how many people are dying in the war vary, and independent estimates have not approached those figures. However, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said during the winter that Russia is losing a thousand soldiers a day, saying they were killed, not just wounded.
Russia has a large budget deficit, zero growth, high inflation and high interest rates, which means that Putin can neither afford to end the war nor to pay the soldiers, according to Stubb. He further points out that Ukraine is not becoming Russian, that NATO has expanded and that Europe's defense spending has increased significantly.
