A Ukrainian soldier at the front near the town of Kostiantynivka.Image: keystone
Ukraine remains under heavy pressure in the war against Russia. Despite massive offensives, Russian troops are only making slow progress. Our map comparison shows how little the front line has changed in the last twelve months.
02/24/2026, 04:5602/24/2026, 04:56
The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine has been going on for exactly four years now. There are always peace negotiations, but on the front there is still fierce fighting for every square meter of ground with high losses on both sides. Vladimir Putin’s dream of taking over the entire Ukraine in a few days with a blitzkrieg has long since turned into a grueling battle of attrition for people and material.
The current situation
Since the start of the war in February 2022, Russia has conquered almost the entire Luhansk Oblast as well as large parts of the Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson Oblasts. The Crimean peninsula has also been completely in Russian hands since 2014. The Kremlin formally annexed these Ukrainian regions as early as 2022. Since then, Putin has called for the complete withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the parts of these territories that have not yet been occupied.
The military situation remains tricky for Ukraine. Russia has continued its slow but steady advance in Donbass in recent weeks. Despite tough resistance from the Ukrainian armed forces, the Russians were able to take control of the strategically important city of Pokrovsk in December 2025. There is also bitter fighting on other sectors of the front near Zaporizhzhia and Slovyansk.
A look at the data from the Ukrainian OSINT platform shows how big (or small) Russia’s territorial gains were in the past twelve months Deep State UAwhich maps the current front lines based on publicly available sources. Accordingly, Russia has conquered an area of 4,188 square kilometers since February 24, 2025.
Russian territorial gains over the last 12 months:
This corresponds to approximately twice the area of the canton of St. Gallen or 0.7 percent of the total area of Ukraine. In total, four years after the start of the war, Russia occupies 116,521 square kilometers or 19.2 percent of Ukrainian territory. Around seven percent – Crimea and part of Donbass – were already under Russian control before the Russian war of aggression began in February 2022.
The situation near Pokrovsk
The fall of Pokrovsk in December 2025 was particularly painful for Ukraine. The city is a central transport hub in the western part of the Donetsk region, through which important road and rail connections for supplies, troop movements and evacuations run. Whoever controls the city also controls the logistics in Donbass and can plan further military actions from there.
The situation around Pokrovsk is still confusing. According to reports from the US think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) Ukrainian forces recently advanced on the city again. At the same time, the Russian army is attacking towns around the city.
The new Ukrainian counterattacks are said to have made possible the shutdown of the Starlink satellite network by Elon Musk for the Russian troops. According to Russian military observers, the connection has been interrupted since February 5th. Starlink is considered to play an important role in communications and drone control for troops on both sides.
The Ukrainian fortress belt
But there are not reports of Ukrainian success everywhere. The Russians are advancing slowly but steadily in the Luhansk region. The goal there is to break through the Ukrainian fortress belt consisting of the cities of Slovyansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka and Kostiantynivka. The Russian troops are currently trying to encircle it with advances from the Pokrovsk area to the north and from the Lyman area to the south.
But the Ukrainian defenders are still holding out. Financial and military support from their allies remains important to them. The USA has almost completely stopped this under President Donald Trump, but Europe has stepped into the breach. New arms deliveries are planned and urgently needed. Because Russia will increasingly gain the upper hand against a poorly equipped Ukrainian army.