About 4,700 square kilometers. That is how much Ukrainian land Russia took in 2025, according to ISW analysts quoted by the BBC. Moscow says 6,000. Either way, it is roughly twice the area of the city of Moscow, gained across a year of fighting.
The war has entered a fifth year, and the people who watch it most closely keep reaching for the same word. “Dangerous stalemate,” America’s top diplomat, Marco Rubio, called it on a visit to Portugal in October 2026, according to SBS News. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov agreed with the description.
Slow ground in the Donbas
The BBC’s February 2026 account described Russian forces churning through the open fields of Luhansk and Donetsk, the Donbas, one village and town at a time. Moscow is also after Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. It held referendums on annexing all four regions soon after the invasion, but has never had full control of them. Russian troops appear to have been pushed back in some places east of Zaporizhzhia city.
Pokrovsk shows how slow the progress is. A Russian summer offensive advanced quickly just north of the town, which used to be a major supply hub for Ukraine’s army and is now rubble. Ukraine says it still holds its northern parts. ISW points out that the town covers about 23 sq km and Russia has spent close to two years trying to seize it; meanwhile the cities behind it are “significantly larger”. Its estimate for the rest of Donetsk is another two years, “at great cost”.
Ahead lies what ISW calls a “fortress belt” running 31 miles through western Donetsk. Zelensky has said again and again that Ukraine will not give up the Donbas for peace. In the north, Russia is pressing toward Kupyansk and trying to carve a buffer zone that would put Kharkiv within artillery range.
A counteroffensive and contested numbers
By October the picture had shifted again. Euronews, citing ISW analysis, reported that Ukraine’s Operation Vivaldi had broken up the northern arm of a Russian pincer meant to meet near Barvinkove in Kharkiv region. Commander Andrii Biletskyi said 176 square kilometers had been won back in the operation’s first three phases. Zelenskyy gave a range of 125 to 140 as of October 3.
The ISW also challenged Moscow’s own figures. For September it calculated a net Russian pullback of 175.18 square kilometers, while Russia claimed gains of 1,301 square kilometers. It calculated that Russia controls about 81% of Donetsk, not the 89% Putin asserted. Russia’s mix of infantry, drones and shelling “cannot generate the fast mechanised manoeuvres required” for a breakthrough, it said.
The human cost
Zelensky puts Ukraine’s military dead at some 55,000. On the Russian side, the BBC has verified names for almost 160,000 fatalities. Civilians keep dying. In two days in October, SBS reported, Russian missiles killed more than 70 civilians in Ukraine, over 30 of them in bus attacks at Kramatorsk, close to the front.
Peace efforts go on. In Miami, envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were due to sit down with Ukrainian representatives. Peskov said Moscow wants a broad settlement that lasts, not limited ceasefires, and saw no immediate prospect of a summit of Putin, Zelenskyy and Trump. Rubio warned that escalation “could wind up being a sabotage campaign in neighbouring countries that are members of NATO”.
Sources
- Ukraine in maps: Tracking the war with Russia (BBC News)
- Ukraine's Operation Vivaldi foils Russia's plan to encircle the Donbas, ISW analysis shows (Euronews)
- Marco Rubio warns of Ukraine war stalemate as US pushes for peace deal (SBS News)
