In 2025, Russia seized roughly 1,780 square miles of Ukrainian territory - up from 1,350 square miles in 2024. But those figures mask Moscow's strategic impasse. That is the assessment of American analyst Michael Kofman in a Foreign Affairs article published February 16, 2026.
As "Hvylya" reports, Kofman draws on data from the Finnish analytics group Black Bird Group, one of the leading front-line trackers.
Russia's total advance in 2025 - including operations in Kursk - reached 1,930 square miles, compared to 1,620 in 2024. Even so, Kofman stresses these gains represent "a very small percentage" of Ukraine's total territory, and the pace is so slow that Russia "still faces a long fight just to capture the rest of Donetsk." That, he suggests, is precisely why Putin wants Ukraine to cede the region at the negotiating table - rather than fight for it, a pressure point now embedded in the US-driven peace process.
Despite the nominal increase in captured territory, 2025 was "clouded by operational failures" for Russia: the army claimed advances it had not actually made, and most progress occurred along axes that were not Moscow's stated priorities. Surging Russian casualties confirm that these gains have come at a cost Moscow is increasingly struggling to absorb. Ukraine held the remnants of Donetsk - but at the cost of Russian gains in Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.
