Putin's Latest Donbas Deadline Again Thwarted By Ukrainian Forces

It is a famous adage of business that deadlines are made to be broken. Whoever first pointed that out probably was not thinking of the Russian Army, but, boy, have they embraced it. Starting with the 'three day' invasion of Ukraine in 2022, there does not seem to have been a deadline set by the Kremlin that its army has not found a way to miss. 

The latest in this panoply of failure is Putin's insistence that the Donbas be captured in its entirety by the end of 2026. Most experts are now predicting that due to Ukraine's defense, its extensive fortifications, the Russians' 'very heavy losses every day" and the abysmally slow pace of what passes for Russian advances this year - to the extent there have been advances at all - it is 'extremely unlikely' that the latest goal will be achieved either. JL

Raj K reports in Medium:

Every deadline Putin sets for the fall of Donbas comes and goes. Now there is talk of a new deadline, according to which the goal is to establish full Russian control over the entire Donbas region by the end of 2026. Looking at the current situation on the battlefield, achieving this goal within the set time will be extremely difficult. Russia is suffering very heavy military losses every day and the fighting ability of many units is continuously decreasing. The reason is not only Ukrainian resistance, but the pace of the war, military capabilities, logistics, availability of weapons, and the constantly rising human and economic costs. Russian forces only managed to push a few soldiers into the outskirts of Kostianynivka, creating only gray zones. The four large cities standing in Russia’s path are much bigger than Pokrovsk, more dangerous, and their fortifications are far stronger. All four “Fortress Belt” cities still stand under Ukrainian control.

Every deadline Putin sets for the fall of Donbas comes and goes. Now there is talk of a new deadline, according to which the goal is to establish full Russian control over the entire Donbas region by the end of 2026.

However, looking at the current situation on the battlefield, achieving this goal within the set time will be extremely difficult.

The reason is not only Ukrainian resistance, but also the pace of the war, the military capabilities of both sides, logistics, availability of weapons, and the constantly rising human and economic costs.

The truth that the Kremlin wants to hide from the rest of the world is that Russia’s Donbas offensive campaign has completely fallen apart.

Some sources claim that Russia is suffering very heavy military losses every day and that the fighting ability of many units is continuously decreasing.

When 2026 began, the Kremlin believed that it held all the strategic cards. At that time, peace talks were revolving around Russian demands, the main one being that Ukraine must hand over Donbas.

Along with this, Russia had launched a wide campaign against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

By the end of January 2026, about 8.5 gigawatts of Ukraine’s electricity generation capacity had been destroyed, which was nearly half of the country’s total capacity.

In the Kremlin’s assessment, the ground was ready for full control over Donbas.

In 2026, Russia planned a major spring and summer offensive targeting four key cities.

These four cities are called the “Donetsk Fortress Belt.” They include Kostiantynivka, Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk, and Sloviansk.

But as time passed, the situation turned out to be completely the opposite. By the end of July 2026, the situation was totally different from what Putin had imagined. All four “Fortress Belt” cities still stand firmly under Ukrainian control.

I had also mentioned in my earlier post that Russia claimed it had captured Kostiantynivka, and Putin himself announced it. But the Ukrainian General Staff immediately rejected this claim.

In reality, Russian forces only managed to push a few soldiers into the outskirts of the city, creating only “grey zones” where neither side has full control.

Later, Zelenskyy himself went there and challenged Putin, saying that if they had truly captured Kostiantynivka, they should come there once and show it.

Russia should have already understood from the battle for Pokrovsk how big a failure it would face in trying to capture the “Fortress Belt.”

Even though Russia today claims control over most of Pokrovsk, it took several years just to capture this small city. In the attempt to seize this one small city, around 250,000 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded.

Now the four large cities standing in Russia’s path are much bigger than Pokrovsk, more dangerous, and their fortifications are far stronger.

The most important point is that by keeping Russia stuck in Pokrovsk, Ukraine gained a lot of time. It used this time to build even stronger defensive walls and trenches behind the other cities.

Currently, Russia is losing at least two battalions every day on the Donetsk front. According to the standards of the U.K. National Army Museum, a military battalion usually has 500 to 1,000 soldiers.

In this context, Ivan Tymochko, head of the Reserve Council of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, has claimed that Russia’s 2026 spring military campaign failed to achieve its main objectives.

According to him, this campaign did not give Russia the strategic success that was expected.

According to the ISW assessment of 22 July 2026, in the whole of 2026 the Russian army gained a net total of only 81.1 square kilometers across all of Ukraine.

Because Ukraine recaptured 626.85 square kilometers, Russia’s net gain remained very small.

In the early years of the war, Russia had succeeded in capturing cities like Bakhmut. Although that battle was also extremely bloody, at that time Russia was able to fully use its mechanized units, and Ukraine did not yet have such a developed modern drone-based defense system.

But today the nature of modern warfare has changed. Ukraine does not depend only on traditional artillery.

Through FPV drones and medium-range strike drones, it has paralyzed Russia’s supply lines and oil refineries.

In winter, when Russian soldiers lack enough fuel, food, and winter gear, this battlefield will become even deadlier for them.

If we talk about the current situation, the Russian army once again appears to be returning to the same strategy it used during the summer-fall 2025 campaign.

In military language, this strategy is called Battlefield Air Interdiction (BAI). In simple words, the aim of BAI is not to target the soldiers directly on the front line.

Instead, its goal is to attack the positions and resources located just behind the front line on which the army fighting on the front depends.

These can include logistics centers, ammunition depots, fuel depots, railway junctions, bridges, military vehicles, training camps, and supply routes.

In 2025, Russia had used this same strategy for months in Pokrovsk before launching direct attacks.

When logistics and rations stopped arriving from the rear, the Ukrainian army was forced to retreat.

Now the same pattern is being repeated in Sloviansk and Kramatorsk so that the Ukrainian army’s supply lines are completely cut before direct attacks begin.

In the 2026 campaigns, Russia has increased the use of glide bombs (such as FAB-250 and FAB-500) many times.

The reason is that Ukraine has built a wide electronic warfare (EW/jamming) network to stop FPV drones, which has reduced the effect of Russian drones.

Russia is now releasing glide bombs from a distance using its heavy combat aircraft.

These bombs are not affected by electronic jamming and can turn strong concrete bridges and solid fortifications into rubble within minutes.

Along with this, the war is no longer being fought only on the border, but also against the economic and logistics systems of both countries.