Russia's offensive ability is broken, Kyiv's former top general tells BBC
In his first interview since being forced from his post, Gen Syrskyi speaks about Ukraine's future in the war.
Russia’s offensive capacity has been shattered, Kyiv’s former top general tells the BBC
Gen Syrskyi lost his position over the summer after a public dispute with the defence minister
Ukraine has steadied the front line and “broken Russia’s ability to advance” by killing so many of its soldiers, Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief has said in an interview with the BBC.
Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi made the remarks in an exclusive interview, his first since he was abruptly removed from his post in the summer.
He spoke about his dismissal, rejecting criticism that he was too “old school” to lead Ukraine’s new, technologically advanced forces.
He also pushed back against claims from soldiers who had previously served under him and told the BBC they were told to hold their positions even when they were nearly encircled by Russians, resulting in heavy losses.
Syrskyi said Moscow’s overall losses in the war were six times greater than Ukraine’s. “If you count only dead, then it’s up to 11 times,” he added.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine officially publishes figures for their dead. Ukraine’s military says it inflicted record losses on Russian troops in September this year, though that cannot be independently verified.
UK intelligence chiefs estimate Russia has lost about half a million men killed in Ukraine since launching its full-scale invasion in 2022. The US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, meanwhile, believes Ukraine has lost up to 150,000 troops killed by June 2026.
He says this gap in deaths — along with technological progress, and a tactic of striking weak points in Russia’s lines while holding back its advances elsewhere — explains the current deadlock at the front.
In the first six months of 2026, Russia managed to capture a total of 61 sq km, the general said. “It’s an indication that the front line has been stabilised.”
The Institute for Study of War (ISW) has also backed up this trend.
One of its recent reports says that in September 2026, Moscow lost more territory than it gained.
Syrskyi was made Ukraine’s commander-in-chief in 2024. He had earlier earned praise for defending Kyiv at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, and for leading the successful counteroffensive east of Kharkiv in the autumn of that year.
But President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed Syrskyi this summer, amid a major clash with then-defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov.
Fedorov had said that instead of adjusting to the realities of the changing war, the army under Syrskyi had blocked his initiatives.
Zelensky first fired Fedorov as tensions erupted publicly between the two men. But mass street protests then forced the president to also remove Syrskyi, replacing him with Maj Gen Mykhailo Drapatyi, 43.
Syrskyi told the BBC that he had “disagreements” with Fedorov because the latter “didn’t take into consideration the interests of the army” when buying weapons and supplies.
Fedorov had created an “imbalance” in supplies, Syrskyi said. He had focused on drones while neglecting essential front-line equipment such as unmanned ground vehicles, pick-up trucks and motorbikes. Even with drones, Syrskyi said, there were shortages because the army received only half of what it needed.
Fedorov was a popular young minister known for his digital and technological initiatives. Many contrasted him with Syrskyi, whom critics believed was not suited to lead the new technological arms race with Russia.
But Syrskyi rejects that criticism. He said it was during his tenure that drone use reached this unprecedented level, including deep strikes more than 2,000km (1,200 miles) behind enemy lines. Ukraine was the first country to establish the Unmanned Systems Forces as a separate branch of the armed forces under his command: now, he said, drones account for 80% of Russia’s losses.
Under his military leadership, however, Ukrainian troops carried out chaotic withdrawals from the eastern cities of Avdiivka and Vuhledar, and from around Pokrovsk.
Soldiers who spoke to the BBC previously complained that they were ordered to stay in place at any cost. By the time they were told to retreat, it was often too late because they were nearly surrounded by Russian troops.
Syrskyi does not deny that such situations happen on the front line. But he told the BBC that 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. In the same year, Russia had two-and-a-half times more artillery pieces and shells than Ukraine. And with four million militarily trained men available for mobilisation, Russian forces can create opportunities to break through, he argued.
One of Syrskyi’s best-known operations was an incursion into Russia’s Kursk region that began in August 2024. It ended with a dramatic withdrawal the following spring, which some soldiers described as “catastrophic”. Syrskyi, however, insisted the Kursk operation was “a necessity”.
“In the summer 2024, Russian forces were pushing along all main directions on the front line with up to six times more troops than we had,” he explained.
The Kursk incursion disrupted Russia’s offensive and forced Moscow to redeploy troops, giving Ukraine breathing space and a chance for its overstretched brigades in the east and south to recover, Syrskyi said.
He also had sharp words for European allies who doubt Russia may have ambitions beyond Ukraine. He urged European partners to begin preparing for war now and to “drop all illusions that [it] will not come”.
He also said he believed Ukraine’s war would become even more technological. There will be more robots, automated systems and artificial intelligence (AI). “Even ordinary weapons now get an AI-based control system to enhance their capabilities,” he said.
Such technologies can give conventional weapons like tanks a new lease of life. Both Russia and Ukraine are now racing to develop “active systems of defence” to protect armoured vehicles, Syrskyi said.
But he insisted that “the human role will remain definitive [on the battlefield] because [people] will need to control those systems”.