Six months after Putin's 'coming to an end' boast, the frontline barely moved

Negotiators from Moscow and Kyiv wrapped up two days of talks in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, the first direct sit-down between the warring sides since February. They agreed to a large-scale prisoner exchange, but remained deadlocked over the Kremlin's demand that Ukraine pull out of the Donbas — a condition Kyiv calls unacceptable. U.S. envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff said they would meet Putin in Moscow on Thursday, then Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Ireland.

The diplomatic standstill mirrors the map. According to Newsweek, Atlantic Council charts dated May 9 and November 10 show a frontline that has hardly budged in six months — the same stretch since Putin, speaking after scaled-back Victory Day celebrations in Red Square, said: 'I think that the matter is coming to an end,' and floated new security arrangements for Europe. The war will be a half decade old on February 24, 2027.

Ukraine hasn't just held still. Its late-May 'Operation Vivaldi' blunted a Russian push north of Lyman in Donetsk Oblast, stopping Moscow from encircling the 'Fortress Belt' of heavily defended cities Putin has been targeting. Through September and October, Russian forces logged net territorial losses as Ukrainian counterattacks gained ground around Kupyansk, Oleksandrivka and Lyman. Moscow's only net gains came in Sumy and Zaporizhzhia, while it bled territory elsewhere — including in Donetsk, its priority prize for taking the Donbas.

The human cost keeps climbing. Russian forces lost a record 54,000 troops in October, according to military analyst Giorgi Revishvili, who writes the Russia Analyzed Substack and told Newsweek that Ukraine posted net territorial gains in at least three months of 2026: February, May and October. He credited Ukraine's focus on 'controlling operational depth' — hitting ammunition depots, logistics hubs, command-and-control facilities and drone operator positions behind the lines. 'This middle strike campaign has had a significant impact on Russian frontline operations,' he said.

Revishvili also said Russia's leadership keeps chasing 'unrealistic military objectives,' such as seizing the entire Donbas by year's end, and that the habit stems from 'a profoundly distorted understanding of battlefield realities.' Mark Temnycky, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center, told Newsweek there was 'no visible movement' on the political questions that decide whether the war ends, adding that 'Russia continues to demand Ukrainian territory that its forces have been unable to capture.'

Ukrainian delegation head Rustem Umerov said the Abu Dhabi round produced the prisoner exchange, steps toward a broader peace deal and post-war reconstruction, but acknowledged 'significant differences' remain. Kyiv had hoped for a maritime and energy ceasefire and, eventually, a leaders' level peace summit. Temnycky called the prisoner deal meaningful for Ukrainian families waiting on captives and proof the trilateral channel can still deliver humanitarian results — then flagged the week ahead: if Putin offers nothing new when Kushner and Witkoff arrive, Washington faces a choice between talks for their own sake and raising the cost of Russian intransigence.