Battlefield Picture Worsening for Ukraine as Trump Pushes Peace Plan
Russian forces have advanced on several fronts recently. President Vladimir V. Putin signaled after talks with U.S. officials that he was not budging from demands.
nytimes.com
It was a clear attempt to project Russian power.
Hours before meeting U.S. officials in Moscow this past week about their plan to end the war, President Vladimir V. Putin claimed that Russia’s forces had seized the strategic Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk after a monthslong fight.
The reality was murkier. Slivers of the city were still contested, according to battlefield maps and the Ukrainian military. But Mr. Putin’s claim, even if premature, reflected a trend shaping his unbending approach to negotiations: Russian forces are on the march.
“The Russians do have the upper hand,” said Emil Kastehelmi, a military analyst with the Finland-based Black Bird Group. Ukraine is not yet at the point where it must capitulate, he said, but it “is looking weak enough that the Russians think that they can impose demands.”
Mr. Putin has ordered the Russian military to prepare for winter combat, signaling after the talks with U.S. officials that he is not budging from his hard-line demands. Mr. Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, has since held a series of discussions in Miami with Ukraine’s delegation — with another expected to take place on Saturday — that both sides called “constructive.”
As these statements were being released, Russia unleashed more than 650 drones and 51 missiles on towns and cities across Ukraine in an assault that began overnight on Friday and stretched through Saturday morning, Ukrainian officials said.
In recent weeks, Russian forces have advanced on several fronts. They are on the brink of capturing Pokrovsk, a onetime logistics hub in the eastern region of Donetsk, and have nearly encircled its neighbor, Myrnohrad. They are moving quicker in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia. They are pressing closer to the northeastern city of Kupiansk, and they are making gains around the eastern city of Siversk, according to battlefield maps, analysts and soldiers.
The advances have been slow and costly, in both lives and equipment. Ukrainian officials and analysts say Mr. Putin could still be years away from achieving his territorial goals. Chief among them is capturing the rest of the Donetsk region, which would give Russia all of the broader eastern Ukrainian area known as the Donbas.
But Russia’s pace is quickening, and incremental moves have started to add up. Moscow’s forces captured 505 square kilometers, or nearly 200 square miles, of territory in November, up from 267 square kilometers, or about 100 square miles, in October, according to the battlefield map maintained by DeepState, a Ukrainian group with ties to the military.
“The future looks really, really grim for Ukraine,” said Mr. Kastehelmi, the analyst. “I don’t see a clear path out.”
For now, Ukraine appears to have enough resources to keep the front line from collapsing. But it is bending. Mr. Putin has suggested that Ukraine, facing manpower shortages and uncertainty about Western aid, should concede to his demands before the war gets even worse.
The Russian leader, in an interview with an Indian news outlet that was published on Thursday, said Russia would take additional territory in Donetsk by whatever means necessary.
The Kremlin’s summer offensive, which was aimed at capturing all of Donetsk, produced limited gains. But starting in the fall, the tide there started to turn in Russia’s favor. After months of bombarding Pokrovsk with artillery, drones and glide bombs, Russian forces punched through a string of villages and settlements to fight their way into the city.
“Things started to fall apart a bit on our side” starting in September, said Ihor, a Ukrainian drone pilot in the area who gave only his first name, according to military protocol. “The line just began collapsing from exhaustion.”
Russian forces are sending fixed-wing Molniya drones and waves of mini kamikaze drones that carry explosives, he said, adding that Ukraine had nothing comparable in mass production.
The current push for a peace plan is “all bluff,” he said, adding that as long as the Russians have “the ability to press us, they will keep pressing.”
At the same time, Russian forces have taken aim at other critical cities in Donetsk, including Kostiantynivka and Lyman.
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