CDR Salamander - Russia’s Bloody Two Months of Losing Ground

A grinding war can devolve into almost a tidal environment. Lines move forward and then back. Cycle.

Then you have to wait for a moment.

Two months is not a breakthrough, but given Russia’s efforts over the summer, Ukraine’s wee gains should cause one to pay closer attention.

While most Americans after Labor Day have been focused on the election, the Iran War and the “issues” from Paris to Warsaw, as the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022 approaches its 5th Anniversary next winter, ISW’s latest Campaign Assessment has some hard facts for Team Russia to ponder.

Russian forces lost ground on the battlefield in October 2026 for the second month in a row. ISW has observed evidence to assess that Russian forces consolidated positions or seized 139.85 kilometers but lost 167.14 square kilometers of territory in Ukraine in October 2026 for a net loss of 27.29 square kilometers. That is an average pace of -0.88 square kilometers per day. Russian forces only made gains in Sumy and Zaporizhia oblasts, while losing territory in all other sectors of the frontline, including their priority objective of Donetsk Oblast. Russian forces also lost ground in October when accounting for Russian infiltrations into areas over which Russian forces have not gained control, with Russian forces suffering a net loss of 76.38 square kilometers in such areas for an average pace of -2.46 square kilometers per day. Russian forces seized 10 settlements totaling 5.86 square kilometers, but Ukrainian forces liberated or cleared Russian infiltrators from 11 settlements with an area of 3.24 square kilometers.

This has been an almost static front for a very long time. Russia—on paper at least—should have won this war long ago, and that’s the problem. She entered the war with approximately 3.3 times Ukraine's population base and nine times its nominal economic resources.

There are some things in war you cannot quantify…so you need to be very careful before starting one.

On paper, Vietnam and Afghanistan should not have been a problem for the U.S.A., but we got our a55 handed to us each time.

As we’ve discussed from the beginning of the conflict, Russia started with war with a bad plan that came through a series of optimism filters. From missile cruisers to the SU-57 to their newest tanks, none of their high-profile weapons have been able to close the deal.

Plucky Ukraine continues to deliver the undeliverable.

Russian forces suffered their highest monthly losses of the war thus far in October 2026, paying a growing price for their territorial losses.

I continue to remind myself that I cannot fully understand the Russian—or Ukrainian—mindset from my comfortable seat in North America, and that I should not make predictions. I won’t, but I will comment on what we are all seeing on the ground.

How does Russia continue to sell this to their people? The only thing that is going for them is that Ukraine’s supporters in NATO Europe seem to be distracted by their own burning cities and tottering welfare states to do much more to help.

In North America, there is no desire to support Ukraine more than the Europeans want to support them, if that. After all, it is their back yard and Uncle Sam has more pressing concerns in the Pacific.

So, the Pontic Steppe is about to enter another winter of war, more than it saw in WWII, with little progress on either side, just more death.

More and more, I think this is becoming a rather strange war of will. All wars are about ‘will’, really, but in this one, both sides are holding their lines +/- as if they are waiting for some tangentially related political crisis to cause one side or the other’s military to just, well, walk away.

Who quits first before some damn foolish thing happens that pulls more nations into the fight?

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