Russia wants to impose its peace plan with advances on multiple fronts in Ukraine

Russia’s conditions for ending the Ukraine war became clear this November with Donald Trump’s 28-point peace plan. The U.S. president’s special envoy to Russia, Steve Witkoff, drafted a document with close associates of Russian leader Vladimir Putin that amounted to a list of concessions for Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his European allies made it clear to Trump that this was an unacceptable humiliation and that the proposal had to be reformulated. Putin responded as always, with force, escalating pressure on multiple fronts. The result is the most significant Russian advance in recent months.

On December 1, Putin announced that his troops had completed the capture of three key locations: Vovchansk and Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region, and Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. Putin’s claim is false because his army has not fully taken these towns; fighting continues street by street. According to sources in the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, these messages from the Russian leader are intended to convince Trump — in the ongoing negotiations to revise his peace plan — that major concessions are unavoidable because Ukraine has no option but to surrender.

That plan stipulates that all of Donbas (comprising the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces) must be under Russian sovereignty. The Ukrainian army must withdraw from the 20% of Donetsk still under its control. Putin’s logic is that for Kyiv, it is worse to postpone what will eventually happen: that Russia will conquer these territories. Zelenskiy confirmed Monday that Russia continues to demand at the negotiating table that all of Donbas be handed over.

The announcement by Putin and the head of the Russian army, Varely Gerasimov, of the capture of Kupiansk and Vovchansk was intended to connect with another point in the peace plan, the one in which Moscow agrees to return the occupied territories in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions. Pressure in the latter has been increasing, and not only for military reasons, but also political ones: gaining ground in Kharkiv would allow the Kremlin to underscore the idea that it, too, is making significant concessions. “Russia, I guess, would rather have the whole country, But Russia is, I believe, fine with it [the terms of the peace plan],” Trump said on Sunday in a press conference in Washington, where he urged Zelenskiy to reach an agreement.

The 28-point plan and the Ukrainian proposal agreed at least on the point that a peace agreement must freeze the line of contact in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces. The Kherson front has remained unchanged for three years because it is demarcated by the Dnipro River, and an offensive would require enormous resources for a landing. But the most rapid changes on the frontlines are taking place in Zaporizhzhia.

Russia captured 505 square kilometers (195 square miles) in November, the same amount as in September and October combined, according to the Ukrainian war analysts Deep State. Most of these gains are in the south, on the Zaporizhzhia front. Russian troops have managed to advance as far as Stepnohirsk, just 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the provincial capital, in a single month. The region is flat and agricultural. Without sufficient defenses or terrain that could halt the attack, an advance by a better-equipped adversary seems inevitable.

The Russian advance has stalled in Huliaipole, a town that just a month ago was still 10 kilometers (six miles) from the front lines. Urban fighting to capture this town will slow the Russian pace, but it began earlier than expected, according to the Ukrainian General Staff, due to negligence in the rotation and the withdrawal of a brigade that had defended the town for three years.

Mick Ryan, a retired Australian general and expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), warned this November that Russia has perfected its ability to persist in “thousands of small, bite-like assaults” across the entire front until it finds a weak point in the defenses: “When this vulnerable point is detected, the Russians overwhelm it with infantry and drones, especially looking [in the rear] to hit command bases and operational centers.”

Threat in Kharkiv

In Vovchansk, in the northeastern Kharkiv region, the situation has also deteriorated suddenly. The Khartia Brigade, one of the best in the Ukrainian army, has been holding back the Russians in this border city since 2024, but this autumn the invaders managed to break the deadlock and seize most of the municipality.

Russia controls most of Kupiansk, also in the Kharkiv region, a strategic city for Ukraine to maintain logistical routes to Donetsk and for a possible future recapture of Luhansk. Following the advance achieved by Gerasimov’s troops last summer, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have managed to contain the invaders over the past two months. In other words, Kupiansk is still far from being fully captured, as Putin proclaimed.

Pokrovsk, on the brink

Beyond Zaporizhzhia, Russian progress is steady but very slow. Pokrovsk, a key city in Donetsk province, has been under siege for over a year, and Russia has yet to capture it. While no one believes Ukraine can regain control in this war, starting with NATO, sources within the Atlantic Alliance declared it lost, as well as the neighboring city of Mirnograd, in a meeting with the media on December 2. NATO estimated that the Ukrainian army controls less than 10% of Pokrovsk.

The cost in casualties for the Russian army is extraordinary, the highest since the capture of Bakhmut in 2023, according to statistics provided by the General Staff of Ukraine. Russian infantry assault tactics have evolved since then, from the suicidal frontal attacks carried out by Wagner mercenaries in Bakhmut. But Russian platoons continue to receive orders to seize a position at all costs, and the result is videos like the one posted on social media on November 29 by Zelenskiy’s former spokesperson, Iuliia Mendel: it shows two Russian soldiers surrounded by corpses in Pokrovsk, trying to advance and refusing cover despite knowing that Ukrainian drones are about to kill them.

Russia has suffered tens of thousands of casualties, both wounded and dead, in the siege of Pokrovsk. According to Zelenskiy, 25,000 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded on the front lines in October alone. The Russian Armed Forces estimate that since 2024, its troops have suffered 100,000 casualties in Pokrovsk. This figure is difficult to verify without official Russian data, but independent observers in Europe assume it is indeed in the tens of thousands.

Essential infantry

These statistics not only speak to the carnage this war represents for Russia, but also demonstrate that infantry, despite the dominance of drones, remains fundamental to achieving objectives on the ground. Ryan concluded in the CSIS report: “Infantry remains essential in Russian operations to conquer territory, operating in small teams of two to four soldiers,” highlighting Russia’s shift away from the suicide charges with entire platoons that were commonplace until 2024.

Russia will control all the ruins of Pokrovsk this December thanks to these sacrifices, according to a November 21 report by the Estonian Ministry of Defense. This will be the most significant Russian conquest since the capture of neighboring Avdiivka in the summer of 2024, and would further tighten the noose around the rest of Donetsk held by free Ukraine. The three urban centers that are currently the heart of the Ukrainian resistance in Donbas (Luhansk is already under Russian control) form a triangle: Kostiantynivka, Kramatorsk, and Sloviansk.

The Russians have already entered the eastern districts of Kostiantynivka. The threat Gerasimov declared on December 1 is looming over Sloviansk: the invading troops may have breached the defenses in the municipality of Liman, 15 kilometers (nine miles) from Sloviansk. The Ukrainian 3rd Army Corps denies this, but according to Deep State, the Russians have captured 35 square kilometers (13.5 square miles) in the eastern and southern perimeter of Liman over the past two months.

Russia’s fortification of Pokrovsk is not only bad news for Ukraine’s attempt to retain control of Donetsk, but also for its defenses against the invader’s further advance into the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region, where they have already gained a foothold. This would also be one of the territories Russia would be willing to return if Kyiv relinquishes sovereignty over Donbas and the Crimean Peninsula. In other words, the Kremlin will have more leverage at the negotiating table to make it clear to Ukraine that it must either cede sovereignty over Donbas and Crimea or face further losses.

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