Day: December 9, 2025

MORE: ISW has observed evidence to assess that Russian forces have seized roughly 4,669 square kilometers since January 1, 2025. Data from the Ukrainian General Staff indicates that Russian forces have suffered a total of 391,270 casualties in that time – or about 83 casualties per square kilometer. The Russian rate of advance has not exceeded a footpace, even in areas where Russian forces have been making relatively quicker gains recently, such as in the Hulyaipole and Pokrovsk directions. Russian advances are unlikely to move faster than a footpace in the near- to medium- term. The drone-dominated battlefield denies Russian forces the ability to conduct maneuver warfare at the scale necessary for rapid, operational-level advances that restore maneuver to the battlefield.

Ukraine’s drone-based defenses have some vulnerabilities (e.g. weather factors) that Russian forces have managed to exploit to make tactically significant advances, but Ukraine’s drone defenses overall have denied Russian forces the ability to use armored vehicles and conduct mechanized maneuver and have forced Russian forces into grinding attritional infantry missions. This equilibrium is unlikely to change rapidly, barring any sudden changes in the fundamental technologies and operational concepts underpinning the current war in Ukraine.Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar)NEW: The Kremlin is significantly intensifying its cognitive warfare effort to present the Russian military and economy as able to inevitably win a war of attrition against Ukraine. ⬇️

The Kremlin’s cognitive warfare effort aims to achieve several of Putin’s original war aims through a negotiated settlement, as Russian forces are currently unable to achieve them on the battlefield.

Russian forces have gained 0.77 percent of Ukrainian territory since the start of 2025 while suffering disproportionately high personnel costs.

Russia’s resources are not endless, as Putin is trying to assert, and Putin currently appears to be facing difficult decision points regarding the strategic sustainment of Russian force generation.

Putin is very likely preparing to attempt to offset Russia’s near-exhaustion of voluntary recruitment in 2026 by mobilizing elements of Russia’s strategic reserve to sustain combat operations in Ukraine. The Kremlin remains unlikely to undertake a single large-scale mobilization at this time, however, and is most likely to persistently recruit reservists on a rolling basis.

The Kremlin’s ongoing efforts to downplay or misrepresent the true intent of these personnel system changes suggest that the Kremlin remains unlikely to conduct a general mobilization of inactive reservists or repeat its 2022 partial mobilization at this time due to the heavy political costs associated with such compulsory reserve call-ups.

ISW continues to assess that the West and Ukraine can leverage the manner in which Russia’s economic, demographic, and force generation challenges compound over time to force Putin to grapple with challenging decision points at home sooner than he would like. The US can use such an approach to build leverage against Russia to compel Putin to come to the negotiating table and offer concessions to end the war in Ukraine.

The Kremlin has notably offered no concessions on the war in Ukraine so far and has not publicly signaled agreement with any of the United States’ recently proposed ceasefires or peace plans.—  https://x.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1998593299465019738

— Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) Dec 10, 2025