(LONDON) — Russian forces could recover their pre-war capabilities within three to five years in the event of a peace deal in Ukraine, according to Adm. Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, the chair of the NATO Military Committee and the principal military adviser to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
“They will be busy on that battlefield for as long as is necessary — we hope very, very shortly that it will come to a point. Right after that, I think that they will rebuild,” Dragone told ABC News during an interview on the sidelines of the Chatham House think tank’s Security and Defense 2026 event in London on Wednesday.
“We are expecting a strong, resilient — because they demonstrate that now they are resilient — conventional force,” Dragone said of the Russian military NATO is preparing to face down along its eastern flank in the years and decades to come.
This week marked the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor, a so-called “special military operation” — in the words of the Kremlin — that Russian officials expected to succeed within days.
The opening stages of the war were characterized by Russian tactical and strategic failures, ultimately prompting Russian forces to abandon swaths of territory captured in the north, northeast and south of the country.
“Their capabilities were way below what we expected at the very beginning,” Dragone said. “But in four years, they reconstituted. They lost a lot of soldiers, but they are able to reconstitute, rebuild and recruit again,” the NATO commander continued. “They are a force which is experienced and trying to modernize as much as they can.”
Four years on, Russia is still struggling to make significant gains and is — according to a mix of Ukrainian, Western and independent analysis — sustaining massive casualties.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has sought to frame Moscow’s grinding advance as inevitable, and demanded that Kyiv cede the entire eastern Donbas — made up of Luhansk and Donetsk regions — as part of any future peace deal.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his foreign backers, though, have challenged the characterization, pointing to Russia’s slow progress, mounting casualties and apparent economic strains.
Asked whether one side has the upper hand, Dragone said Russia is making “small gains on the terrain compared to the losses. In November-December, they had 35,000 casualties. This means that for one kilometer, they are losing thousands” of troops killed and badly wounded, Dragone said.
“This is something that they can handle — I don’t know up to when,” he continued. “That’s something that their system allows them to do.”
“They are not winning, except for these small gains,” Dragone said. “It’s an oxymoron to call something a ‘special military operation’ that lasts for five years. It’s nonsense, from the very beginning.”
“They will not be able, at this pace, to conquer the whole of Donbas, for example, by the end of this year,” Dragone said. “They are fighting this attrition war that is not leading anybody anywhere. And this is why it should be time that they sit and they start to find a negotiated solution.”
Moscow says different, though the glacial pace of its invasion is evident. Daily, the Defense Ministry in Moscow claims to have captured new settlements, villages and towns in the so-called “grey zone” all along the 750-mile line of contact. In December, Putin again claimed that his troops were “advancing on all fronts.”
The Kremlin appears fully committed to its war, marshalling the national economy onto war footing and further tightening its authoritarian grip on Russian society.
Moscow’s war-focused economic strategy “means something,” Dragone said. “More than 40% of the national budget is for the war,” he added. “Probably they will keep the war economy even after the war ends, just to rebuild this as soon as possible.”
Russia may seek to generate a military force of “150% of what they had when they invaded Ukraine, because from their point of view, they have to cope with their counterpart, which is NATO,” Dragone said. In the meantime, the admiral added, “They are testing us, of course. In these four years, they have been testing us on our reaction times, how we are able to respond.”
Dragone also acknowledged that Russia is already engaged in a hybrid war against its NATO adversaries. Allied leaders have accused Moscow of a wide range of surveillance, sabotage, assassination and other operations within NATO borders. Meanwhile, Russian drones and missiles targeting Ukraine have also violated the airspace of allied nations.
“We have been reacting” to the hybrid threat, Dragone said, noting that NATO nations have moral, ethical and legal “restraints” that do not bind Moscow.
“This is an unfair confrontation that we need to be ready to face. And this is what we could call a handicap situation, but that’s something that we want to be in place,” he added, stressing that the alliance should not seek to shed such restraints.
“They are more aggressive,” Dragone said. “We are reacting. Our reactions are appropriate. The issue is that we are a defensive alliance, so that’s our mindset.”
Asked whether NATO has been too hesitant, the admiral said such strategic decisions are made at the political level. “It’s up to them to tell us, give us the political direction, what effect they want to have — and we will be the ones who will produce this effect.”
Growing NATO-Russia tensions have, at times, prompted nuclear threats from Moscow. This week, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) accused Kyiv — without providing proof — of trying to obtain nuclear weapons with the assistance of the U.K. and France. Ukraine quickly denied the allegation.
Dmitry Medvedev — the former Russian president and prime minister now serving on the country’s Security Council — then threatened a “symmetrical response” from Russia using “any type of weapon, including non-strategic nuclear weapons.”
Dragone said that, though NATO remains “concerned” about Russia’s nuclear capabilities, “nothing has changed.”
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