In an interview with the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that in 2026 Russian troops seized about 890 sq. km of Ukrainian territory, while the Ukrainian army liberated about 800 sq. km. The difference was about 90 sq. km.
“For example, this year he (Putin. — TMT) occupied about 890 kilometers, and we de-occupied 800”, Zelensky said. “I am talking about different directions”.
Zelensky added that the current pace of Russian advances is significantly lower than before: in previous years, Russian troops seized about 3–4 thousand sq. km per year, which, according to him, amounted to 0.5–0.66% of Ukrainian territory. He also estimated Russia’s losses for capturing less than 100 additional sq. km at about 270,000 people — killed or seriously wounded.
According to the President of Ukraine, the situation on the battlefield has practically frozen, so Vladimir Putin cannot consider himself the winner of the war. Zelensky also said that the Russian leadership does not see the scale of losses as a reason to stop hostilities, and added that Moscow still aims for the complete capture of Donetsk Oblast. According to the American agency Bloomberg, citing sources close to the Kremlin, in September Putin gave the military the task of establishing control over the entire region within the next six months, and the timeline for the complete capture of Donbas has already been postponed for the 16th time.
The American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) previously estimated that, if the current pace is maintained, Russian troops will not be able to capture Donbas before October 2032. According to its conservative estimate, from January 29 to August 12, 2026, the Ukrainian army liberated more than 626 sq. km of territory in the Oleksandrivka direction and in the northern part of the Huliaipole direction.
Additional information is published in the publication’s article.
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