Russia sets new deadline to capture all of Donbas

Russian military commanders are asking the Kremlin to push back the deadline for capturing all of Donbas from Dec. 31, 2026 to March 31, 2027, according to Ukrainian presidential office deputy head Pavlo Palisa. Russia's political leadership had ordered forces to seize all of Donetsk and Luhansk within their administrative borders by year's end, a target its own military leadership now calls unrealistic.

Palisa said even the proposed March extension strikes him as unrealistic. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the Kremlin has shifted this deadline roughly 15 times since the war began, most recently moving it from an earlier fall 2026 target reported by the Financial Times to the current Dec. 31 date.

Zelenskyy maintains Ukraine will not withdraw from Donbas and has projected Russia would need at least two more years and roughly 800,000 additional troops to fully take Donetsk Oblast.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.