Putin’s ‘Battlefield Fiction’ Could Take Russia Until 2032 to Seize Donetsk, ISW Says

Russian President Vladimir Putin is doubling down on a fictional picture of the battlefield that he defines as “reality” and using it to justify Russia’s refusal to make meaningful compromises in peace negotiations with Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said. Putin reiterated Russia’s commitment to achieving all of its war aims through military means during his Sept. 5 meeting with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and former senior adviser to President Donald Trump Jared Kushner, according to Russian Presidential Aide Yuriy Ushakov.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. Ushakov said on Sept. 6 that Putin gave the US envoys a comprehensive assessment of Russia’s “significant advances” along the frontline – a claim ISW said was exaggerated and did not match the realities on the ground. A person close to the Kremlin told Reuters before Witkoff and Kushner’s visit that there would be no peace agreement until Russian forces seize the remainder of the Donetsk region. The source said Putin is confident his forces can capture the entire region by the end of 2026 – the Kremlin’s latest deadline for achieving the goal. ISW said that belief is being reinforced by Russia’s own military leadership. “The Russian military systematically misinforms Putin about the state of the front line,” the think tank said, pointing to the pervasive culture of lying within the Russian armed forces that Russian milbloggers refer to as “beautiful reports.” Other Topics of Interest China Asks Ukraine Not to Strike Vladivostok During Forum Kyiv reportedly agreed to avoid the Russian port city, more than 6,500 kilometers from Ukraine, during the four-day economic gathering. Senior Russian commanders routinely exaggerate battlefield gains as part of what ISW described as a systematic cognitive warfare effort designed to portray Russian forces as making sweeping advances while Ukrainian defenses are collapsing. Those distortions are likely leading Putin to further harden his belief that Russia can achieve its objectives in Donetsk region by the end of 2026 – and therefore that he has no reason to compromise in peace negotiations. Russia keeps missing Putin’s deadlines Putin has reportedly set at least 15 deadlines for the seizure of Donetsk region since February 2022. Russian forces have failed to meet not even one. They will also fail to meet his latest deadline of Dec. 31, 2026, ISW assessed. Russian forces have been fighting for Kostiantynivka since October 2025 and have still not seized it after 11 months of fighting. They have not reached, let alone entered or captured, the other key cities of Ukraine’s Fortress Belt – Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Druzhkivka. ISW said Russian forces will not be able to capture all three within the four months remaining in 2026, given that they have failed to complete the seizure of even one Fortress Belt city [Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka, and Kostiantynivka] in nearly a year. “Putin’s battlefield fiction remains divorced from the reality of Ukraine’s defensive abilities, Russia’s own degraded offensive capabilities, and the difficult and expansive terrain Russian forces must still fight through to achieve Putin’s strategic goal in the region,” ISW said. Putin’s repeated deadlines also serve a domestic political purpose, the think tank said. He needs to provide Russians with a significant informational victory after promising them victory in exchange for enduring the burdens of war without placing Russian society on a full wartime footing. At the current pace, Donetsk falls in 2032 Russia’s actual rate of advance makes Putin’s 2026 deadline even more unrealistic. Russian forces advanced across the entire theater of operations at an average rate of 2.91 square kilometers per day in August 2026, a slight increase compared with recent months. But their advance in their priority effort in Donetsk region was slower – just 2.36 square kilometers per day. At that rate, Russia would need until Oct. 2, 2032 to seize the remaining 19% of Donetsk region, ISW calculated. That would be more than a year after Russia’s next State Duma elections, which are likely to be held in September 2031. But ISW stressed that even this calculation should not be interpreted as a prediction that Russia will eventually capture the region. The think tank said Russian forces must first fight through attritional urban battles in the Fortress Belt before attempting to advance across open fields – terrain where Russian troops have historically struggled to make progress. Russia’s rate of advance has also slowed significantly across the battlefield since 2025, when it had already begun to decline. Ukraine has demonstrated that it can contest the tactical initiative in several sectors of the frontline and disrupt Russian logistics in 2026, while Russia has struggled to counter those efforts. “Neither the trajectory nor any likely dynamics of the current conflict suggest that Russian forces will be able soon to accelerate their rate of advance dramatically,” ISW said, provided Western support for Ukraine continues at roughly current levels. Kyiv Post is Ukraine’s first and oldest English news organization, reporting since 1995. Its international reach – 97% of readers are outside of Ukraine – make it truly Ukraine’s global voice.