OPEN LETTER: Russia's Advance Rate Collapses in 2026

A collapse the numbers won't forgive

To everyone who has spent months repeating that Russia is advancing relentlessly, I'm writing this letter with a number in hand. Between January and June 2026, the Russian army seized or infiltrated only 622.60 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory. Over the same period in 2025, it had taken 2,189.87 square kilometers. Do the math: this is no longer an advance, it's a collapse in pace. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the essential reference for tracking this conflict, puts the difference at just 28.43% of the territory gained a year earlier.

I'm speaking directly to you, television commentators and propaganda relays, who have made territorial inevitability your favorite argument. You've described a Russia grinding relentlessly through the Donbas, a steamroller impossible to stop. The ISW's figures, compiled from geolocated images and field reports, tell a different story: that of an army paying an exorbitant price for gains that shrink month after month.

Why this letter, and why now

I've chosen the open letter format because this subject calls for a direct address, not a cold analytical exercise. This isn't a stylistic flourish: it's a public correction to a narrative that has circulated for too long without being confronted with the data. The story of an unstoppable Russian advance has served to discourage Western support, wear down public opinion, and paint Ukrainian resistance as a rearguard fight already lost.

Yet ISW data, which has documented front lines daily since February 2022, shows a more nuanced reality — and, for Moscow, a considerably more troubling one. A slowdown of this magnitude doesn't happen by accident. It reflects a combination of factors: human attrition, strengthened Ukrainian defenses, and a Russian war machine showing signs of structural exhaustion after more than four years of war.

I'm not pretending to play armchair general here. But I refuse to let inevitability be sold to us again as scientific truth. The ISW's numbers are stubborn, and they don't say what Moscow wants them to say.

What these square kilometers actually measure

It's worth understanding what these 622.60 square kilometers represent. This figure covers all territory captured or infiltrated by Russian forces over six months, across the entire front — from Kharkiv in the north down to the Donbas and south of Zaporizhzhia. That's a surface area equivalent to a fraction of what the Russian army used to rack up in just a few weeks during the most intense phases of 2024 and 2025.

The comparison with 2025 is brutal for the Kremlin's narrative. On the same date last year, Russian forces had already accumulated more than 2,189 square kilometers, carried by the momentum of offensive campaigns in the east. In 2026, that same momentum has evaporated. The 28.43% figure calculated by the ISW isn't a flattering rounding — it's numerical proof of a slowdown of more than 70% in the Russian advance rate in a single year.

An army pushing against a wall

This slowdown didn't come out of nowhere. It's the result of a war of attrition where every square kilometer now costs far more than before, in men, vehicles, and munitions. The Ukrainian defense lines, reinforced and fortified for months around critical sectors, mechanically slow any progress, forcing the Russian army into costly infantry assaults rather than rapid breakthroughs.

The Kremlin nonetheless keeps claiming "successes" on the ground, through its official channels and media allies. But the measurable reality, documented month after month by analysts cross-referencing satellite imagery, geolocated videos, and Ukrainian military reports, traces a trajectory of decline, not triumphant conquest.

There's something almost comic about the way Russian propaganda keeps celebrating village-scale "victories" while the bigger picture shows an army running out of breath. It's like a boxer shouting victory after every punch while backing toward the ropes.

The 2025 peak and its fall

2025 will be remembered as the year Russia pushed hardest since the start of the full-scale invasion. The 2,189.87 square kilometers captured between January and June of that year corresponded to sustained offensives in the Donbas, with significant gains around what were then contested sectors. That was the year the narrative of the Russian steamroller took hold in Western media, fed by maps that showed a front seemingly bending.

2026 tells a radically different story. The same six-month window, the same army, the same chain of command — and yet a result four times lower. This isn't a minor statistical blip: it's a structural signal that something has changed in the military equation, whether on the side of depleting Russian capabilities or on the side of Ukrainian defenses that have adapted.

What the contrast reveals about the war

Comparing 2025 and 2026 helps escape the trap of the isolated figure. A territory of 622 square kilometers taken over six months can seem enormous if announced alone, without context. But set against its own precedent, it becomes proof of exhaustion. That's precisely the work the ISW has done since the conflict began: contextualizing every territorial gain within a long series, to avoid hasty conclusions in either direction.

This methodological rigor is what makes ISW reports valuable for understanding where this war is actually heading, far from the inflamed editorials on both sides. The conclusion that emerges for the first half of 2026 is unambiguous: the Russian offensive has lost most of its territorial striking power compared to the previous year.

I'll say it plainly: those who, in 2025, announced Ukraine's imminent collapse should today explain why the same Russian army is advancing four times slower a year later. The silence from those voices is, in itself, an answer.

A war of attrition that is changing meaning

A slowdown of this magnitude raises a central question: does Russia still have the means to wage a war of movement, or is it now condemned to a static war of attrition, where every advance is measured in hundreds of meters rather than kilometers? The territorial data suggests the latter. An army progressing four times slower than a year earlier, on the same front, with the same stated objectives, is an army that has changed operational nature, whether it admits it or not.

This reality flatly contradicts the Kremlin's narrative, which continues to present the war as an inevitable march toward victory. The ISW's figures don't claim that Russia is losing the war outright — but they demonstrate, unambiguously, that it is no longer winning it at the pace it displayed a year ago.

The price paid for every kilometer

This territorial slowdown cannot be separated from the human and material cost the Russian army pays for each gain, however minor. Successive ISW reports consistently link territorial data to losses in men and equipment, painting the portrait of an army buying every parcel of land at an increasing price. It's this equation — less land, more losses — that constitutes the real story of 2026, far more than the front-line maps themselves.

For Ukraine and its Western backers, this documented slowdown represents a concrete argument against the war fatigue settling into certain Western capitals. This isn't blind optimism, but a rigorous reading of a measured, verifiable trend, confirmed month after month by an organization recognized for its methodological seriousness.

I refuse the ease of automatic pessimism as much as manufactured optimism. What I see in these numbers is a Russian army for whom time no longer works in its favor, contrary to what we've been told on repeat for months.

When fatigue becomes a Russian weapon

An uncomfortable truth must be named: the narrative of an unstoppable Russian advance hasn't only circulated in Russian media. It has found an echo chamber in certain Western circles, worn down by the conflict's length, tempted by the idea that a quick territorial compromise would be better than prolonged support for Kyiv. This narrative rests on a partial, often outdated, reading of the military situation.

ISW data for the first half of 2026 offers a factual counterweight to this narrative fatigue. It guarantees nothing about the final outcome of the conflict, but it reminds us that the trajectory is not linear, that Russia is going through a measurable slowdown phase, and that Western support, far from being futile, fits into a balance of power that is shifting.

A letter also addressed to Western capitals

This letter isn't addressed only to relays of Russian propaganda. It's addressed too to those, in Washington, in Brussels, in Berlin, who still hesitate to maintain steady military support for Ukraine on the grounds that the war is supposedly already lost on the ground. The ISW's numbers say the opposite: every month of Ukrainian resistance costs Russia more than before, for increasingly meager gains.

This is a strategic argument, not just a moral one. Continuing to provide air defense systems, munitions, and financial support is not an act of charity toward a losing country — it's an investment in a front-line dynamic that, numbers in hand, favors the side that resists.

I'll say it plainly to the Western capitals still hesitating: stopping support now, at the exact moment the Russian advance is running out of steam the most, would be the costliest strategic mistake of this war.

What these numbers say about Ukrainian defense

Behind every square kilometer not conquered by Russia lies a decision, a position held, a line defended by Ukrainian soldiers often understaffed against repeated waves of assault. The slowdown documented by the ISW is not a meteorological accident; it is the product of organized resistance, backed by fortifications, better-coordinated artillery, and increased use of reconnaissance and strike drones.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly said that every month gained on the ground translates into time to strengthen the country's defense capabilities. The territorial data for 2026, compared to 2025, gives numerical substance to that claim: the Ukrainian front, far from collapsing, is methodically slowing the enemy.

A resistance that doesn't erase the human cost

It would be dishonest to celebrate this slowdown without acknowledging its price. Every square kilometer defended involves Ukrainian losses, destroyed villages, displaced civilians. The slowdown of the Russian advance is not a painless victory; it is a respite bought at the cost of a sustained war effort, on a front that remains, month after month, one of the deadliest in Europe since World War II.

This nuance deserves to be stated clearly, otherwise the narrative of a Russian slowdown risks sliding into misplaced triumphalism. The reality on the ground remains harsh, costly, and far from settled. But it is no longer that of a Russia advancing without obstacle, as some would still like us to believe.

I refuse to turn a number into a fanfare. Ukrainian resistance deserves to be recognized for what it is: a colossal effort, paid in blood, that slows an aggressor without yet stopping it for good.

The gap between announcements and numbers

Every week, official channels of the Russian Ministry of Defense announce the "liberation" of this or that village, the capture of this or that position, presented as a decisive advance. Strung together over six months, these isolated announcements add up to only 622.60 square kilometers according to the ISW — a figure that, scaled against the front line, represents a tiny fraction of Ukrainian territory still under Kyiv's control. The gap between the daily narrative and the cumulative reality over six months is, in itself, revealing of the Kremlin's communication strategy.

This strategy relies on repetition: announcing often, at a small scale, to give the illusion of continuous and irreversible movement. The ISW's consolidated data breaks this illusion by adding up real gains over a long period, revealing a total far more modest than what the sum of individual announcements might suggest to an unwary observer.

Why the ISW's method carries authority

The Institute for the Study of War has established itself as a reference precisely because it refuses this game of isolated announcements. Every territorial gain claimed by either side is verified by cross-referencing geolocated images, videos posted on military social media, and field reports from multiple sources. This method, demanding and slow, produces figures less spectacular than propaganda announcements, but infinitely more reliable for anyone who wants to understand the real state of the front.

It's this reliability that gives full weight to the 28.43% figure. This isn't a rough estimate picked up from the press, but a measurement built methodically, month after month, by a team of analysts whose credibility rests on the consistency of their method since 2022.

I trust verified numbers, not triumphant press releases. And on this specific ground, Kremlin statements lose every time to the ISW's cold arithmetic.

A slowdown, not a Russian capitulation

It would be equally dishonest to turn this slowdown into a promise of imminent defeat for Moscow. The ISW itself, in its successive reports, refrains from any definitive forecast on the conflict's outcome. What the numbers show is a six-month trend, not a prophecy for the entire year. Russia still has considerable human and industrial reserves, and nothing rules out an attempt to regain the initiative in the months ahead.

But the burden of proof has shifted sides. It's no longer for Ukraine to prove it can hold on: it's for Russia to prove it can still advance at the pace it claims to maintain in its internal propaganda. And for now, the ISW's numbers don't back that up.

Why this letter matters

I chose to write this open letter because narratives about this war build up as fast as they set in people's minds. A narrative of Russian inevitability, installed over months, doesn't dissolve in a single sentence; it takes numbers, repeated, compared, contextualized, to crack it. That's what this text has tried to do, drawing on a single source, rigorous and verifiable: the ISW.

The war continues, and it will keep costing both sides dearly. But refusing to see what the data shows — a massive slowdown in the Russian advance between 2025 and 2026 — means depriving oneself of an essential tool for assessing where this conflict is actually heading, and what Western support can still change about it.

I'm not promising quick victory to anyone reading this. I'm only promising to keep confronting propaganda with numbers, for as long as this war lasts.

A slowdown that should weigh on decisions

This letter ends where it began: with a number. 622.60 square kilometers versus 2,189.87 square kilometers. A ratio of 28.43%. This isn't an opinion, it's a measurement, produced by an organization that has documented this war since its first day. Western decision-makers, commentators, and the general public should factor it into their reading of the conflict before repeating, once again, that Russia is advancing without obstacle.

One last address

To those who will read this letter with skepticism: check the source. The ISW publishes its reports regularly, with methodology and cited sources. This text invents nothing; it simply recalls what a number, correctly put into perspective, can reveal about the real state of a war some would still like to present as already lost for Ukraine. That is not the case, and the data confirms it, month after month.

I sign this letter with the conviction that facts, even dry ones, remain the best antidote to democratic fatigue in the face of this war. Let's keep looking them in the eye.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between verified facts and interpretive analysis. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under Sources, never here.

Primary source families used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

Secondary source families: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under Sources.

Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a critical, contextual synthesis based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.