Russian forces occupied 4,336 square kilometers (1,674 square miles) of Ukrainian territory in 2025, accounting for less than 1% of the country, the Ukrainian open-source mapping project DeepState reported in an year-end assessment published on Jan. 1.
It’s not a lot and it’s mostly just fields. The cost for Russia was huge. Ukraine did well with their defensive tactics.
Still, the situation for Ukraine is dire. Russia can continue with this for some time. Sure the sanctions hurt,the dynamic sanctions Ukraine has imposed as well and there is a small sense of growing discontent inside Russia, but still Putin is nowhere near at the point where he would need to stop (he will probably not know when that point comes anyway).
No they can’t, they’re suffering shutdowns, slowdowns and guerilla action in their own country. You can only throw so many young men into the meat grinder before you end up having open rebellion which in this case likely means assassination attempts which are fairly likely to have already started but been surprised in the news.