The progress of the Russian war slowly to a third of the rate from November: analysts

Western analysts claim that the monthly rhythm of Russia war gains fell below a third of its advance rate compared to November.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington -based reflection group, wrote on Sunday that it had found that Russia had seized 203 square kilometers, or 78 miles square, from Ukrainian territory in March.

It is compared to its November assessment that Russia won around 242 miles square this month. At the time, Moscow had pushed strongly on the eastern front by relentlessly deploying the troops in small grounds on the ground to exhaust the ukrainian ammunition and drones.

The British Defense Ministry reported an even stronger drop in this period – claiming on Saturday that the total advance rate had dropped at a fifth rate in November.

In an intelligence update, he wrote that he thought that Russia had seized 55 additional squares in March, against around 281 square miles in November.

“Russia’s advance rate has dropped from months a month since November 2024, when its forces have seized more than 700 km2,” said the update.

The Ministry of Defense did not say how he had reached his assessment, and his intelligence updates regularly relied on the Ukrainian government statistics and figures.

Meanwhile, the ISW said it used geolocated images to make its own comparison.

None of the two approached the winter factor affecting the battlefield in recent months, because the weather generally introduces logistics and the difficulties of the terrain which reduce the intensity of the fighting.

The two analyzes partially credited the slowdown in the recent counterattacks of Ukraine, in particular around Totretsk and Pokrovsk – a key city in the Central Donetsk region which provides supply routes to other Ukrainian positions in the East.

The attacks have reversed some of the gains of Russia last year. At the beginning of 2025, Totretsk was considered to be largely under Russian control. However, the fighting has since returned to the city while the Ukrainian troops pushed in the Russian sides in an attempt at the northern position of Moscow.

The British Defense Ministry said that Russia’s limited advances in March had mainly occurred in the same region – Donetsk – although it added that Moscow “did not improve its operational position” in the region.

Moscow gains on the eastern front have notably come at a large human cost. Ukrainian and Western estimates say that an average of 1,500 Russian soldiers was killed or injured each day when the fighting was most ferocious in the fall.

His tactics of assault on the ground worked somewhat, Russia winning approximately 1,600 square miles of Ukrainian territory in 2024. But Ukraine said that it was at the cost of some 427,000 soldiers injured or killed.

This strategy has contributed to an increasing story in Ukraine and Europe that the victory for kyiv comes from the upgrade of the strong expenditure of staff and weapons by Russia. The Kremlin must pay families from his troops who have fallen and injured while providing large bonuses to hire thousands of new replacement soldiers.

The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comments sent outside regular work hours by Business Insider.