Russia is doubling down on its claims on Ukraine, in an apparent effort to demonstrate some military achievement in 2025 at home and to influence peace talks with the United States.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters last Friday in a year-end news conference that Moscow’s forces had seized Siversk in the eastern region of Donetsk and Vovchansk in the northern Kharkiv region.
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Putin also claimed Russian forces held at least half of Lyman and Kostiantynivka in Donetsk, and Hulyaipole in the southern Zaporizhia region – all front-line towns.
Ukraine observers begged to differ. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank, said satellite and open-source visual evidence contradict Putin.
“ISW has observed no evidence to confirm any of these claimed seizures or extensive advances and has only observed evidence indicating a Russian presence [either through infiltration missions or assaults] in 7.3 percent of Hulyaipole and 2.9 percent of Lyman,” it wrote.
The ISW also estimated Russian advances had claimed no more than 5 percent of Kostiantynivka.
“Even Russian milbloggers’ [military reporters’] claimed advances do not support many of Putin’s claims,” the ISW said, with milbloggers claiming that “Russian forces have seized a maximum” of about 7 percent of Lyman and 11 percent of Kostiantynivka.
The Kremlin has also claimed to be in complete possession of Kupiansk in Kharkiv and Pokrovsk in Donetsk. The ISW estimated Russia possesses no more than 7.2 percent of Kharkiv, and Ukraine’s commander-in-chief has said Ukrainian forces had pushed Russia out of 16 square kilometres (6.1 square miles) of Pokrovsk.
On December 18, Russian commander-in-chief Valery Gerasimov gave an end-of-year report to foreign military officials, claiming Russia seized 6,300sq km (2,432sq miles) of Ukraine this year, slightly more than the 6,000sq km (2,300sq miles) Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov had claimed a week earlier.
But the ISW estimated Russia had seized no more than 4,984sq km (1,900sq miles) containing 196 settlements, rather than the 300 that Russian officials have claimed.
Putin did make one truthful claim to have seized the eastern town of Siversk.
Zelenskyy welcomes ‘cooperation’ with US despite disagreements
The spurious Russian assertions have come over a two-week period when US and Ukrainian negotiators have intensified talks on a peace plan, a process that ended on Monday after three days of talks in Florida.
“We sense that America wants to reach a final agreement, and from our side, there is full cooperation,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a Tuesday evening address to his people.
Yet the 20-point plan he made public on Wednesday morning revealed that on the most sensitive issue of territory, there was no agreement between the US and Ukraine.
Russia has demanded that Ukraine cede the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson in full, in addition to Crimea.
Ukraine refuses. Europe has suggested leaving a territorial discussion for after a full ceasefire.
Zelenskyy called for a summit with US President Donald Trump to hammer out a joint position on territorial adjustments.
Significantly, the US agreed to NATO-level security guarantees for Ukraine – a mutual defence clause that could bring NATO into a war on Ukraine’s side if Russia should again attack it.
Separately, the European Union has said it will make Ukraine a full member in the near future, which would also entitle it to mutual defence from members of the bloc, most of whom are NATO members.
Equally important, the plan allows Ukraine to keep its military at full strength and does not call on it to recognise occupied territory as de facto Russian – points on which Moscow had insisted, and the US had included in its original proposal.
The Kremlin said it was aware of the 20-point document thrashed out by Washington and Kyiv.
Russia will “formulate” its position and “continue our contacts in the very near future through the existing channels that are currently working”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday.
Long-range strikes
As the war raged on the ground, Russia and Ukraine traded long-range strikes with drones and missiles.
During the week of December 18-24, Russia launched 1,227 drones and 41 missiles at Ukraine. Ukraine intercepted 80 percent of the drones and 83 percent of the missiles, but strikes on Saturday and Tuesday killed at least four civilians, including a child.
Ukraine’s State Security Service (SBU) said it struck two Russian Su-27 fighter jets at the Belbek airbase near occupied Sevastopol in Crimea on December 20. Two days earlier, Ukraine had weakened air defence systems at the base and hit a MiG-31 interceptor aircraft.
Ukraine also said it had struck a Russian oil rig in the Caspian Sea belonging to Lukoil and damaged one of its drilling platforms.
Ukraine has targeted Russian refineries, power plants and other energy infrastructure this year, aiming to disrupt Moscow’s revenues from exports and the Russian army’s fuel supply.
In November, Ukraine also began to target tankers belonging to Russia with surface drones. On Friday, Ukrainian aerial drones struck the Qendil in the Mediterranean Sea, the first time Ukraine has ranged its tanker strikes that far from its shores.
On Monday, Ukrainian military intelligence used a car bomb to assassinate Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, the chief of the Russian General Staff’s operational training department.
European help
Trump announced he would no longer be sending military assistance to Ukraine shortly after assuming office, but agreed to sell weapons to Kyiv, paid for by the European Union, Canada, Australia and Japan, who are now bankrolling the war effort.
That process reached an important milestone on Friday, when the European Council of government leaders approved a 90-billion-euro ($106bn) loan to Ukraine over two years.
“Ukraine will receive at least 45bn ($53bn) annually over the next two years. And these funds can be repaid only from Russian funds,” Zelenskyy told Ukrainians after the decision. But Europe pointedly refused to draw any connection between 210 billion euros in Russian state assets immobilised in European banks and the loan, after Italy, Bulgaria, Malta and Belgium vetoed a plan to use the money as collateral for a reparations loan to Ukraine.
“No one will ever be able to explain to European voters why Europe should give 200bn [$235bn] back to Putin – after everything he’s destroyed, and after all the hard choices Europe had to make because of his war,” Zelenskyy told European leaders on December 18.
The US-Ukrainian 20-point plan pledges to mobilise $800bn for the reconstruction of Ukraine.
