Russia's territorial gains in Ukraine have fallen to 117.38 square kilometres in the first 10 months of 2026, according to figures published by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) on November 6 — an average advance of 0.38 square kilometres a day, against 13.25 a day in 2025. In September and October, ISW assessed, Russia lost both firmly controlled and infiltrated territory. Over the same ten months, Ukraine's General Staff estimates, Russian forces suffered 381,300 personnel killed or seriously wounded. This is a dated update to our October 18 analysis of ISW's measurement of the year's gains against Kremlin claims; the new figures extend the count through October 31 and add the Wall Street Journal's account of why the offensive stalled.
How much ground has Russia actually gained in 2026?
117.38 square kilometres — about 46 square miles — in ten months, on ISW's count from geolocated open-source footage, as Al Jazeera and the Wall Street Journal both reported from the institute's November 6 figures. The comparison is the story: 5,304 square kilometres in 2025 (including 473 square kilometres of Russian territory recaptured in the Kursk region) and 3,604 in 2024. In daily terms, Russia advanced at 0.38 square kilometres a day this year, against 13.25 a day in 2025 and 9.9 a day in 2024. The direction has also reversed at the margin: Russia lost firm control of territory in April and May while increasing its areas of infiltration, and in September and October it lost both firmly controlled and infiltrated territory, ISW assessed. ISW's November 6 assessment separately recorded Ukrainian forces recently advancing in northwestern Kostyantynivka. These are ISW's measurements, published here as the institute's; neither side's own battlefield claims are treated as verified.
What has the advance cost, on Ukraine's count?
381,300 Russian personnel killed or seriously wounded between January 1 and October 31, on Ukraine's General Staff estimate — a figure Al Jazeera published with the explicit note that it cannot independently verify casualty claims by either side, and which this article likewise reports as Kyiv's estimate, not a verified count. The monthly estimates Al Jazeera reported rose through the year — 42,860 in July, 46,230 in September and 54,400 in October — each far above Russia's estimated recruitment capacity of 24,000 to 30,000 a month. The Wall Street Journal put October's figure at 54,000, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky, and said the estimate could not be verified. The two reports converge on the same order of magnitude and the same caveat; the underlying counts are Ukraine's.
Why did the Donetsk pincer fail?
Because Ukraine first cut the supply lines the pincer depended on, then counterattacked — that is the Wall Street Journal's account, built on ISW analysis. Russia's plan for 2026 was a classic pincer: one army pushing south from around Lyman, another north from Pokrovsk, to encircle the remaining Donetsk cities — Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Kostiantynivka — that Ukraine has heavily fortified. "I attribute it to Ukraine's midrange strike campaign — that's a critical capability that they didn't have in 2025," said George Barros, an analyst at ISW. The strikes pounded Russian supply routes behind the front with drones, most made by Ukrainian companies, starving front-line troops of ammunition and making it hard to bring men forward; last year, by contrast, Russia could move supplies to within about 20 miles of the front with little fear of being hit. "Russian logistics are disrupted — they haven't really recovered from that," Barros said. Ukrainian forces repelled the push beyond Pokrovsk in the spring, then launched Operation Vivaldi around Lyman in September: shaping strikes on logistics and drone pilots first, then infantry and armour. Brigadier General Andriy Biletskiy, commander of Ukraine's Third Army Corps, said that by mid-October his forces had retaken 107 square miles and 16 settlements around Lyman, with around 8,000 Russian casualties — his figures, reported as he stated them. Barros said the operation showed tanks and heavy vehicles can still manoeuvre under drone-filled skies when the prerequisite conditions are established, while noting the Third Army Corps is one of Ukraine's best and was given ample resources — whether other corps can repeat the playbook is an open question.
Where is Russia pushing now?
At Dobropillia, southwest of Kramatorsk, with infantry infiltration and weight of numbers. With the encirclement plan thwarted, the Journal reports, Russia is pouring infantry into one last attempt to break through this year, using the small-group infiltration tactics it has used across eastern Ukraine since 2025 while Ukrainian drones hunt the groups. Russian troops outnumber Ukrainians by about 6-to-1 in the area, said Lieutenant Colonel Kyrylo Dubrovskyi of Ukraine's First National Guard Corps, and Moscow has deployed about a third of its elite Rubicon drone force to the sector. Franz-Stefan Gady, a Vienna-based defence analyst, said Russian infantry have infiltrated Dobropillia but are a long way from controlling the city; a breakthrough there could open advances in the rear of Ukraine's fortified lines, and Russia may gain parts of the city over the winter — but, in his assessment, "the operational plan behind this offensive… has failed. What remains is a slow, costly frontal fight for each city."
If the ground war has stalled, why is the strike war intensifying?
Because both sides are substituting long-range strikes for movement — Zelenskyy and his prime minister have cited the worsening ground trends as the reason Russia is intensifying strikes on energy infrastructure, Al Jazeera reported. In the week ending November 6, Russia launched 2,346 drones and more than 80 missiles across Ukraine, reaching a crescendo on November 3 with 370 drones and 76 missiles, leaving hundreds of thousands of families struggling with blackouts at the start of winter; ISW's November 6 assessment recorded a further 227 drones launched overnight and a Ukrainian strike on one of the largest oil refineries in southern Russia on the night of November 5 to 6. Ukraine's own campaign hit eight Russian refineries in seven days — Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak confirmed three were hit on October 30, followed by two at the Ufa complex on October 31, Lukoil's Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez refinery on November 1, a production and dispatch station in Samara the day after, Yaroslavl on November 3 and Ryazan on November 5. Al Jazeera reported the strikes were designed in part to scupper the October 9 arrangement under which President Trump invited Russia to sell 1.8 million tonnes of diesel on international markets; the Financial Times reported four tankers of Russian diesel have struggled to find buyers, a report the Kremlin dismissed as fake news. The wider war picture is set out in our Ukraine war explainer.
This analysis is drawn from Al Jazeera's November 6, 2026 report and the Wall Street Journal's November 2026 battlefield report, both opened and read in full, and from ISW's November 6, 2026 assessment as republished and summarised in the sources above. Territorial figures are ISW's measurements from geolocated footage; casualty figures are Ukraine's General Staff estimates, attributed at each step and independently unverified, per the two-source rule.
