Dan Sabbagh
Adepleted – but far from defeated Ukraine – looks to 2026 with few good military options, even though a critical €90bn (£79bn) loan from the EU has been agreed. 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, the pattern of the last two years should, in the first instance, continue. Russia has held the initiative since 2024, but only gaining territory incrementally, largely because it constantly throws people into the “meat grinder” of the frontline. During 2025, Russian advances amounted to 176 sq miles 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 arguably more given the predominately urban environment) and another 400,000 or more Russians killed, disabled, or hurt – a cost Kyiv is willing to try to inflict.
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