Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he plans to increase the lethality of his armed forces as part of a strategy to disarm Moscow and reverse a deadlock in negotiations.

“The mission of Ukrainian forces is to ensure that the occupiers are destroyed to the extent that the Russians’ losses exceed the number of reinforcements they can send to their forces every month,” he told military personnel on Monday.

“We are talking about Russia losing 50,000 aircraft per month, which is the optimal level,” he said.

Zelensky recently said video analysis showed 35,000 confirmed killings in December 2025, up from 30,000 in November and 26,000 in October. But on Monday, he clarified that the 35,000 were “killed and seriously wounded occupiers” who would not return to the battlefield.

His commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskii, conservatively estimated “more than 33,000” confirmed kills in December.

Ukraine believes it has killed or maimed 1.2 million Russians since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

The U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies recently estimated Russia’s casualties at 1.2 million, including at least 325,000 deaths, and Ukraine’s casualties as high as 600,000, including as many as 140,000 deaths.

Al Jazeera was unable to confirm casualty estimates on either side.

The war is currently at a stalemate as Russia struggles to secure meaningful territorial gains.

One month after all-out war broke out in March 2022, Russia controlled just over a quarter of Ukraine, according to geolocated footage.

The following month, Ukraine pushed back Russian forces from a series of northern cities including Kiev, Kharkiv, Sumy and Chernihiv, leaving Russia with a fifth of the country’s territory.

In August and September 2022, then-ground force commander Silsky orchestrated a campaign to push Russian troops east of the Oskil River in the northern region of Kharkov, while Russia retreated east of the Dnieper River in the southern region of Kherson, allowing Russia to occupy 17.8% of the country’s territory.

Over the past three years, Russia has increased this figure to 19.3%.

For nearly six months, Russia has been trying to seize two towns in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, which are nearly surrounded by 150,000 troops.

“In Pokrovsk and Mirnohrad, the Ukrainian Defense Forces continue to contain the enemy, who is trying to penetrate in small groups into the northern areas of the two cities,” Silsky said last week.

Russia claimed to have captured the northern city of Kupyansk last month, but Russian military journalists said Ukrainian troops had regained control of the town and surrounded Russian commandos inside.

engine of war

Zelensky’s strategy includes Increase domestic drone production And hone the skills of drone operators, as drones can now hit 80% of targets on the battlefield.

“In the past year alone, 819,737 targets were struck by drones. We clearly documented every attack,” he said on Monday.

The military established a points system that rewards drone operators for number of hits and accuracy.

This reflects a system Implementation in April 2024which offers financial rewards to ground troops who destroy Russian battlefield equipment, including a $23,000 reward for capturing a main battle tank.

Zelensky this month appointed Mikhailo Fedorov as defense minister, after Fedorov previously served as minister of digital transformation and deputy prime minister for innovation, education, science and technology.

Last week, Fedorov began appointing his advisers. Among them is Serhiy Sternenko, who last year created Ukraine’s largest non-state military drone supplier to ramp up drone production. Valeriya Ionan, Fedorov’s former deputy for digital transformation, was appointed to head international cooperation because of her experience working with Silicon Valley giants such as Google and Cisco. Fedorov also appointed Serhiy Beskrestnov as technical adviser. Beskrestnov is an expert on Russian drones and electronic warfare innovations.

Russia attacks Ukraine

Zelensky’s war goals stem in part from Russia’s refusal to give up its campaign to seize more territory in Ukraine.

Negotiations over the future of Donetsk remain deadlocked despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to achieve a ceasefire.

Russia’s most serious attack on Ukrainian cities and energy facilities last week occurred on Saturday, involving 375 drones and 21 missiles, as Russian, U.S. and Ukrainian delegations were negotiating ceasefires in Abu Dhabi.

The strike left 1.2 million households without power across the country, including 6,000 in Kiev.

Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal said 800,000 households in Kyiv were still without power following three strikes this month. “Unfortunately, the enemy’s continued attacks have made it impossible to stabilize the situation,” he wrote on social media.

Zelensky told Ukrainians in an evening video address that power supply problems remained widespread in Kiev, Krivoy Rog, Dnipro and the Chernihiv and Sumy regions.

“We are expanding assistance points and warming centers,” he said, adding that 174 workers in Kiev alone were working to repair the damage. Shmyal said 710,000 people in Kyiv were still without power.

A grassroots initiative in the Czech Republic has raised $6 million to buy hundreds of generators for Ukrainian households. On Friday, the European Commission said it would send 447 generators to Ukraine.

Wednesday, Russian drone Killed three people. Two of them were a young couple in Kiev who were killed when their apartment building was struck by a drone. Rescuers found that only their four-year-old daughter was still alive.

“When I took her out, the girl started crying a lot and then she started shaking violently,” said journalist Marian Kushnir, a neighbor of the couple.

A drone hits a building, killing at least 5 people passenger Two children and a pregnant woman were injured when 50 drones rained down on the southern port of Odessa.

Talks at abu dhabi It ended without a ceasefire. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said before the meeting that Russia was unwilling to compromise on any territorial claims.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the talks focused on the core of the differences between the two sides, namely Ukraine’s refusal to hand over the remaining fifth of Donetsk that Moscow does not control.

Officials said talks were scheduled to continue in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.

Zelensky’s Naked Truth

In a scathing speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Zelensky was charged His European allies are “waiting” in the hope that the Russian threat disappears after nearly four years of war in Ukraine.

“Europe only believes that if danger comes, NATO will take action. But no one really sees the alliance’s actions. If Putin decides to occupy Lithuania or attack Poland, who will react?” Zelensky asked.

He said US President Donald Trump’s threat to seize Greenland by force on January 17 exposed Europe’s lack of preparedness when seven Nordic countries sent 40 troops to the island.

“If you send 30 or 40 troops to Greenland, what is that for? What message does it send? What message does it send to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin? What message does it send to China? And more importantly, what message does it send to your close ally Denmark?”

Zelensky said that in contrast, Trump was willing to seize Russian tankers selling sanctioned oil and bring drug charges against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, while indicted war criminal Putin remains at large. “No security guarantee can work without the United States,” he said.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte echoed these sentiments in a speech european parliament Monday (January 26).

“If anyone thinks that … the EU or Europe as a whole can defend itself without the United States, then keep dreaming,” he said. “You can’t.”