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OPINION

WHO IS WINNING IN UKRAINE? THESE MAPS TELL THE REAL STORY.


THE NEXT U.S. PRESIDENT WILL NEED TO ADDRESS A NEAR STALEMATE IN THE ONGOING
WAR.

3 min
594

Ukrainian soldiers stand in a defensive position in Kherson region. (Ed Ram/For
The Washington Post)
By William Brooks
and 
Michael O'Hanlon
September 26, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

William Brooks is a student at Pitzer College. Michael O’Hanlon is the Philip H.
Knight chair in defense and strategy at the Brookings Institution.

As the third fighting season of the war in Ukraine enters its final weeks before
first mud, then snow and ice slow things down, it is clear that the combat,
though not quite a stalemate, is doing little to change the situation on the
ground. The warfare on both sides is now a tough, slow slog. And any place where
defenses are properly prepared, manned and armed, breakthroughs are rare.
Drones, cellphones and satellites reinforce the defender’s advantage.



Making use of the excellent maps developed by the Institute for the Study of War
and the American Enterprise Institute, we have documented the territory trends
in Ukraine.

For each month, we have calculated the area of the land held by Russia
(excluding what had already been seized starting in 2014 in Crimea and Donbas),
adding areas where Russia was attempting offensives and subtracting areas where
Ukraine was attempting its own counteroffensives. (Our method is not perfectly
precise, because not all offensives or counteroffensives seize land, but it
tends to correctly average out over time.)

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When the invasion began, Russia tried to storm Kyiv while also moving into
Ukraine across multiple sectors in the north and east. Failing to seize the
capital and losing lots of equipment, soldiers and even generals, Russia fell
back (or was driven back) to a more modest strategy of taking as much of
Ukraine’s four eastern and southeastern provinces as it could. (Russian
President Vladimir Putin then claimed to annex all of those provinces — Donetsk,
Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — even though Russia has never held all parts
of all four.)



In late 2022, after Ukraine received missiles and other weapons from the West,
it took back Kharkiv and Kherson. The rain and mud of that winter stymied
further Ukrainian advances.



In 2023, Ukraine’s attempts at more geographically comprehensive
counteroffensives generally failed on the battlefield. Meanwhile, Russia’s
missile and drone attacks undermined Ukraine’s ability to provide electricity
and heating — though Ukraine did firm up its control of shipping corridors
through western parts of the Black Sea.



In the early months of the fighting season this year, as U.S. aid to Ukraine was
delayed, Russia had some success. By late spring and early summer, though,
Ukraine firmed up its defensive line. But by then attacking the neighboring
Kursk region of Russia, Ukraine gave up troops it needed in the east, so recent
weeks have been a period of more or less checkmate, with each side’s advances
counterbalancing the other’s. If anything, as fall begins, Russia has some
slight momentum with its ongoing offensives in Ukraine’s east.


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The bottom line is this: Since late 2022, Russia has held roughly 24,000 to
26,000 square miles, or about twice the area of Maryland — in addition to the
nearly 20,000 square miles it had already stolen in Crimea and the east starting
in 2014. During all of 2023 and 2024, only about 1 percent of Ukraine’s
territory has shifted hands. And for all the brilliance of its push into Russia
this past summer, Ukraine holds only about 500 square miles of Russian
territory.

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The United States should never abandon Ukraine or deprive it of defensive
weaponry. Indeed, Ukraine needs more arms now to protect its cities. But the
next U.S. president will need to grapple with the reality that neither side in
the war has much chance of taking — or taking back — territory on the current
course. This might not quite be a stalemate, but it is pretty close.


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