From: Transform Ukraine By Douglas Landro / September 19, 2025
When 700,000 Russian soldiers couldn’t prevent Ukrainian liberation, and drones carried fire to refineries 1,300 kilometers from the front
The Story of a Single Day
September 18, 2025, began with Vladimir Putin standing before cameras, declaring that over 700,000 Russian soldiers were advancing on “practically all fronts” in Ukraine. It ended with Ukrainian drones streaking through Russian skies toward oil refineries that had never expected the war to reach them, while Ukrainian forces quietly celebrated the liberation of 160 square kilometers and seven settlements in a counteroffensive that made Putin’s confident proclamations sound like wishful thinking.
This was the 1,303rd day of a conflict that had transformed from a conventional invasion into something far stranger—a war where soldiers crawled through underground pipes, where precision drones could strike targets deeper inside Russia than most people drive on vacation, and where the removal of a single Kremlin aide could reveal more about Moscow’s strategic direction than battlefield reports.
On this single September day, the mathematics of warfare collided with the reality of modern conflict, revealing that Putin’s theory of inevitable victory through numerical superiority was being undermined by Ukrainian innovation, international cooperation, and Russia’s own internal contradictions.
The President’s Arithmetic: When 700,000 Isn’t Enough
Picture Vladimir Putin in his familiar pose—standing before the cameras, projecting confidence through numbers that sound impressive until you examine what they actually mean. On September 18, the Russian president declared that over 700,000 of his soldiers were fighting in Ukraine, advancing on “practically all fronts.” It was classic Putin mathematics: massive figures designed to intimidate, progress claims meant to demoralize, and an underlying assumption that sheer mass would eventually overwhelm any opposition.
Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov reinforced this narrative with his own claims about Russian forces advancing on “practically all fronts,” creating an echo chamber of confident proclamations designed to make Russian victory seem inevitable. The message was clear: Putin’s war machine was grinding forward inexorably, and Ukrainian resistance was merely delaying mathematical certainty.
Voice of Ukraine 