Russia’s territorial gains in Ukraine are slowing down dramatically, two analyses have found, continuing a pattern from 2024 at a time when both nations are trying to project strength in the face of United States-mediated negotiations aimed at ending the war.
Britain’s Ministry of Defence last week estimated that Russian forces seized 143sq km (55sq miles) of Ukrainian land in March, compared with 196sq km (76sq miles) in February and 326sq km (126sq miles) in January.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington, DC-based think tank, spotted the same trend, estimating Russian gains at 203sq km (78sq miles) in March, 354sq km (137sq miles) in February and 427sq km (165sq miles) in January.
These estimates are based on satellite imagery and geolocated open-source photography rather than claims by either side.
Should this trend continue, Russian forces could come to a standstill by early summer, roughly coinciding with US President Donald Trump’s self-imposed early deadline for achieving a ceasefire.
Russia’s diminishing returns have come even as it has greatly expanded the size of its forces from an estimated 150,000 soldiers who carried out its initial invasion in February to May 2022.
“Since the beginning of the aggression, the enemy has increased its group fivefold,” Ukrainian Commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii told the online publication Livyi Bereg this week. He estimated that Russia has been adding 120,000 to 130,000 soldiers a year to its forces in Ukraine and it today has about 623,000 military personnel in the country.
Despite this, almost all of the Ukrainian territory Russia occupies, about a fifth of the country, was the result of the seizure of Crimea in 2014 and its initial, full-scale invasion in 2022.
A Ukrainian counteroffensive in 2023 took back about 20,000sq km (7,722sq miles). Russia has so far failed to recapture that.
Its grinding advances in Ukraine’s eastern region of Donetsk last year succeeded in wresting away just 4,168sq km (1,609sq miles) of fields and abandoned villages – equivalent to 0.69 percent of Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War determined in January.
Those gains also came at a significant cost in men and materiel. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence put Russia’s losses of soldiers at 430,790. That’s the equivalent of 36 Russian motorised rifle divisions and outnumbers Russia’s losses in 2022 and 2023 combined.
While Russia has recruited enough soldiers to more than make up for its losses, its performance on the battlefield suggests it is struggling to train and equip its forces.
Moscow’s announcement of each capture, however small, has helped create an impression of inevitability to its conquest of Ukraine. On Monday, for example, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it had taken the settlement of Katerinovka in Donetsk.
But these conquests have been small. The Institute for the Study of War estimated that even at 2024 rates of advance, Russia would have needed two years to capture the remaining parts of Donetsk alone. And that was before Russia’s pace of territorial gains slipped further in 2025.
Escalation with negotiation
Despite these trends, Russian President Vladimir Putin has escalated his aggression since US-Russian ceasefire talks kicked off on February 18.
An analysis by The Telegraph found that the number of Russian drone strikes against Ukraine rose by more than 50 percent from January to February.
In the first week of March, Russia launched a concerted effort that mostly pushed Ukrainian soldiers out of Kursk, a Russian border region Ukraine invaded in August.
On April 9, Russia said only two settlements – Gornal and Oleshnya – remained in Ukrainian hands in Kursk, and it was locked in fierce battles to recapture them.
Russia’s March success in Kursk coincided with a US intelligence and military aid cut-off for Ukraine.
During the past week, Russia was building up forces to follow up its success in Kursk by opening new fronts in Kharkiv and Sumy, two regions in northeastern Ukraine on the border with Russia, Syrskii said.
“For several days, almost a week, we have been observing an almost doubling of the number of enemy offensive actions in all main directions,” he said.
Syrskii also said he believed Russia could use joint military exercises with Belarus planned for the autumn as cover to mobilise more forces, a tactic Moscow used in late 2021. “The visibility of exercises is the most acceptable way to rebase, transfer troops, concentrate in a certain direction and create a troop group,” Syrskii said.
No ceasefire
Moscow also went on the diplomatic offensive this week, doubling down on efforts to vilify Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as an unreliable leader.
Russian officials said Ukraine was continuing to defy a ceasefire on energy infrastructure Kyiv never agreed to but that Moscow declared unilaterally on March 18 after a phone call between Trump and Putin.
On Friday, Russia’s Defence Ministry said Ukraine carried out half a dozen attacks on energy facilities in the Bryansk, Tambov and Lipetsk regions, causing gas outages to three cities and two electricity blackouts.
“More than 100 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles sent to bomb civilian targets on Russian soil in one night alone are a thousand times more telling than Zelensky’s wails about his ‘aspiration for peace’,” Russian special envoy Rodion Miroshnik wrote on his Telegram channel.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday said ceasefire negotiations were complicated by the “lack of control over the Kyiv regime, about the impossibility of the Kyiv regime to control the actions of a number of extremist and nationalist units that simply do not obey Kyiv”. That was a reference to the alleged existence of far-right elements in the Ukraine military.
Russia and the US are expected to hold a round of negotiations in Istanbul on Thursday.
On Wednesday, Russia’s Defence Ministry said two drones were shot down while trying to strike the gas distribution plant of the city of Temryuk, which sits on a neck of land on the Russian side of the Crimean Peninsula.
That same night, the ministry said, eight Ukrainian drones were shot down before reaching the Korenovskaya electrical plant, which powers the TurkStream gas pipeline. Ukraine has twice this year tried to shut the pipeline down by targeting its compressors.
In total, Russia’s Defence Ministry said it had intercepted 107 Ukrainian drones over 10 regions on the night of April 3 to early April 4 in one of the biggest such attacks.
But Russia, too, targeted the Kherson thermal power plant with a short-range first-person view (FPV) drone on Friday, Zelenskyy said. FPV drones generally carry up to 5kg (11lb), a much smaller payload than long-range strike drones, which usually ranges from 20kg to 50kg (44lb to 110lb).
The Kremlin gave less publicity to the fact that a Ukrainian drone barrage on Saturday struck the fibre optic systems plant in Saransk in Russia’s Mordovia. It is Russia’s only plant manufacturing optical fibre used in FPV drones and other defence systems.
Russia also did not mention that Ukrainian drones struck industrial explosives manufacturer Promsintez in the Samara region, causing 20 explosions and fires. The plant reportedly stopped production after the attack.
Syrskii said in his interview that drones had destroyed a $100m long-range Tupolev-22M3 bomber days earlier. Ukraine has targeted these bombers because they are used to launch thousands of glide bombs against Ukraine’s front lines every month.
Syrskii also said strikes against Russian airfields had pushed back the Russian air force, reducing its effectiveness.
Unlike Ukraine, which has consistently targeted defence and energy infrastructure, Russia has kept up long-range air attacks targeting Ukrainian cities.
In retaliation for Saturday’s attacks, Russia launched 18 cruise missiles, six ballistic missiles and 109 attack drones on Saturday night – its largest strike in a month.
Ukraine said it intercepted 93 of the drones, one ballistic and 12 cruise missiles but five ballistic missiles struck residential areas.
One of them killed 20 people in Kryvyi Rih, including nine children, prompting the United Nations Security Council to hold an emergency meeting.
“This is why the war must end,” US Ambassador to Kyiv Bridget Brink wrote on social media.
“Such a strong country, such a strong people – and such a weak reaction,” Zelenskyy responded on Telegram. “They are even afraid to say the word ‘Russian’ when talking about the missile that killed children.”
Russia accused Zelenskyy of deliberately framing the attack as an indiscriminate massacre of civilians whereas it was really targeting a meeting of foreign mercenaries with Ukrainian commanders at a restaurant.
But Russia followed up the ballistic missile strike in Kryvyi Rih with a wave of drones, which hit a playground and residential buildings.
Until this strike, Russia and Ukraine had observed an unofficial ceasefire over the Black Sea. This had apparently come to an end because Zelenskyy said several of the Russian missiles were launched from ships and submarines.
The attacks continued this week. Russia’s Defence Ministry on Monday said it shot down 19 Ukrainian drones overnight.
Ukraine’s air force said it intercepted 31 drones on Tuesday out of an attack totalling 46. The drones followed a strike by an Iskander ballistic missile in a tactic reminiscent of that on Kryvyi Rih.
The following night, Russia launched 55 Shahed drones at Ukraine. Ukraine’s air force said it downed 32 and disoriented eight. Russia said it downed 158 Ukrainian drones over 11 regions.
After North Koreans, the Chinese
Ukraine’s 81st Separate Airmobile Sloboda Brigade on Tuesday said it captured two Chinese soldiers on Ukrainian soil.
Zelenskyy confirmed it at a news conference, saying, “Ukrainians engaged in combat with six Chinese service members in the Donetsk region – in Tarasivka and Bilohorivka.”
He later wrote on social media: “We have information suggesting that there are many more Chinese citizens in the occupier’s units.”
US Department of State spokesperson Tammy Bruce said Chinese soldiers’ involvement was “disturbing”.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Lin Jian on Wednesday denied Beijing’s involvement. But Russian television channels showed further evidence of Chinese troops in Ukraine weeks earlier.
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