Russia’s war in Ukraine in 2025: Slow advances, heavy losses, and no decisive victory

By 2025, Russia’s war against Ukraine has evolved into a prolonged and exhausting conflict, with neither side achieving a decisive strategic breakthrough.

Although the front line shifted more in 2025 than in 2023 or 2024, Russia’s advances remained slow, limited, and extremely costly in terms of both manpower and military equipment.

Moscow increasingly emphasized its battlefield achievements throughout 2025 in an apparent effort to strengthen its position in U.S.-mediated peace talks and to portray victory as inevitable.

In late November, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Ukrainian forces would have to withdraw from the occupied territories, warning that otherwise Russia would achieve this “by military means.”

However, military analysts stress that the reality on the ground is far more complex. “Russia’s progress has been weak, with high losses that have failed to meet its stated objectives,” Michael Kofman told The Washington Post.

According to Kofman, the war now resembles less a conventional campaign by a regular army and more a conflict sustained by small infiltration units, low-cost technologies, and supplies financed through non-official channels.

Putin has claimed that Russian forces captured nearly 5,000 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in 2025. Russia pushed Ukrainian troops out of the Kursk region in the spring and briefly advanced into Ukraine’s Sumy region, but progress there quickly stalled. In eastern Ukraine, Russian forces nearly completed the capture of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad after almost two years of fighting, while by the end of the year they also claimed control over Huliaipole in Zaporizhzhia and Siversk in Donetsk.

Nevertheless, these advances have been uneven and largely tactical in nature. “Since 2023, the war has turned into a battle of attrition, in which changes along the front are mostly tactical rather than strategic,” said BBC News military analyst Pavel Aksenov.

In 2025, Russia adjusted its tactics by relying increasingly on small assault groups rather than large armored offensives. These units infiltrate Ukrainian positions, identify weak points, and gradually build local advantages. Drones have played a key role in this phase of the war.

According to analysts at the Atlantic Council, drone warfare began to tilt in Russia’s favor in late 2024, a trend that accelerated throughout 2025. Moscow has made extensive use of fiber-optic drones resistant to electronic jamming to strike supply lines and Ukrainian positions. At the same time, Russia has widely employed guided aerial bombs and heavy artillery to dismantle Ukrainian defenses.

Despite mobilizing its defense industry and replenishing its forces with contract soldiers, Russia continues to face serious logistical challenges. Unit supplies often depend on volunteer initiatives, pro-war bloggers, and private funding, creating an uneven and unstable support system.

Another persistent issue is the exaggeration of battlefield reports. Russian commanders have repeatedly declared towns captured before fighting had actually ended, leading to costly operations aimed at making those claims a reality. The case of Kupiansk—announced several times as captured and later partially retaken by Ukrainian forces—illustrates this practice.

Overall, analysts assess that Russia has adapted more effectively to the realities of modern warfare, particularly through the use of drones and small-unit operations. However, the lack of sufficient manpower and the inability to achieve a deep strategic breakthrough suggest that the war is likely to continue without a decisive victory in sight.

“Russia currently does not have enough forces for decisive offensives in any sector of the front,” Aksenov concluded, emphasizing that even potential breakthroughs would be insufficient to fundamentally change the course of the war. /TheGeoPost