As America pushes peace, Russia’s battlefield advances remain slow

IT IS NO coincidence that Russia has claimed to have finally seized full control of Pokrovsk, in eastern Ukraine, just as Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s special envoy, and Jared Kushner, the American president’s son-in-law, arrive in Moscow for peace talks. Negotiations over ending the war will be closely influenced by perceptions of how it is going. Russia will certainly want to give the impression that its victory is inevitable. But it is not clear that Russia has fully taken Pokrovsk—or that it can necessarily press on for longer than Ukraine can hold on.

Bar an incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, Ukraine has been losing ground almost continuously since 2022. Russian advances have been slightly faster this year than last. In 2025 Russia’s forces have so far seized 4,562 square kilometres of Ukrainian land, according to The Economist’s calculations, which use maps from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a think-tank. That compares with 3,734 square kilometres in 2024. In November Russian troops made some of their biggest gains of the year; they have captured 690 square kilometres in the past 30 days. That means they took control of an area equivalent to about one and a half LAXs—Los Angeles International Airport—every 24 hours.

Yet even at Russia’s recent, faster pace, its overall progress has remained slow. Over the past three years Russia has captured only an additional 1.45% of Ukraine’s land, home to around the same share of its pre-invasion population. No large city has changed hands. Russia has fought to fully capture Pokrovsk—which, with a population of 61,000, was only Ukraine’s 73rd-largest city before the war—for 14 months. Even now, the ISW says that it has not fallen completely. If, for example, Russia is to gain full control of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk, it needs to conquer a further 20,345 square kilometres, or 1,453 LAXs. Even at the recent rate, that would take until May 2028.

Russia’s advance has also come at an enormous cost. Our meta-estimate suggests that between 1m and 1.35m Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the war so far. That is probably more than the number of American soldiers killed or wounded in the second world war. Perhaps 1% of Russia’s pre-war male population of fighting age has died in Ukraine. According to Marco Rubio, America’s secretary of state, 100,000 Russian troops died in the first half of 2025. Russia may also find it increasingly difficult to continue funding its war effort if, as expected, oil prices fall next year. All this could make it harder to continue pressing on as strongly.

Other factors, though, suggest that Russian progress could instead speed up in the coming months. Ukraine’s battlefield losses are severe too and it faces manpower shortages. Much of the fighting in Ukraine has recently been in urban settings, yielding small territorial gains but possibly important strategic wins. Even tiny movements forward in places like Pokrovsk could be springboards for bigger advances. Russia also seems to be gaining an advantage over Ukraine in drone warfare, allowing it to hit the enemy well beyond the front line more effectively. This may do more to diminish Ukraine’s leverage in talks than small territorial gains by Russia.

Mr Witkoff’s presence in Moscow may worry Ukraine. Should America choose to, it could hobble Ukraine’s strategic air campaign by limiting intelligence sharing. It could also stop selling weapons to Europe that the continent later supplies to Ukraine. Europe, meanwhile, is still struggling to provide Ukraine with the necessary resources to continue fighting, particularly now that almost nothing is coming directly from America. Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, hopes that Ukraine’s defences will fold, first slowly and then suddenly, should his troops continue to press on. Most likely for now, though, is that until a peace deal is struck, the war will simply grind on. ■