Map Shows Russia's Plan to Seize Half of Ukraine
Russia said it forces are pushing into a new Ukrainian regions that it has not occupied before. It comes days after a Kyiv official warned Moscow wants to seize half of Ukraine by the end of next year, as a map by Newsweek illustrates these claims.
Russia's defense ministry and Kremlin officials said Monday their troops had penetrated the border between the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts, which follow unconfirmed reports that Russian forces had also entered the Sumy region.
Last week, Ukrainian Presidential Office Deputy Head Colonel Pavlo Palisa had presented a map he said showed Russia's aims to capture the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts by September 1 and the Odesa and Mykolaiv regions by the end of 2026.
Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian and Russian defense ministries for comment.
In September 2022, Vladimir Putin claimed Russia had annexed the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia which Moscow does not fully control. The map Palisa showed reporters shows what Kyiv has framed as what could happen in the next 18 months if Putin is not stopped.
That map combined with Moscow's current messaging about its latest operation point to the Kremlin's wider territorial ambitions in Ukraine which go further than the demands for negotiations which President Donald Trump is trying to broker.
The Russian MoD said its 90th Tank Division had reached the western border of Donetsk Oblast and were developing an offensive in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast which if confirmed, marks a move into a new region Moscow had not declared as annexed.
Former president Dmitry Medvedev referred to the operation as part of the "new realities on the ground" a phrase used by Kremlin officials describing the frontline implying what Ukraine must concede as part of negotiations to end the war.
Russian military bloggers said Moscow's troops had reached the Donetsk-Dnipropetrovsk Oblast border, northwest of Horikhove, but the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said as of Monday it had not observed geolocated evidence of these claims.
Videos circulating online on Monday claimed to show Russian troops crossing into the Dnipropetrovsk oblast.
Meanwhile, Russian forces also continued offensive operations in Sumy Oblast, another region which was not among those Moscow claims to occupy. Russian milbloggers said that Russian forces had made advances north of Sumy City but these claims have also not been confirmed, the ISW said.
Further Russian operations point to Putin's expansionist plans which Palisa last week outlined to reporters.
Palisa from Ukraine's presidential office said last week Russia intends to capture all of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts by September 1 and create a buffer zone along the northern border between Ukraine and Russia by the end of 2025.
Palisa added that Russia wants to occupy the east (left) bank of the Dnieper River and capture the regions of Odesa and Mykolaiv by the end of next year in a move which would deprive Ukraine of access to the Black Sea.
The ISW published a version of the map Palisa presented, which showed plans to seize roughly 85,000 additional square miles of territory and hold 129,000 square miles by the end of 2026—over half the total area of Ukraine.
Ukrainian Presidential Office Deputy Head Colonel Pavlo Palisa said that Russia wants "to occupy the whole part of Ukraine on the left bank of the Dnieper River," as well as seize "the Odesa and Mykolaiv regions to cut Ukraine's access to the Black Sea."
Elina Beketova, a fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), told Newsweek: "At this point, Ukrainians know that if they don't take action —if they hesitate or do nothing—Russia will simply advance. The fear isn't just about escalation; it's about survival."
Analysts have predicted that Moscow will look to intensify its offensives to build pressure during peace negotiations, but will be unable to sustain this pressure indefinitely and could struggle to keep up the pace into 2026.
Jack Watling, an analyst with the RUSI think tank, wrote in May that Russia might test Ukrainian defenses in Sumy and Zaporizhzhia but Moscow's main effort this summer will again be against the Donetsk towns of Kostyantynivka and Pokrovsk.
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