Russia’s gains on the battlefield in Ukraine have fallen to almost nothing this year, according to the latest figures from independent observers and kyiv’s military.
The territory conquered by Russian forces in the first 10 months of 2026 spans 117.38 km² (45.32 square miles), according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank that uses open source geotagged imagery.
Recommended Stories
list of 4 elementsend of list
For comparison, the gains in 2025 were 5,304 km², including 473 km² of Russian territory reconquered in the Kursk region, while in 2024 they were 3,604 km².
This means that Russia has grown at a rate of 0.38 km² (0.15 square miles) per day this year, compared to 13.25 km² (5.12 square miles) per day in 2025 and 9.9 km² (3.82 square miles) per day in 2024.
Additionally, Russia is experiencing a higher number of casualties this year.
The Ukrainian general staff estimates the number of Russian soldiers killed or seriously injured between January 1 and October 31 at 381,300.
Al Jazeera cannot independently verify victim statements from either side.
Estimated Russian casualties have repeatedly broken new monthly records for the entire war since the summer — 42,860 in July, 46,230 in September and 54,400 in October — as the Ukrainian military sought to meet the monthly target of 50,000 casualties set by President Volodymyr Zelensky in January.
The losses far exceed Russia’s estimated recruiting capacity of between 24,000 and 30,000 people per month.
If Russia lost firm control of Ukrainian territory in April and May, it increased its infiltration zones, the control of which is contested.
However, in September and October, Russia lost firmly controlled and infiltrated territories, according to ISW assessments.
Zelensky and his prime minister have cited these worsening trends as the reason why Russia is stepping up its long-range strikes targeting energy infrastructure. Civilians were killed in these attacks, leading Ukrainians to believe that Moscow is opting for psychological warfare.
Russia unleashed an unusually powerful barrage in the week ending November 6, including 2,346 drones and more than 80 missiles across Ukraine.
The strikes reached a crescendo on November 3, with 370 drones and 76 missiles.
Hundreds of thousands of families face power outages at the start of winter.
In one of the deadliest attacks in Russia this year, in the village of Komyshuvakha in the Zaporizhzhia region, at least 50 people were killed.
“The invaders knew that on Monday, humanitarian aid was being distributed to the Komyshuvakha Resilience Center. Residents of the community come here for food, medicine and essential items,” Ukraine’s military intelligence service (GUR) said.
The attack took place on the day a six-day ceasefire ended in Oleshky, 250 km southwest of Komyshuvakha in the Kherson region.
Negotiated by the First Lady of the United States Melania Trump, the localized ceasefire was the longest ever observed and allowed the belligerents to evacuate 800 inhabitants of the besieged city, located in Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia.
Russian military journalist Vladimir Romanov was arrested by his country’s authorities after reporting that Olechky residents who chose to go to Ukraine filled 17 buses, while those who chose to go to Russia filled four.
Moscow has cited alleged abuses against its Russian-speaking minority in Ukraine as a main reason for its large-scale invasion in 2022, and said it would be welcomed as a liberating force.
The oil war
Ukraine has resumed targeting Russian refineries almost daily over the past week, hitting eight in seven days.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said three refineries were hit on October 30.
Ukraine struck two more refineries at the Ufa complex in the Republic of Bashkortostan on October 31. The next day, it hit Lukoil’s Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez refinery in Nizhny Novgorod, and the next day, a production and shipping station in the Samara region. It hit the Yaroslavl oil refinery on November 3 and the Ryazan oil refinery on November 5.
The strikes aimed to deprive Russia of its energy and export revenues and to derail a deal reached between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump on October 9, when the US leader called on Russia to sell 1.8 million tonnes of diesel on the world market by the end of the year to help lower transport prices.
Trump’s invitation went against U.S. oil sanctions and the Lindsey Graham Act that the president signed into law 11 days earlier, which gave him the authority to impose sanctions on other countries buying Russian oil.
The Kremlin has since pumped out four tankers full of diesel fuel, the Financial Times (FT) reported, hoping to sell it to the United States and effectively end oil sanctions against it. But these oil companies have reportedly failed to find buyers willing to risk the legal consequences of buying Russian oil. The Kremlin called the FT report fake news.
On October 27, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, co-author of the Lindsey Graham Act, warned a Greek shipping company operating one of four ships laden with diesel not to attempt to unload its cargo in the United States.
“The President may have given a license to facilitate this transaction, but only Congress can make it legally valid,” Blumenthal had written, effectively warning all shippers that they would face a legal tangle between statutory law and presidential executive orders.
U.S. courts overturned many of Trump’s executive orders during his first two years in office.
Gn world
