Ukraine War Enters Its Fifth Year, With No Near End in Sight

(Sergei GAPON / AFP via Getty Images)

A Ukrainian serviceman stands next to a truck equipped with a machine gun during an air raid alert in Kyiv on Jan. 24, 2026, amid Russia’s ongoing invasion.

Russia's ability to sustain its war efforts despite mounting economic strain, combined with potential U.S. distraction from a prolonged Middle East conflict, makes meaningful progress in Ukraine peace negotiations unlikely in the near term. Four years have passed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. But despite continued escalation and recent U.S. policy shifts, Russia has yet to achieve any of its core aims, which include seizing Kyiv, toppling Ukraine's government and securing full control of regions it officially annexed in 2022. After U.S. President Donald Trump returned to office in 2025, the Kremlin pursued direct talks with Washington to curb U.S. support for Ukraine and secure sanctions relief, but the results were limited. Ukraine's defenses held firm, and Western unity (though fragile) did not collapse. On the battlefield, Russia's advantages in manpower and equipment have produced only slow, costly territorial gains. Ukrainian forces constrained Russian advances, forcing a shift to small-unit infantry tactics that reduced equipment losses but led to higher casualty rates and recruitment costs. With U.S. intelligence support and the Trump administration's tacit approval, Ukraine expanded deep strikes into Russian territory, targeting aviation assets, energy infrastructure and logistics networks. Meanwhile, Russia sustained heavy aerial attacks on Ukraine's energy and transport systems through the 2025-2026 winter, aiming to break resilience. But Ukraine responded with cross-border strikes into Russian regions like Belgorod and Kursk. Diplomatically, a 2025 summit in Alaska between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin also failed to produce a breakthrough, though negotiations continued into 2026 alongside expanded U.S. sanctions on major Russian energy firms.

U.S. grant-based military aid to Ukraine has dropped sharply since early 2025 (down 99%, per the Kiel Institute). However, U.S. intelligence sharing has continued. European countries have filled the gap, boosting military assistance to Ukraine by 67% and expanding their defense spending.
The immense human and economic costs of the Ukraine war continue to mount. Estimates place total Russian casualties between 1.1 and 1.4 million, including up to 400,000 killed.
On Feb. 23, the World Bank Group released an updated Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment estimating Ukraine's total reconstruction and recovery costs at nearly $588 billion over the next decade, a 12% increase from the February 2025 assessment. Cumulative direct war damage since February 2022 now exceeds $195 billion, including a 21% rise in damaged energy assets and a 24% increase in transport sector needs during 2025 alone.

Russia's economy is entering a period of mounting structural strain driven by war spending and declining revenues, but it will remain resilient enough to sustain prolonged conflict despite worsening long-term stagnation. Having slowed to an estimated 1% in 2025 (down from more than 4% in 2024), Russia's economy will likely enter a technical recession in 2026. Official projections peg the federal budget deficit at 3.8 trillion rubles, or about 1.6% of GDP, though independent estimates anticipate a shortfall closer to 2.9% of GDP. The 2026 federal budget earmarks an unprecedented 16.84 trillion rubles (38.2% of total spending) for military and internal security, eclipsing social spending (16.1%). The actual expenditures, with classified budget allocations likely concealing additional military and security outlays, will almost certainly overshoot these projections as war costs mount. Meanwhile, the share of hydrocarbon revenues in the federal budget, having plummeted to 20% in January, is unlikely to rebound to pre-war levels in the foreseeable future, as Russia lacks an alternative sector capable of generating comparable export earnings or fiscal inflows at scale. To bridge this fiscal gap, Moscow will draw heavily on the National Wealth Fund, expand domestic borrowing and raise taxes. Despite these strains, the Russian economy is unlikely to suddenly collapse and will remain able to sustain the war for at least several more years. The longer the war continues, however, the more Russia will entrench long-term economic stagnation and hasten its demographic decay. Moscow will also increasingly struggle to resolve the core mismatch between its political objectives in Ukraine (i.e., securing enough control over the regions it declared part of Russia to maintain future military and strategic leverage) and its capacity to achieve those objectives militarily, absent a major increase in oil prices or a significant decrease in Western support for Kyiv.

Russia controls slightly less than 20% of Ukrainian territory. In 2025, Russian forces captured approximately 0.8% of Ukrainian territory, the largest annual territorial change since 2022, but failed to seize any major city.
To counter battlefield losses, Russia increased financial incentives in 2025 to maintain a monthly recruitment of 30,000-40,000 military personnel. These incentives included regional signing bonuses averaging 2.5 million rubles ($32,000) and monthly salaries of 200,000 rubles. Concurrently, the Russian Defense Ministry, following the establishment of the Unmanned Systems Forces (USF), launched a targeted recruitment drive on Jan. 20 to attract aviation veterans, IT specialists and university students to staff the new drone directorate. On Feb. 25, the Leningrad region raised total lump-sum payments for USF contracts signed locally to over 4 million rubles ($52,000).

A protracted Iran war would likely delay Russia-Ukraine-U.S. talks and harden Moscow's negotiating posture as Washington's focus and military resources shift to the Middle East. The widening regional conflict in the Middle East will force the suspension of the next round of the trilateral talks that were slated for March 5-6 in Abu Dhabi. With Iran consuming its attention and resources, the United States is unlikely to prioritize a Ukrainian diplomatic track in the coming weeks. But Ukraine peace talks will eventually resume, potentially at a new location. And when they do, Russia is highly likely to adopt a tougher negotiating stance, anticipating that the redeployment of already scarce high-end U.S. munitions (especially Patriot interceptors) and ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) assets to the Middle East will weaken Ukraine's defensive position. Should supply shortfalls coincide with intensified Russian strikes on civilian infrastructure or a breach of Ukrainian front lines, the combined effect would increase both military and political pressure on Kyiv to make territorial concessions. Ongoing damage to the Ukrainian power grid will reduce Ukraine's capacity to manufacture drones and munitions, further raising the risk of supply gaps. Under these conditions, Moscow will have no immediate incentive to compromise, especially as domestic political pressures will preclude the Kremlin from making concessions absent a Ukrainian withdrawal from the Donbas. However, how much the conflict in the Middle East affects the war in Ukraine will likely depend on its duration and intensity, as a brief campaign that lasts only a few weeks would likely have a milder impact than a protracted regional war.

The 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June 2025 depleted U.S. PAC-3 MSE and SM-3 interceptor stockpiles, triggering a temporary freeze on air-defense transfers to Kyiv. While the United States announced a plan in early 2026 to triple PAC-3 production to 2,000 missiles per year, the industrial lag means significant replenishment will not materialize until 2027.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine is likely to accept a settlement on current terms, meaning the war will continue absent a decisive shift on the battlefield. Russia is likely able to sustain recruitment at current levels, though it will increasingly rely on coercive measures, including mandatory call-ups of reservists. While economic strain will intensify and casualties will remain high as Russia struggles to achieve a breakthrough on the battlefield, these pressures alone are unlikely to compel the Kremlin to reverse course. Moscow will likely continue to judge that its strategy of exhausting Ukraine remains viable so long as Russian forces are able to secure incremental, if costly, territorial gains. However, the Kremlin's domestic risk calculations could shift if Ukrainian forces markedly stall Russia's projected spring-summer offensive in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, thereby denying Moscow visible political leverage in negotiations with Washington and Kyiv. These battlefield dynamics will likely also dictate Ukraine's strategic calculus. If faced with U.S.-proposed ceasefire terms that would require Ukraine to withdraw from defensible terrain in Donetsk — thereby compromising its long-term security — Kyiv is likely to choose continued resistance. This is because under such terms, the credibility of U.S. security guarantees would remain uncertain, especially if those guarantees are limited to consultation and conditional assistance, while preserving Russian room to challenge enforcement later. Given Washington's policy volatility, aggressive rhetoric toward its European allies and inconsistent commitment to European security, both Moscow and Kyiv may seek to delay making meaningful concessions, as Russia waits for Western support to crumble and as Ukraine holds out for a potentially friendlier U.S. Congress after midterm elections. However, Ukraine's ability to sustain this posture will depend heavily on the continuity of European financial and military assistance, particularly if U.S. resources are further diverted by external contingencies.

On Feb. 28, Kyrylo Budanov, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine and a member of Ukraine's negotiation team, said that Russian representatives at the recent talks in Geneva indicated that Moscow would accept U.S.-proposed post-war security guarantees for Ukraine. These guarantees reportedly include funding for Ukrainian-led defense, and would be backed by a European ground presence, U.S. airpower support and ceasefire monitoring mechanisms. On Feb. 28, Bloomberg also reported, citing sources close to the Kremlin, that Russia was ready to sign a draft memorandum for a peace accord contingent on Ukraine withdrawing from the remainder of the Donetsk region, and that Moscow would likely halt U.S.-led peace talks absent such territorial concessions.