Putin has postponed timeline for seizure of Donbas for 16th time: "At current pace, it will take Russia another six years"
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has postponed the deadline for the complete capture of the Donetsk region for the 16th time since the start of the full-scale war. The Kremlin now expects to achieve this goal within the next six months, although at the current rate of advance, Russian forces will need about six more years.
According to Censor.NET, Russian media outlets are reporting this, citing data from Bloomberg and the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
As noted, sources close to the Kremlin cited by Bloomberg claim that Putin expects to fully capture the Donetsk region within the next six months—roughly by the end of February 2027.
The Russian military command has repeatedly promised the dictator that this goal would be achieved much sooner. In August 2025, Putin was told that the Ukrainian front could allegedly "collapse" by October or November, and that the entire Donetsk region would be occupied by the middle of the fourth year of the war.
In the spring of 2026, the timeline was pushed back to the fall, and by the summer, Russian military officials were already promising to capture the Donbas by the end of the year.
Now the "deadline" has shifted again. At the same time, Pavlo Palisa, deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, stated that the Russian military is trying to convince Putin to postpone the deadline for capturing the Donbas until March 31, 2027, while Russia’s political leadership is demanding that it be done faster.
At the current pace, it will take Russia until 2032
According to ISW estimates, Putin has already postponed the deadline for the complete capture of the Donetsk region 15 times. Thus, this latest postponement marks the 16th.
Russian troops currently control about 79.89% of the Donetsk region’s territory—21,170 square kilometers.
In August, the occupying army advanced in the Donbas at an average rate of 2.36 square kilometers per day. The ISW calculated that if this pace continues, Russia will not be able to fully capture the region before October 2032.
Analysts at the institute believe that Putin’s perception of the actual situation on the front lines may be based on distorted information provided to him by the Russian military command.
In particular, in November 2025, Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Federation, reported the alleged complete capture of Kupiansk and the encirclement of Ukrainian troops there, even though fighting for the city continued.
On September 1, 2026, Putin also announced the alleged "capture" of Sviatohirsk. A week later, Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi, commander of the 3rd Army Corps of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, recorded a video from the city’s central square, refuting the Russian dictator’s claim.
