Positional Deadlock: Why did Russia fail to achieve a breakthrough in Donbas, and how will this affect the scenarios for the continuation of the conflict in 2026?

In 2025, Russia failed to achieve a turning point in the fighting in Donbas. As in the previous year, its territorial gains after 12 months of offensive operations did not exceed 4 to 5 thousand sq km, which is less than 1% of Ukraine’s territory. Plans for large scale encirclements and the exploitation of tactical breakthroughs were not realised. At the same time, as in 2024, casualty levels remain extremely high, at more than 400,000 killed and wounded, or roughly 100 people for every square kilometre of Ukrainian land.

This situation has systemic causes. The positional stalemate in the war is linked to the fact that near total control of the lower airspace through drones makes it virtually impossible for either side to concentrate significant forces without being detected and attacked. The very concept of a front line has also been transformed. Instead of a line, there is now a strip of 'dead zone' up to 20 km wide, within which establishing logistics for large formations is likewise almost impossible.

Although the offensive potential of the Russian army is largely paralysed, key drivers of the dynamics in a war of attrition remain the race in drone innovation and the ability to strike the enemy’s rear. In this respect, Russia holds a clear advantage, driven by Ukraine’s shortage of glide bombs and the absence of long range missiles. The collapse of the Ukrainian economy as a result of the systematic destruction of energy infrastructure is one of the key risks for Kyiv. At the same time, the accumulation by Ukraine of various means of striking deep into the Russian rear could become a game changer in a war of attrition.

The decision on whether to continue the battle for Donbas will not be an easy one for the Kremlin. This is not only because of the material costs, but also because of political and reputational considerations. In conditions of positional stalemate, a third year of offensive operations could prove just as unproductive as the previous two. However, a shortfall in military capabilities could push the Kremlin either towards freezing the conflict through an unstable ceasefire agreement, with the added benefit of sanctions relief, or towards escalating tensions with Ukraine’s European allies in the hope of deepening divisions within Europe. Finally, a third and most inertial scenario for 2026 appears to be the continuation of hostilities accompanied by a substantial reduction in their intensity.

Territorial and psychological balance

The second year of the Russian offensive in Donbas ended in much the same way as the first, with the capture, according to various estimates, of between 4.3 and 5.3 thousand sq km of Ukrainian territory. Estimates of the area seized in 2024 range from 3.3 to 6.9 thousand sq km, producing a slightly wider spread around the same 4.5 to 5 thousand sq km band. Thus, over two years of offensive operations, Russian forces captured between 1.3% and 2.1% of Ukraine’s territory within its internationally recognised borders.

After the failure of the blitzkrieg in 2022, the Kremlin began the systematic construction of a 'war machine' intended to secure a sustained battlefield advantage, ensure convincing advances by Russian forces, and ultimately compel Kyiv and the West to sign peace on Russian terms. Building this machine took around a year and a half, and by the end of 2023 the Russian command launched an offensive aimed at fully seizing four Ukrainian regions that had already been incorporated into Russia in autumn 2022. In practice, however, the troops were forced to concentrate on Donbas, postponing efforts to expand control in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. Even there, however, they failed to demonstrate a convincing advantage over two years of fighting.

Figure 1. Area of occupied Ukrainian territory, 2022–2025

Table 1. Territory occupied by Russia as a result of the 2024–2025 campaigns, according to various estimates

Not only did hopes for the collapse of the Ukrainian front fail to materialise, whether as a result of manpower shortages or the exhaustion of the Ukrainian army under conditions of infrequent rotations, but expectations of more modest and better prepared successes were also disappointed. In particular, the Russian army failed to encircle and surround Pokrovsk and Kupiansk. In Moscow’s thinking, this was meant to deliver a serious psychological blow to the Ukrainian army and society and to undermine their will to resist (→ Re:Russia: Victory on Credit). The failure of these plans appears all the more painful given that the Russian military leadership and Vladimir Putin personally had repeatedly announced their implementation in advance. As a result, effective resistance on a number of axes to a powerful Russian offensive instead became a positive signal for Ukrainian society and the Ukrainian armed forces. Emil Kastehelmi, head of the Black Bird Group OSINT project, characterises the results of Russia’s 2025 military campaign as an 'operational and strategic failure': Russia was unable to turn any of its offensive impulses into a major breakthrough.

At the same time, Russia has finally begun preparations to seize Ukraine’s so called 'fortress belt' in the north of Donetsk region, comprising Druzhkivka, Kostiantynivka, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. Sievierks has come under Russian control and the Pokrovsk Myrnohrad agglomeration is likely to follow soon, opening the way for such an offensive. However, its pace remains extremely slow and the losses suffered by the attacking side are high, which prevents this advance from being considered a military success. If current dynamics persist, experts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Jessica Sobieski and Jenny Olmsted, estimate that it could take another two to three years to capture the entire belt.

Positional stalemate: causes and consequences

The current situation has deep roots that have driven the onset of a positional stalemate in the war, one that the Russian side has been unable to overcome even with its accumulated manpower advantage. These causes were most fully described by former Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhnyi in the autumn of last year, and predicted as early as the end of 2023. According to Zaluzhnyi, the decisive role in the emergence of the stalemate is played by full control of the lower airspace through drones, which has created conditions in which any concentration of strike groups is inevitably detected, both near the line of contact and in the rear.

This makes tactical breakthroughs virtually impossible and prevents their exploitation even in cases of accidental success. The 'dead zone' controlled by drones expands into a strip up to 20 km wide and paralyses the ability to mass forces for a breakthrough. Within this zone, drones track soldiers, the wounded die because evacuation is so difficult, and logistics are almost impossible to establish, writes Politico. Renowned military expert Michael Kofman notes that control over this territory is conditional, as it constantly changes hands, which blurs the front line. It is precisely this strip that prevents large scale attacks and neutralises advantages in military equipment and manpower, Kastehelmi agrees.

Under these conditions, the limited advance of the Russian army is achieved through infiltration tactics and the 'flooding' of the Ukrainian defensive line with numerous small assault attacks that gradually press the line of contact, Zaluzhnyi writes. According to the testimony of one prisoner of war, eight unsuccessful attacks correspond to every successful one. This leads to a sharp increase in Russian losses.

According to very similar data from the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the British Ministry of Defence, Russian military losses killed and wounded amounted to around 95,000 in 2022, rose to 250,000 in 2023, and with the start of a systematic offensive in Donbas under conditions of positional stalemate increased by a further factor of 1.6, reaching 430,000 in 2024 and 415,000 in 2025. In other words, for the second year in a row Russia has been expending around 100 killed and wounded for every square kilometre of territory captured. On these figures, total Russian losses since the start of the war amount to around 1.2 million people, of whom between 260,000 and 380,000 are estimated to have been killed according to calculations by the joint BBC and Mediazona project. According to the most authoritative analytical estimates, Ukrainian losses are approximately three times lower.

Graph 2. Russian military casualties and wounded according to data from the UK Ministry of Defence and the Armed Forces of Ukraine, 2022–2025, thousands of people

According to the same data, average monthly Russian losses over the past two years amounted to 35–36 000 people. At the same time, as Defence Minister Andrei Belousov stated in December 2025, 410,000 volunteers signed contracts for military service over the year, or an average of 34,000 per month. In 2024, Belousov cited a figure of 427,000 contract soldiers). Thus, the Russian command has at least been unable to build up a manpower reserve. This assessment is shared by Michael Kofman, who believes that Russia is losing up to 90% of new contract soldiers, and Carnegie Foundation military expert Dara Massicot, citing her sources, claims that monthly volunteer recruitment no longer covers battlefield losses as consistently as before. This ratio also constrains the pace of Russian advances: the forces lose almost everyone they manage to recruit, while any further increase in the intensity of assaults would lead to a reduction in the overall size of the grouping.

The question of whether Moscow can sustain for another year the extremely costly system of manpower recruitment for so-called 'meat assaults' remains open. According to Re:Russia's calculations, in order to maintain a stable inflow of contract soldiers, the authorities were forced to raise the price of an effective war contract by almost 1,000,000 roubles during 2025, increasing the size of the regional signing bonus to 2.3 million. This year, raising payments to regions will be much more difficult because of mounting budgetary pressures (→ Re:Russia: Budgetary Scissors). In addition, in the first half of last year, according to some observers, the inflow of contract soldiers was supported in part by expectations of a rapid end to the fighting as a result of Donald Trump’s negotiation initiatives. On the other hand, the deterioration of Russia’s economic situation and layoffs in depressed sectors such as coal mining may encourage more people to 'go to war'. Overall, maintaining the necessary level of manpower even for such a slow offensive is one of Russia’s largest wartime expenditures. With a force of around 700,000 troops, and taking into account current signing bonuses, salaries, payments to the wounded and compensation to the families of those killed, these costs should exceed 4 trillion roubles per year, equivalent to 2% of GDP (for calculation methodology → Re:Russia: From Living Force to Dead) .

Components of the balance: the drone innovation race and pressure on the rear

At the same time, the balance of forces under conditions of positional stalemate can shift under the influence of technical and tactical innovations that strengthen one side or the other. In 2025, Russia sharply expanded the scale and diversity of its drone forces, neutralising Ukraine’s earlier advantage in the lower airspace, and it continues to enjoy superiority in the use of glide bombs. This allows it to exert significant pressure on the frontline logistics and rear infrastructure of the Ukrainian armed forces. At the same time, symmetric Ukrainian capabilities to strike concentrations of forces and logistics hubs deep behind the line of contact remain limited, notes Ukrainian military blogger and analyst Tatarigami, since large drones alone are insufficient for this task.

Previously, the Ukrainian armed forces struck the near Russian rear using HIMARS systems, but the Russian army adapted by moving its forces and logistics hubs deeper into the rear, says former US Army Europe commander General Ben Hodges. The use of F-16 fighter jets could create serious problems for the Russian rear, but Ukraine faces an acute shortage of glide bombs for these aircraft, writes military journalist David Axe. According to him, the Ukrainian army needs 'thousands of glide bombs per month'. Earlier reports mentioned only France’s promise to supply around 600 such bombs per year. The Biden administration began transferring limited batches of SDB and JDAM glide bombs to Ukraine as early as 2023, but they proved vulnerable to Russian electronic warfare systems and required modification.

The drone warfare race has been marked by mixed results. Ukraine introduces innovations more quickly, while Russia is better at copying and scaling them, Kofman says. In 2025, Russia continued work on modifying its main strike drone, the Geran-2, developed on the basis of the Iranian Shahed-136, the ISW notes. At the beginning of the year, Ukrainian electronic warfare expert Serhii ‘Flash’ Beskrestnov demonstrated a downed Russian Shahed equipped for the first time with a Verba man-portable air defence system with a range of around 6 km. Meanwhile, well-known analyst of UAVs and missiles Fabian Hinz points out that the latest modifications of the Geran-2 blur the boundary between loitering munitions and one-way attack UAVs. Loitering munitions are controlled by an operator, allowing the target to be selected during the attack, but they usually lack relay support, which limits their range. UAVs, by contrast, can fly hundreds or even thousands of kilometres and strike deep in the rear, but their targets are programmed before launch and cannot be changed. In 2025, Russian manufacturers began installing mesh network modems on Geran drones. As a result, the Russian army obtained a loitering variant of the Geran-2 suitable for medium-range strikes of up to 200 km, against areas that had previously been considered relatively safe near-rear zones. However, Hinz questions the ability of the Russian defence industry to scale up Geran modifications based on mesh network technology in a systematic way.

For its part, Ukraine has achieved some success in the social dimension of the drone confrontation through the 'Army of Drones. Bonus' programme. This incentive system for verified strikes against enemy targets, informally dubbed 'e-points', gamified combat operations, leading to competition between units and a sharp increase in the effectiveness of drone strikes. Accumulated points can be converted into purchases of various types of military equipment and components on the Brave1 Marketplace, which former Ukrainian Minister of Digital Transformation Mikhail Fedorov (Minister of Defence since 4 January) has described as ‘Amazon for war.’

However, this cannot compensate for Kyiv’s shortage of means to strike Russian rear infrastructure. Attempts to obtain ballistic and cruise missiles from allies have so far failed. Germany, for example, has repeatedly refused to provide Ukraine with Taurus missiles for fear of escalating the conflict, as their use requires complex trajectory programming and the effective involvement of German military personnel. Deliveries of SCALP cruise missiles from France and Storm Shadow missiles from the UK are extremely limited, while restrictions on their use on Russian territory were lifted only towards the end of 2024 and only with regard to targets in the Kursk region. By the end of 2025, The Wall Street Journal reported, Donald Trump had said he was ready to lift all restrictions on the use of Storm Shadow missiles against targets on Russian territory. The Biden administration supplied Ukraine with ballistic ATACMS missiles in limited numbers, but authorised their use against Russian territory, again in the Kursk region, only at the end of 2024. The Trump administration ultimately did not take a decision to supply Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles.

At the same time, deliveries of American ERAM/JASSM cruise missiles (so-called extended-range munitions) to Kyiv are scheduled to begin in 2026. The agreement provides for the purchase of up to 3,350 missiles, including auxiliary equipment and additional services, at a total cost of $825m. By contrast, the British Nightfall project to produce missiles for Ukraine is still in its early stages.Ukraine itself unveiled its first heavy cruise missile, the FP 5 Flamingo, in 2025. It is capable of speeds of up to 950 km/h, has a mass of 6,000 kg and a payload of 1,150 kg. By the end of the year, the Ukrainian military hoped to reach a production rate of up to 200 missiles per month. However, specialists question Kyiv’s ability to scale up production significantly under conditions of sustained Russian strikes.

The innovation race and the pressure of massed air strikes do not alter the fundamental conditions of the positional stalemate that constrain the Russian army’s ability to advance rapidly on the battlefield. However, in a protracted war of attrition, pressure on the rear and even modest technological advantages can have a significant impact on morale and military capabilities. Moreover, continuing combined Russian strikes on energy infrastructure could lead to a collapse of the Ukrainian economy, while Ukraine’s accumulation of a substantial arsenal capable of striking deep into the Russian rear could become a game changer in a war of attrition, shifting the balance of forces in Kyiv’s favour.

Three scenarios for 2026: escalation, interim agreement, or fading conflict

Military analysts largely operate with inertial scenarios for the development of the conflict in the coming year. Sobieski and Olmsted believe that Moscow’s main efforts will continue to focus on capturing the so-called 'fortress belt' in Donbas. A necessary condition for this is the seizure of Sievierks, which took place in December, and Lyman, where fighting continues. This would make it possible to launch an offensive against the northernmost fortress city, Sloviansk. At the same time, the Russian army may attempt to begin an offensive operation in the southern part of the fortress belt, around Kostiantynivka. However, at the current pace of offensive operations, all this would take several more years and cost Russia enormous resources.

The Russians are also likely to continue advancing towards Huliaipole in the Zaporizhzhia region. However, their autumn success in this direction was the result of a combination of factors, including weak Ukrainian defensive preparations and favourable weather conditions. To continue the advance, Russian forces would face the difficult task of crossing the Haichur river. In addition, the Russian army has so far been unable to conduct large scale offensive operations across the entire theatre of war, ISW experts note, and has instead been forced to select a limited number of priorities.

In any case, the decision to continue the assault on Donbas is above all a political choice, and it is less obvious than it may appear. In September 2025, we assumed that a mass Russian offensive would be launched in late autumn and would become a kind of culmination of the battle for Donbas. Our logic was that, if this attempt failed to alter the dynamics of Russia’s turtle pace advance at extremely high cost, which characterised 2024 and 2025, it would be extremely difficult for the Kremlin to commit to a third consecutive year of offensive operations against the backdrop of a rapidly deteriorating economic situation.

Today it can be stated that, despite certain successes, the Russian army failed to achieve an impressive breakthrough as a result of the autumn offensive, and the dynamics of territorial gains and manpower losses remained unchanged. Of course, no public shift in the Kremlin’s position should be expected, but a process of reassessment inside Russia still lies ahead. The problem is not only the material cost of another year of fighting in Donbas, but also the political and reputational costs. Under the current conditions on the ground, in a positional stalemate, a third year of offensive operations could prove just as unproductive as the previous two. Tactical innovations and operational concepts devised by the Russian command have not worked. Hopes for the collapse of the Ukrainian front as a result of the past year have diminished, as have expectations that Trump would force Kyiv to sign an agreement on Moscow’s terms or that Europe would be unable to provide Ukraine with sufficient funding. An important factor in decision making will also be the Kremlin’s assessment of the economic risks of 2026 in a context of falling oil prices.

At the same time, a shortage of forces for the full occupation of Donbas could push the Kremlin either towards seeking a diplomatic exit and freezing the conflict, or towards escalating relations with Ukraine’s European allies with the aim of deepening divisions within Europe. The likelihood of such an intimidation scenario is already clearly visible in the Kremlin’s actions, including in the symbolic undertone of the second use of the Oreshnik system against targets in western Ukraine.

A report by the Ukrainian branch of the international GLOBSEC centre, based on a survey of 61 Ukrainian experts, examines seven scenarios for developments in 2025 and 2026. The 'Hybrid Third World War' scenario, which assumes that the effectiveness of Russian nuclear blackmail and the inability of the Western coalition to counter it would lead to the expansion of conflicts worldwide and an intensification of the hybrid conflict between Russia and Europe, was assessed at a probability of 20% and ranked second. Almost 40% probability, however, was assigned to the inertial scenario of a 'war of attrition of declining intensity'. This scenario assumes that neither side will be able to stop hostilities, nor continue them at the previous level of intensity, as a result of resource exhaustion on both sides. The same scenario, described as a 'prolonged low intensity conflict', is also considered the most likely by analysts at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Three scenarios in the GLOBSEC report received almost identical probability estimates of between 11% and 13%. These were 'maintaining the current level of intensity of hostilities', 'a ceasefire and peace process on terms unacceptable to Ukraine', under pressure from Trump, and 'a ceasefire and a fragmented peace process on terms acceptable to Ukraine but without a clear outcome'. The lowest probability, at 2–4%, was assigned to the scenarios of a 'Russian breakthrough amid the cessation of US support' and a 'peace treaty acceptable to Ukraine'. As GLOBSEC experts noted, scenarios involving a halt to hostilities and a negotiating process together account for 25% probability, while those involving the continuation of fighting account for 75%. In half of these, however, the intensity of confrontation is assumed to decline sharply.

Thus, in our opinion, three most likely scenarios for 2026 can be identified against the backdrop of the Kremlin’s unmet expectations for 2025 and the Russian army’s inability to reverse the dynamics of its slow advance:

• an attempt to escalate relations with European countries and to pursue a campaign of intimidation aimed at raising the stakes or splitting the European coalition;

• a move towards an interim and unstable ceasefire agreement, the main bonus for the Kremlin being the de facto lifting of most sanctions;

• the continuation of hostilities, with their intensity noticeably declining as a result of resource shortages and the growing recognition among those fighting on the ground of the futility of breakthrough attempts under conditions of positional stalemate.