Chief of the British Armed Forces General Roly Walker has said that Russia will probably need another 5 years to work its way towards achieving its minimum goals in Ukraine - to take full control of 4 areas: Donetsk , Luhansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson. His words were quoted by the BBC.
Sir Rollie Walker estimates that achieving these limited objectives alone would result in Russian casualties of over 1.5 million men.
According to Western intelligence estimates, Russia has already lost about half a million people killed and wounded in Ukraine.
Speaking at the RUSI Land Warfare conference, General Walker said that if the war continued for years, it would "probably exceed 1.5 million casualties with untold billions (of dollars) of equipment lost."
He said it was hard to see how this war would benefit Russia, but added that calculations in Russia might be different.
He made it clear that both sides were suffering heavy losses: "There are no winners in a long war... it is total devastation and lost generations for both sides."
At the same time, for Ukraine, according to him, the big question is whether it will be able to continue holding the front.