• Russia's army has grown bigger despite sustaining losses when it invaded Ukraine, says a US general.

• US Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli said the Russian army "is actually now larger — by 15 percent."

• "Russia is on track to command the largest military on the continent," Cavoli said.

Russia's armed forces have grown larger and not dwindled during its war in Ukraine, a top US general said on Wednesday.

"The army is actually now larger — by 15 percent — than it was when it invaded Ukraine," US Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told the House Armed Services Committee in a hearing.

"Over the past year, Russia increased its front-line troop strength from 360,000 to 470,000," Cavoli continued, adding that the bolstered numbers stemmed from Russia raising its conscription age from 27 to 30.

The increase, Cavoli said, meant that Russia was able to enlarge "the pool of available military conscripts by 2 million for years to come."

"In sum, Russia is on track to command the largest military on the continent," Cavoli said in his opening statement to Congress.

"Regardless of the outcome of the war in Ukraine, Russia will be larger, more lethal, and angrier with the West than when it invaded," he added.

Representatives for Russia's defense ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

Cavoli isn't the first US official to have highlighted the threat posed by a resurgent Russia.

Last week, Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said that Russia has "almost completely" restored its military after sustaining heavy losses in Ukraine.

"Its newfound capabilities pose a longer-term challenge to stability in Europe and threatens NATO allies," Campbell told attendees at a dialogue hosted by the Center for a New American Security, a Washington-based think tank, on April 3.

Cavoli and Campbell's warnings of an invigorated Russian army come amid waning US support for the Ukraine war. The GOP has repeatedly blocked attempts by the Biden administration to send aid to Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that his country "will lose the war" without additional support from the US.

"If we do not continue to support Ukraine, Ukraine will run out of artillery shells and will run out of air defense interceptors in fairly short order," Cavoli said on Wednesday.

"Based on my experience in 37-plus years in the U.S. military, if one side can shoot and the other side can't shoot back, the side that can't shoot back loses," he continued.

US general warns time running out for Ukraine without US aid

News conference with Nato military chiefs, in Brussels

The top U.S. general in Europe told Congress on Wednesday that Ukraine will run out of artillery shells and air defense interceptors "in fairly short order" without U.S. support, leaving them vulnerable to a partial or total defeat.

In a sign of how scarce some weapons were, General Christopher Cavoli, commander of European Command, told the House Armed Services Committee that Russia was currently firing five artillery shells for every one fired by Ukrainian forces and that disparity could increase in coming weeks to 10 to one.

"If one side can shoot and the other side can't shoot back, the side that can't shoot back loses. So the stakes are very high," Cavoli said.

"They're really dependent this year on us, Mr. Chairman. And without our support, they will not be able to prevail," he added.

Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson is refusing to call a vote on a bill that would provide $60 billion more for Ukraine. The White House is scrambling to find ways to send assistance to Kyiv, which has been battling Russian forces for more than two years.

Some lawmakers voiced increasing frustration with lack of progress on funding for Ukraine, a measure passed by the Senate already.

During the hearing, Democratic U.S. Representative Elissa Slotkin of Michigan said Johnson should put on his "big boy pants" and make a tough choice, even at the risk of losing his job.

"That's what leadership is," Slotkin said.

Russian air strikes on Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region on Wednesday afternoon hit a clinic and a pharmacy, killing at least three people.

Russian attacks have long targeted Kharkiv and the surrounding region, but the strikes have grown more intense in recent weeks, hitting civilian and energy infrastructure. President Joe Biden's administration has voiced concern about the lack of funding for Ukraine. Last month, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned that Ukraine's survival was in danger and sought to convince allies the U.S. was committed to Kyiv.

Officials say lack of funding available is already having an impact on the ground in Ukraine, where Russian troops are advancing and Ukrainian forces must manage limited resources.

European support has become more important with Biden struggling to get a big Ukraine aid package through Congress while devoting more foreign policy energy to the war in Gaza.

Yet U.S. officials say European support for Ukraine will not be enough. On Tuesday, the Biden administration announced that it had transferred to Ukraine thousands of infantry weapons and more than 500,000 rounds of ammunition that were seized over a year ago from an Iranian shipment to Houthi forces in Yemen.

New Plot Striking the Heart of Russia Is Nightmare for Putin

Ukraine has conducted a series of audacious attacks deep inside Russia against military and economic targets, including at least two drones striking a training facility on Tuesday. Ukraine has used drones to attack Russia before, even striking the Kremlin itself, but Ukraine has never used so many drones in a short space of time and never before reached this deep into Russian territory. For over a month, Ukraine’s one-way attack (OWA) drone program has targeted Russia’s production facilities, oil infrastructure, and some of the airbases that facilitate Russia’s missile strikes.

OWA drones like the ones Ukraine uses force defenders to ask hard questions. The first is how do you preserve an expensive and limited stock of air defense missiles? The (relatively) low cost of the drones means that intercepting every single one at a cost comparable to the drone is often difficult. On the other hand, failing to intercept them can be even more costly. Ukraine’s successful drone strikes since the start of the war have destroyed millions of dollars’ worth of Russian equipment. The other question for defenders is how much air defense can be spared from the intense fighting at the front to protect targets in the rear? Stationing air defense away from the fighting makes it harder for a military to protect its troops from drones and aircraft.

Russian leaders are in the difficult position of trying to determine where air defense is most needed across thousands of miles of territory. The in-land attacks mean that citizens across the country—already feeling the strain of military recruitment drives and a war-time economy—are being confronted by the true cost of the war in a way that Putin had never imagined when he launched a Blitzkrieg assault on Ukraine two years ago.

Not all of Ukraine’s drone attacks are equally damaging to Russia. Of the three recent types of targets, oil infrastructure, airfields, and production facilities, the attacks on Russia’s oil industry caused the most extensive damage. Ukrainian officials told the press that their attacks likely disrupted 10 percent or more of Russia’s refining capacity. Refineries can be repaired of course, but not all facilities struck are back online, and Russia’s oil industry is doubtlessly asking itself how many more attacks Ukraine has in store.

Ukrainian attacks on airfields, which tend to be better defended, were less successful. On March 20, Ukrainian drones attacked Engels airbase, from which Russia launches some of its deadliest missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. However, there’s no confirmation from Ukraine or Russia that they hit the airfield. On April 5, Ukraine launched a larger attack against three airfields across Russia, including the Morozovsk airfield. Ukrainian officials initially claimed they destroyed as many as six Russian fighters at Morozovsk, which would have been a stunning success. However, later satellite imagery of the airfield didn’t show any destroyed aircraft.

Ukraine’s biggest successes with OWA drones tend to come against sites with limited air defense. On April 2, Ukrainian drones attacked Alabuga, where Russia assembles and manufactures Shahed drones in a large complex of buildings. Footage posted to social media showed a drone—that appeared to be a small plane converted into a drone—fly into the facility. Officials from the facility later confirmed at least one hit to the complex’s dormitory.

The repurposed plane is strange, but not out of character. Ukraine’s OWA drones vary wildly across the different models. Several different firms in Ukraine produce them and some may have been supplied from abroad. On the cheaper end, one kind of Ukrainian drone is constructed from cheap materials like plywood, plastic bottles, and pipes. Most of Ukraine’s drones are economical by military standards due to limited funding and access to advanced components. For instance: nearly all Ukrainian OWA drones use a propeller for propulsion since they are cheaper. On the pricier side, several Ukrainian drones appear to have a jet engine for propulsion. On April 7, Russians near Belgorod spotted Ukrainian drones powered by jet engines heading to attack an unknown target. Jet engines are harder to procure in bulk, but are significantly harder to intercept than their slower cousins.

Ukraine’s attacks obviously have positive impacts in the war effort, but they have mixed reception from some of its international partners. U.S. officials have stated several times that they don’t support or enable Ukrainian strikes into Russia. American rhetoric on drones echoes the longstanding debate for the Biden Administration about providing “long range” weapons out of fear that Russia will perceive it as escalatory. U.S. leaders have often shifted their opinion on what weapons are escalatory, but are seemingly not yet ready to do so in this case. Regardless, it does not appear that the Biden Administration is substantively changing its stance towards Ukraine as a result of the strikes, though further aid is still stymied by uncertainty in Congress.Other partners may be less worried. For instance, the U.K. has promised and delivered different kinds of drones to Ukraine in the past year. One that started as an unarmed target drone with the potential to serve as an effective OWA drone, the Banshee, has been spotted in Ukraine. Between Ukraine’s indigenous drone production and potential support from partners, Ukraine’s strikes into Russia are starting to make Russian defense officials just as concerned about protecting their skies as Ukraine.