Skip to content
You can now search across every topic, entity and event.What's new
Russia-Ukraine War 2026
3AUG

Russia loses 100 sq miles in four weeks

3 min read
10:16UTC

ISW data compiled by Russia Matters shows Russia net-lost 38 square miles in the week of 19-26 May, its largest single-week reversal of 2026, and 100 square miles over four weeks. Russia's net advance rate for January-May 2026 is 94% below the same period in 2025.

← Back to Russia's costliest month, smallest gainJump to analysis ↓
ConflictDeveloping
Key takeaway

Russia's net advance rate collapsed 94% year-on-year as it net-lost 100 sq mi in four consecutive weeks.

Russia net-lost 100 square miles of Ukrainian territory over four weeks (28 April to 26 May), including 38 sq mi in the week of 19-26 May, according to ISW data compiled by Russia Matters at Harvard's Belfer Center. Russia's operational pattern since the full-scale invasion has been incremental advance punctuated by Kursk-style reversals; a four-week sustained net-loss run is something else.

The net advance rate collapsed 94% year-on-year, from 1,619 sq km in January-May 2025 to 104 sq km in the same window of 2026. Seasonal factors cannot account for that. It tracks the period of Ukraine's most intensive drone campaign against Russian logistics and training infrastructure.

For Russia's defence establishment, the data bites. The 2026 defence budget of 13.5 trillion rubles was calibrated on higher advance rates. At current attrition and territorial costs, each ruble buys less than a fifth of the territory it bought in 2025.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on 21 May that Ukraine's defences are "stabilising the frontline," the closest the Alliance has come to acknowledging a Ukrainian operational advantage. ISW recorded Russia's first net monthly loss since the August 2024 Kursk incursion , then 12 sq mi lost in 5-12 May and 29 sq mi in 12-19 May ; the four-week figure extends that reversal to its deepest point.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Russia is losing ground in Ukraine at the fastest rate since 2024. Over four weeks from late April to late May, it gave back roughly 100 square miles of territory it had taken earlier in the war. To put that in perspective: in the first five months of 2025, Russia gained around 1,000 square miles. In the same period of 2026, it has gained only about 40 square miles total, and is now losing ground. This military failure is directly connected to Russia's missile escalation: the Kremlin is using its most powerful weapons to create the appearance of military dominance while its troops retreat on the ground.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

Ukraine's drone campaign against Russian logistics, training infrastructure, and refinery supply has degraded the support chain that sustains frontline Russian units. Destroying fuel supply (11 refineries struck in May) and training pipelines (Snizhne and Starobilsk) simultaneously reduces both the operational reach and replacement rate of frontline Russian forces.

Russia's 2026 defence budget was calibrated on the 2025 advance rate of 9.76 sq km per day. At the actual 2026 rate of 2.9 sq km per day during January-April, followed by net losses in May, the budget is funding operations at a cost-per-kilometre roughly five times higher than planned. That fiscal mismatch becomes unsustainable as the National Wealth Fund approaches the floor at which it can no longer cover deficit financing.

What could happen next?
  • Consequence

    Russia's spring-summer offensive plans are operationally bankrupt at current attrition rates; the Kremlin must accept a defensive posture or commit reserves the 2026 budget cannot fund.

  • Opportunity

    Ukraine's demonstrated counterattack capacity strengthens Kyiv's negotiating position in any future ceasefire format by establishing a favourable baseline front line.

Sources:ISW / Critical Threats·ISW / Critical Threats·Russia Matters (Harvard Belfer Center)
Mentions:Institute for the Study of War →Russia Matters →Russia →Ukraine →Germany →Kharkiv →Zaporizhzhia counteroffensive →Kremlin →Oreshnik →NATO →Kherson →Moscow →Harvard Belfer Center →Zaporizhzhia →Kursk →Mark Rutte →
First Reported In

Update #18 · Oreshnik doubles as Russia's front collapses

ISW / Critical Threats· 1 Jun 2026
Read original →
Causes and effects
Caused by
Front stalls as death toll climbs
The front stall on 7 June (no confirmed Russian advances) continues the pattern of Russian net losses documented by ISW (ID:3808), while mounting Mediazona casualties confirm the attrition cost.
Occurred 7 Jun 2026
Read story →
This Event
Russia loses 100 sq miles in four weeks
Four consecutive weeks of Russian territorial retreat, culminating in its worst position since August 2024, is the military context in which the dual Oreshnik launch occurred; the weapons escalation and the front-line collapse are directly correlated.
Led to
Russia fires first dual Oreshnik salvo
Russia's territorial collapse over four weeks is the strategic context in which the Oreshnik escalation occurred: military failure driving weapons spectacle.
Occurred 24 May 2026
Read story →
ISW: Russia lost ground; new axis opens
The 91 sq mi net loss to 9 June extends the stall pattern ISW had already recorded showing Russia net-lost 100 sq mi in the four weeks to 26 May.
Occurred 9 Jun 2026
Read story →
Different Perspectives
Belarus
Belarus
Minsk announced completion of its own 37th Separate Airborne Assault Brigade near Gomel, under plans dating to August 2025 rather than a response to any single frontline event this window, keeping its hedge of hosting the war without formally joining Russia's mobilisation drive.
European Union / Operation IRINI states
European Union / Operation IRINI states
Italy, Greece and Poland boarded the sanctioned tanker Toa Payoh off Pantelleria under a standing EU mandate rather than a national decision, extending enforcement from the Channel and Baltic and the Black Sea and Azov into the Mediterranean. Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto praised the crew; the captain's refusal to produce documentation left detention unconfirmed.
Poland and the NATO eastern flank
Poland and the NATO eastern flank
Warsaw's Coordination Team said explicitly its forces tracked the 30 July missile incursion and were ready to shoot it down, then flew air cover for an EU tanker interdiction three days later. Poland is simultaneously the war's nearest spillover victim and a contributor to enforcing sanctions against the state causing that spillover.
Ukraine (government, defence establishment and civilians)
Ukraine (government, defence establishment and civilians)
Kyiv runs its manpower crisis through acting Defence Minister Yevhen Khmara, whose formal appointment waits for parliament's 18 August return, and a fortnight-old Commander-in-Chief, Mykhailo Drapatyi. Reported attacks on enlistment officers rose from 5 cases in 2022 to 341 in 2025, reaching Odesa's Territorial Recruitment Centre staff directly on 2 August.
Kremlin and Russian domestic economic voices
Kremlin and Russian domestic economic voices
Moscow has not addressed July's advance-rate collapse or Sberbank's OFZ warning; Novak's diary ran to OPEC+ quota diplomacy with no diesel item logged since 15 July. Economist Nikolai Korzhenevsky calls the Central Bank's RUB 2.3tn in bank lending effectively deficit monetisation, a framing Sberbank's Skvortsov, with his own institutional interest, has not disputed.
IAEA (Rafael Grossi)
IAEA (Rafael Grossi)
IAEA inspectors logged Zaporizhzhia's 22nd loss of off-site power, ten of them in the last three months, after a thunderstorm knocked out the plant's sole surviving backup line. Grossi reads the accelerating frequency, not any single outage, as the safety signal now that the plant's redundancy is exhausted.