Kyiv looks to other fronts as Russian army inches forward

A depleted - but far from defeated - Ukraine looks to 2026 with few good military options, even though a critical €90bn ($105bn) loan from the EU has been agreed.

- Dan Sabbagh

The financing will help Kyiv to continue defending at its current intensity until late 2027, but it will not lead to a transformation of its battlefield prospects.

On land, Russia has held the initiative since 2024, but only gaining territory incrementally, largely because it constantly throws people into the “meat grinder” of the front-line. During 2025, Russian advances amounted to 455 sq km a month to the end of November, but at an estimated cost of 382,000 killed and wounded.

The White House has argued, in the latest run of peace negotiations, that Ukraine is fated to lose the remaining 22% of Donetsk province, including the fortress cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. At the current rate of Russian advance that would take at least a year and another 400,000 or more Russians killed, disabled, or wounded - a cost Kyiv is willing to try to inflict.

Nevertheless, there remain questions about Ukraine’s strategy and medium-term frontline resilience amid a slight improvement in Russian tactics. Three times in the past six months, Ukraine's front has given way, east of Dobropillia in Donetsk in August, north of Kupiansk in Kharkiv province late summer, early autumn, and again east of Huliaipole in Zaporizhzhia in November.

Each time exhausted defenders could not stave off an influx of Russian infiltrators, sneaking past Ukraine's drone defence in tiny groups. In Kupiansk, the Russians used underground gas pipelines in their attacks.

However, the Dobropillia incursion was snuffed out after two months; in Kupiansk, the pipelines were cut or their exits appear to have been blocked and in December, the Russians pulled back.