Russia’s Bloody Two Months of Losing Groundhttps://cdrsalamander.substack.com/p/russias-bloody-two-months-of-losingWhile most Americans after Labor Day have been focused on the election, the Iran War and the “issues” from Paris to Warsaw, as the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022 approaches its 5th Anniversary next winter, ISW’s latest Campaign Assessment has some hard facts for Team Russia to ponder.
Russian forces lost ground on the battlefield in October 2026 for the second month in a row. ISW has observed evidence to assess that Russian forces consolidated positions or seized 139.85 kilometers but lost 167.14 square kilometers of territory in Ukraine in October 2026 for a net loss of 27.29 square kilometers. That is an average pace of -0.88 square kilometers per day. Russian forces only made gains in Sumy and Zaporizhia oblasts, while losing territory in all other sectors of the frontline, including their priority objective of Donetsk Oblast. Russian forces also lost ground in October when accounting for Russian infiltrations into areas over which Russian forces have not gained control, with Russian forces suffering a net loss of 76.38 square kilometers in such areas for an average pace of -2.46 square kilometers per day. Russian forces seized 10 settlements totaling 5.86 square kilometers, but Ukrainian forces liberated or cleared Russian infiltrators from 11 settlements with an area of 3.24 square kilometers.
Eyeballing the graph, Putin has, in the past 6 month, lost a bit over 230 square kilometers. That is not huge territorial loss, but for a country with a huge population, weapons, and technology starting advantage, Russia is at least stalemated, and continuing successful Ukrainian on Russia's oil refineries, warehouses, key industries, SAM systems, air bases, and road, rail, and seaborne logistics, the longterm effects, militarily and economically, are very negative.
Russia certainly has been hitting Ukraine hard, but much of their effort is against civilians - hospitals, schools, and apartment buildings. This lack of focus has allowed Ukraine to invent and build much of their drone technology (in contrast to Russia, which imported some of their drones and drone manufacturing capacity from Iran).
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