Ukraine, Russia’s false successes: the numbers deny Putin

Kiev, according to Russia, is back against the wall and the defenses are crumbling. President Volodymyr Zelensky, therefore, should bow to Moscow’s requests to end the conflict, granting much more than what is foreseen in the plan that Ukraine and the United States are discussing.

The data, however, highlights that Russian ambitions are unfounded. Ukrainian defenses are not on the verge of collapse and Kiev’s forces were able to prevent Russian forces from militarily achieving Putin’s goal of subjugating all of Ukraine, underlines the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), an American think tank that monitors the conflict on a daily basis.

The data contradicts Moscow

Analysts recall that at the top of their advance, in March 2022, Russian forces had conquered 26.16% of Ukraine. The subsequent counteroffensive to repel forces from Kiev and northern Ukraine reduced this share to 20.21% at the end of April 2022. Russia’s territorial control continued to decline to 17.84% at the end of 2022, after actions conducted by Kiev’s units in Kharkiv and Kherson. Invaders’ control of Ukraine remained essentially constant in 2023, 2024, and 2025.

Putin’s army controlled between 17.9 and 18.52 percent of Ukraine in 2023 and 2024. The percentage rose to 19.32% at the end of 2025, with an increase of 1.5% over the last 3 years of fighting. In the end, the advance was extremely limited, as the attacking army had to resort to infantry-led assaults, with very high losses in terms of men and equipment. There has not been a consistent ability to restore mechanized maneuver to the battlefield. “Russian progress is likely to continue to be slow and laborious, unlikely to lead to a rapid collapse of the front line,” the ISW summary.

Moscow’s latest ‘lies’

Yet, Moscow’s communication strategy does not change. The Chief of Staff, Valery Gerasimov, continues to provide unsubstantiated information. In the latest update, Gerasimov said that Russian forces are advancing in virtually all directions of the front and that Ukrainian attempts to stop the wave have failed.

In particular, according to the general, Russian troops would have conquered over 300 square kilometers of territory in the first two weeks of January 2026. All false, or almost: The ISW, based on evidence, claims that the invading army increased its presence (through infiltration missions or assaults) in just 73.82 square kilometers between December 31 and January 13. In practice, three-quarters of the successes boasted by Gerasimov do not exist.

Gerasimov said Russian forces were expanding the buffer zone in the northern oblasts of Sumy and Kharkiv, thanks in particular to the capture of the villages of Hrabovske and Komarivka. In reality, the ISW notes, the front line in these areas has remained largely inactive for years and the recent Russian attacks between late December 2025 and mid-January 2026 had only propaganda objectives. The Kremlin is trying to present these limited-scale actions as the opening of a new sector of the front: in reality there is no sign of an imminent massive offensive.

The Kupyansk case

The most recent case of ‘inflated’ information concerns the conquest of Kupyansk. The city, at best for Moscow, is a fighting ground. There is no control by the Moscow departments and even Russian milbloggers – who report on the war with information often not provided by the authorities – have recognized that the repeated claims of the Russian military command about Kupyansk are unfounded. The scheme, in the end, is always the same: spread the false narrative that a Russian victory in Ukraine is inevitable to convince Kiev and the West that Zelensky should immediately accept Putin’s demands to avoid worse conditions.