ISW Assesses Putin's New Deadline: At Current Pace, Russian Forces Would Not Capture Donetsk Region Until 2032

(MENAFN- UkrinForm) The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said this in a new assessment, according to Ukrinform.

According to the report, Putin has set no fewer than 15 reported deadlines for the seizure of the Donetsk region since February 2022, and Russian forces have failed to meet every one. Russian forces will not meet Putin's new deadline of seizing all of the Donetsk region by December 31, 2026. Russian forces have been fighting for Kostiantynivka since October 2025 and have not seized it in 11 months. Russian forces have not reached, much less entered or seized, the other Fortress Belt cities of Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, and Druzhkivka, and will not be able to seize all three within the remaining four months of 2026, considering that they have failed to complete the seizure of even one in nearly a year.

"Putin's many deadlines to seize all of Donbas reflect in part his need to provide a significant informational victory to the Russian people. Putin has promised Russians victory in exchange for enduring the burdens of war without bringing Russian society to a full wartime footing," the report said.

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According to analysts, Russian forces will not seize the Donetsk region until 2032 at their current rate of advance – if they can seize it at all.

The Russian rate of advance across the theater was 2.91 square kilometers per day in August 2026, a slight increase compared to recent months. The average Russian rate of advance for Russian forces' priority effort in the Donetsk region was lower at only 2.36 square kilometers per day in August. Russian forces would take until October 2, 2032, to seize the remaining 19 percent of the Donetsk region at this rate – over a year after the next State Duma elections, which will likely be held in September 2031.

At the same time, ISW is not prepared to assess that Russian forces will be able to take the rest of the Donetsk region on any timeline, however. Russian forces will have to fight attritional urban battles through the cities of Ukraine's Fortress Belt before attempting to advance across fields – terrain that Russian forces have historically struggled to advance through.

"The Russian rate of advance has slowed significantly across the theater since 2025, when Russia's rate of advance had already begun to slow. Ukraine has proven that it can contest the tactical initiative in several areas of the frontline and hinder Russian logistics in 2026, and Russia has struggled to counter these Ukrainian efforts. Neither the trajectory nor any likely dynamics of the current conflict suggest that Russian forces will be able soon to accelerate their rate of advance dramatically as long as Western support for Ukraine continues at roughly current levels," the analysts wrote.

They attributed Putin's ambitions to capture the Donbas to the fact that the Russian military systematically misinforms him about the state of the front line in part due to the pervasive culture of lying within the Russian armed forces that milbloggers refer to as "beautiful reports." Russian high-ranking military commanders also routinely present exaggerated Russian advances as part of Russia's systematic cognitive warfare effort to portray Russian forces as making sweeping advances and Ukrainian defenses as collapsing. The lies and distortions of Russian military commanders at many levels are likely leading Putin to harden his perception that Russian forces can achieve his intended objectives in Donetsk Oblast by the end of 2026 and thus that he need not make any compromises in his aims.

The analysts added that Putin is doubling down on the fictional battlefield situation that he defines as "reality" and insisting that his misrepresentation of the actual state of the war become the basis for any peace negotiations on Ukraine. In particular, on September 6, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said that Putin provided a comprehensive assessment to Witkoff and Kushner of Russian "significant advances" along the frontline – an exaggerated claim that does not match realities on the ground.

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