Russian advances drop to negative rates in September amid heavy frontline losses — ISW

Filed 46m ago · Via NV · The Buffoon Desk

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Canon in D Major

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Number 10 · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

The Institute for the Study of War reported that Russian forces captured 175.54 square kilometers in September 2026 but Ukraine retook 256.35, a net gain of 80.81 square kilometers for Ukraine; counting infiltration zones widens that margin to 175.18 square kilometers.

ISW says Russian territorial gains have been low or negative since March 2026, with a net loss of 293.59 square kilometers across the theater against only 174.44 square kilometers of expansion over that span.

The report notes Russian forces suffered more than 46,000 soldiers killed or wounded in September alone, the highest monthly toll recorded in 2026, for what ISW characterizes as negligible tactical gains.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Numbers like these are the kind no press office wants to read out loud, which is probably why they came from an outside institute instead. A front that moves backward while the casualty count hits a yearly high is not a stalemate, it is a bill coming due. Whoever is still calling this an offensive owes somebody a better word for it.

Source: Read the original at NV → Scored: Canon in D Major · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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