Russian forces manage to capture the remaining part of the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbaswhich is still under the control of the Ukrainian army, no earlier than August 2027a to provided they proceed at the same pace as at the end of November last year. This is stated in the latest report by analysts from the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW), reports TASR.
According to the report, the Russian advance in eastern Ukraine slowed down at the end of December 2025 and early January 2026probably due in part to adverse weather conditions. Their efforts to occupy the rest of the Donetsk region, which together with the Luhansk region forms the Donbas, would could last longer than analysts had previously anticipated.
“Russian forces are unlikely to occupy the rest of the Donetsk region before August 2027, assuming they are able to maintain the pace of advance from late November 2025,” it is written in Wednesday’s ISW report. According to her, the Russians would conquer the rest of Donbas “they had to expend a significant amount of resources, time and personnel”.
As part of the negotiations on ending the war in Ukraine, Moscow declares that peace can be achieved by the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces even from those parts of Donbas that they still control. Kyiv rejects such demands, claiming that concessions would only strengthen Russia.
Despite the statements of its representatives, Russia’s territorial claims in Ukraine do not only concern Donbasanalysts from ISW pointed out. According to them, this claim is supported by the repeated statements of the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Army Valery Gerasimov about the buffer zones in Kharkiv, Sumy and Dnepropetrovsk regions.
ISW’s latest report was linked to Tuesday’s article by the Financial Times, which, citing eight sources, wrote that the United States is making the provision of security guarantees to Ukraine conditional on Kyiv agreeing to the withdrawal of Donbas in favor of Moscow. The White House denied the FT report. Reuters later reported that The US will provide guarantees to Ukraine only if it signs a peace agreement with Russia, but they are not dictating to Kyiv what the agreement must contain.
Ukraine considers US security guarantees the basis of any peaceful solution. President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said on Sunday that the document on security guarantees is 100 percent ready, and Kiev is only waiting for a decision on the time and place to sign it. The document should then be ratified by the US Congress and the Ukrainian Parliament.
