The Russian army failed to gain any new territory in Ukraine in March, marking the first time this has occurred since September 2023, according to data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
In some areas, it was forced to retreat, the ISW noted.
Russian advances in Ukraine began to slow significantly in late 2025 due to Ukrainian counteroffensives in the southeast.
In February this year, the Russian army managed to gain only 123 km2, the smallest progress recorded since April 2024.
In March, Ukrainian forces reclaimed 9 km2 of territory across the front lines.
The figures exclude small infiltration operations by Russian troops behind the front and Russian territorial claims that the ISW has neither confirmed nor denied.
The ISW attributes the Russian army’s slowdown in recent months to Ukrainian counterattacks, reduced access to Starlink terminals in Ukraine, and Kremlin efforts to impede the use of the Telegram messaging app.
Telegram, widely popular both in Russia and at the front, has been barely accessible in recent months due to government-imposed blockades.
Moscow has been actively encouraging citizens to switch to the Max platform, which it promotes as a “national messaging service.”
In February and March, Russia lost territory on the southern flank of the front, between the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
Russian troops first entered this area in June 2025, occupying over 400 km2 by late January. By February, This had shrunk to 200 km2 by February, and further decreased to 144 km2 by March.
The situation is worsening for Russia in areas northward, nearer to the town of Donetsk, particularly around Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. However, east of Sloviansk, Russian forces advanced by about 50 km2 in March.
Overall, in 2025, the fourth year of the conflict, Russian forces achieved more territorial gains than in the preceding 24 months, but that momentum appears to be reversing.
In the first three months of 2026, Russia’s territorial gains amounted to only half of what its troops secured during the same period in 2025.
Four years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Moscow controls just over 19% of the country’s territory, most of which was claimed in the initial weeks of the conflict.
Approximately 7% of this, including Crimea and parts of the Donbas industrial basin, were already under Russian or pro-Russian separatist control before the invasion in February 2022.
