After 4 years of war by Russia in Ukraine, peace is still elusive despite a US push for a settlement

Russia’s Ukraine War Surpasses Length of World War II Campaign, with Limited Gains

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has now lasted longer than the Soviet Union’s campaign against Nazi Germany in World War II. Last month, the conflict surpassed 1,418 days—the same duration it took the Red Army to defeat Hitler’s forces and reach Berlin eight decades ago.

Unlike that historic victory, Russia’s current war effort has yielded significantly less territory. After failing to capture Kyiv and install a puppet government in February 2022, the conflict devolved into brutal trench warfare with staggering human costs. Military analysts estimate nearly 2 million soldiers have been killed, wounded, or gone missing on both sides, making this Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.

Russia currently occupies approximately 20% of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, which it illegally annexed in 2014. However, progress since the February 2022 invasion has been painfully slow. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte recently compared Moscow’s advance to “the speed of a garden snail.”

In the eastern Donetsk region, Russian forces have moved only about 50 kilometers (30 miles) in two years, with both sides locked in a grinding battle for strategic strongholds. Despite this slow pace and enormous casualties, President Vladimir Putin maintains maximalist demands in U.S.-mediated peace talks, insisting Kyiv withdraw from regions Moscow claims but doesn’t fully control.

The conflict has evolved from the initial mobile warfare of Russia’s opening blitz and Ukraine’s 2022 counteroffensive into bloody positional combat along a 1,200-kilometer (750-mile) front line. The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates Russian military casualties at 1.2 million, including 325,000 killed, while Ukrainian losses may reach 600,000, with up to 140,000 fatalities.

“Russia has suffered the highest casualty rate of any major power in any war since World War II,” the center noted, highlighting that Russian troops have advanced at an average rate of just 70 meters per day over two years while attempting to capture the transport hub of Pokrovsk.

For the first time in military history, drones have played a decisive role, preventing either side from covertly massing significant troop concentrations. Ukraine initially relied on drones to offset Russia’s firepower advantage, but Russia has since expanded its drone operations dramatically, introducing longer-range optical fiber-tethered drones that avoid electronic jamming and extend the kill zone to 50 kilometers from the front.

This high-tech aerial surveillance, combined with World War I-style trench fighting, has resulted in small infantry teams attempting to infiltrate enemy positions in towns flattened by Russian artillery and guided bombs. Supply routes are constantly targeted, making logistics and medical evacuations extremely hazardous.

Ukrainian officials described this winter as the war’s most challenging period. Russia intensified strikes against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, causing prolonged blackouts in Kyiv during bitter cold. Russia has increasingly targeted power transmission lines to fragment Ukraine’s grid into isolated segments.

In response, Ukraine has launched long-range drone attacks on oil refineries and energy facilities deep inside Russia, aiming to reduce Moscow’s export revenues. Ukrainian forces have also sunk several Russian warships in the Black Sea, forcing Moscow to relocate its fleet from occupied Crimea to Novorossiysk. In June, Ukraine’s audacious “Spiderweb” operation used truck-launched drones to hit several Russian air bases hosting long-range bombers, delivering a humiliating blow to the Kremlin.

U.S. President Donald Trump has pushed to end the fighting, but mediation efforts have encountered fundamentally opposing positions. Putin demands Ukraine withdraw from parts of Donetsk it still controls, abandon NATO aspirations, reduce its military capacity, and grant official status to the Russian language—conditions Ukraine firmly rejects.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seeks a ceasefire along the existing contact line, but Putin insists on a comprehensive peace agreement. “The territorial issue is important to the Kremlin, but the war has a more ambitious goal: to create a Ukraine that would be entirely within Russia’s sphere of influence,” notes Tatiana Stanovaya of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.

While maintaining their positions, both leaders have praised U.S. mediation efforts. After Trump called for a Ukrainian presidential election, Zelenskyy signaled readiness for such a vote—despite it being prohibited under martial law—possibly alongside a peace referendum, but only after a ceasefire and security guarantees from the U.S. and allies.

Zelenskyy indicated the White House has set a June deadline for ending the war, but significant obstacles remain. With Putin demanding Ukrainian withdrawal from Donetsk and Zelenskyy refusing, a quick resolution appears unlikely.

Despite Western sanctions straining Russia’s economy, with growth nearly halted due to inflation and labor shortages, the country’s defense industry has increased weapons production. As Richard Connolly of the Royal United Services Institute observed, Russia’s economy, while “poorer, less efficient and less promising,” remains “capable of sustaining the war” with political leadership “insulated from the transmission of economic discontent into pressure for regime change.”