Ukraine defeated cannon with pistol! How did Russia, the world’s third most powerful country, come to its knees?

The third most powerful country in the world, which has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, hypersonic missiles, advanced air defense systems like S-400 and S-500, is on the verge of defeat in front of a country which does not even have its own navy. According to the World Bank, due to sanctions and war, the inflow of foreign currency almost stopped. Due to this, the pressure on the ruble continued to increase. After all, where has Russia gone wrong, how has Ukraine retaliated and what does this defeat mean for Russia and the world…

The naval fleet that collapsed in just 9 days

This story starts from the sea in July 2026. Russia had dominance in the Sea of ​​Azov and the Black Sea, but Ukraine changed the whole picture by attacking 116 Russian ships and naval bases in just 9 days. The special thing about these attacks was that Ukraine did not use even a single warship, but broke the back of the Russian fleet only with maritime drones and guided missiles.

The Russian Navy has not yet been able to recover from this shock. Russia’s entire Black Sea Fleet was forced to flee Crimea’s Sevastopol port and is still searching for a safe haven.

Myth of S-400 and S-500: Why did the world’s most expensive defense systems fail?

Russia had sold the S-400 and S-500 as the world’s best air defense systems, but these systems have failed miserably against Ukraine. The reason for this is very interesting. To defeat these billion-dollar systems, Ukraine used small drones costing just a few hundred dollars. These drones are so small and slow that the advanced radar of S-400 cannot detect them.

Apart from this, Ukraine adopted the technique of ‘swarm attack’ i.e. attacking in groups. When 20-30 drones come simultaneously from different directions, the defense system gets overloaded and many of them escape. The biggest lesson of this war is to destroy systems worth crores with cheap drones.

Condition of Army: See the complete waste in figures

Russia has lost a large part of its military strength by now. The number of Russian soldiers killed and injured has reached lakhs. Thousands of tanks and armored vehicles have been destroyed. Hundreds of fighter planes and helicopters of the Russian Air Force have been shot down. It seems as if the artillery system and drones have been wiped out. The back of Russia’s regular army is broken. Now he is throwing himself into the war by releasing prisoners from jails and paying huge sums of money to foreign mercenaries. The stooping of a superpower to this level is shocking in itself.

According to the 2025 report of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Russia’s military expenditure in 2024 was 7.1% of its GDP, or about $145 billion. It will increase to 8.7% of GDP in 2025, which is the highest level since the fall of the Soviet Union. In comparison, India spends only 2% of its GDP on defence. Russia is investing every eleventh rupee of its income only in the furnace of war.

Poor economy: treasury burning in the fire of war

Russia’s economy has been completely ruined due to this war. It seems as if Western sanctions have broken his back. There has been a huge decline in oil and gas revenues. The value of the country’s currency, the ruble, is continuously falling. And the biggest blow to this, the unexpected increase in interest rates, has given sleepless nights to the common Russian citizens and businessmen. It has become difficult to take loans from banks, investment has come to a standstill and the country is moving towards a deep economic recession.

The interest rate reached a record level of 21% in October 2024, which was the highest since 2003. It will remain around 23-24% till mid-2025. This means that no common citizen was able to take a car loan, leave alone a home loan. Small and medium businessmen were almost ruined because it became impossible to run their business by taking loans from banks.

The official inflation rate in Russia was 9.5% by the end of 2024 and 10.2% by mid-2025. But the inflation of food items was much higher than this. Prices of basic commodities like eggs, milk and vegetables increased by 30-40%. Even though wages increased by 15-18%, they proved to be dwarf in comparison to inflation.

Ukrainian strategy: the art of beating a cannon with a pistol

To defeat a big power like Russia, Ukraine adopted ‘Corrosive Strategy’ i.e. the policy of erosion. This means that instead of defeating the enemy in one big blow, gradually weakening the enemy. Ukraine continuously targeted the supply chain, fuel depots, ammunition depots and command centers of the Russian army. Without the generals in the rear and the supply lines, the Russian soldiers fighting at the front were left without weapons and food. This proved to be the biggest game changer of this entire fight.

The greatest testimony of defeat: the humiliating escape of the Russian fleet

Fed up with Ukraine’s continuous attacks, Russia has removed its entire Black Sea Fleet from Crimea and sent it to Novorossiysk. Now even Novorossiysk is no longer safe, because Ukrainian drones are reaching there and attacking. To save Russia, Russia has to send its ships to Kaliningrad in Eastern Europe. This place is about 2 thousand kilometers away from the Black Sea. What could be a bigger insult than this picture that one of the world’s largest naval powers has to flee from the sea in front of a country without a navy.

Ukraine has so far either destroyed or seriously damaged about 30% of the ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. These include 1 cruiser, 4 landing ships, 1 submarine, more than 10 patrol boats and auxiliary vessels. This seems an impossible achievement for a country without a navy.

New lessons of the new world: Five lessons every army needs to remember

According to experts, this war is not just a fight between two countries, but a living lesson for the military thinking of the entire world:

• Expensive systems destroyed by cheap weapons: Ukraine used small FPV drones priced at just $500 to $2,000 to defeat Russia’s multimillion-dollar S-400 and S-500 air defense systems. Russia has so far lost about 15 S-400 launchers and several radar systems. At the same time, it costs more than 1.2 billion dollars to buy S-400 system.
• The era of agile troops: According to the estimates of the UK Defense Ministry, Russia has lost more than 1,50,000 soldiers in this war. The Ukrainian army kept its losses very low because it worked in small mobile teams of 8-10 people instead of fighting in large units. These teams used to target Russian tanks with anti-tank missiles like Javelin and NLAW and then immediately change their location.
• Supply line becomes a big weapon: Ukraine placed the most emphasis on breaking Russia’s supply line. With the help of HIMARS rocket system, he targeted ammunition depots, fuel stores and command centers of the Russian Army. As a result, by the beginning of 2025, the Russian Army will not have as many artillery shells as are required for a one-day fight. Russia had to buy shells from North Korea, which in itself shows the helplessness of a superpower.
• Incomplete military strength due to economic weakness: Interest rates above 21%, ruble crossing 100 against the dollar, European gas exports falling by 90% and foreign investment limited to $2.5 billion. These figures show that no matter how big a country is, if its economy is not strong, it cannot fight a long battle.
• Willpower is greater than any weapon: On 24 February 2022, when Russian tanks were moving towards Kiev, experts had assumed that Ukraine would not be able to hold out for more than 72 hours. But Ukrainian President Zelensky rejected America’s proposed escape and said, ‘I don’t want a ride, I want ammunition.’ That became the biggest statement of this entire war. Today the same country is penetrating inside Russia and attacking.