Humiliated Vladimir Putin has been forced to buy up prosthetic arms and legs from NATO states due to the massive scale of fighters maimed in the war he refuses to stop. In the first half of 2026, Russia imported £66million worth of artificial limbs and joints from Germany. This is more than five times the amount imported before the war started. Across the EU, Putin imported £126 million in the year to June, almost double the amount before the war began, with NATO states the Netherlands (Holland) and Belgium also on the list.
A Ukrainian report mocked Putin: “You’re at war with NATO. You could have ordered them from friendly North Korea or Myanmar.”
The Kremlin is also importing prosthetic products from outside the EU amid soaring demand caused by injuries on the dictator’s “meat-grinder” frontlines, according to Russian Forbes. The true scale of Putin’s war was also laid bare by statistics from Ukraine’s military on how Russia could have spent the money it has wasted on the conflict.
The war chest could have paid for 1,000 new schools and 200 hospitals. It could also have made a rouble millionaire of every child born since the start of Putin’s full-scale invasion – with roughly £9,400 each in their own bank accounts.
Pensions could have doubled with a huge boost in family support. Some 6,200 miles of new motorway might have been built. Instead, Putin has suffered 1.58 million in dead and wounded, with military equipment losses reaching a staggering £153billion. Russia is paying out more than £71million a day in benefits to the wounded and relatives of those slain in the war.
Despite sweeping Western sanctions designed to cripple Moscow’s economy, Germany continues to legally ship cutting-edge prosthetics to Russia due to strict humanitarian exemptions that protect the supply of essential medicine and healthcare equipment. Berlin dominates the global market in precision orthopaedics, with the German giant Ottobock leading the world in advanced bionic joints and microprocessor knees that Russia’s sanctioned domestic industry cannot manufacture.
According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Wednesday (October 28), Russia has lost over 1.58 million troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022. The number includes 1,510 casualties that Russian forces suffered over the past day. Ukraine’s General Staff has not revealed its own losses during the full-scale invasion, citing operational secrecy.
Losses also include 12,448 tanks, 51,674 artillery systems, 25,609 armoured fighting vehicles, 356 helicopters and 449 aircraft.
