Russia’s land gains in Ukraine dwindle as its diesel reportedly goes unsold

Russia’s battlefield gains in Ukraine have fallen to almost nothing this year, according to the latest figures from independent observers and Kyiv’s military.

Territory seized by Russian forces in the first 10 months of 2026 amounts to 117.38 sq km (45.32 sq miles), according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank that uses open-source geolocated footage.

By comparison, gains in 2025 were 5,304 sq km (2,047.95 sq miles), including 473 sq km (182.63 sq miles) of Russian territory recaptured in the Kursk region, while in 2024 they were 3,604 sq km (1,391.31 sq miles).

That means Russia advanced at a rate of 0.38 sq km (0.15 sq miles) a day this year, compared with 13.25 sq km (5.12 sq miles) a day in 2025 and 9.9 sq km (3.82 sq miles) a day in 2024.

In addition, Russia is suffering higher casualties this year.

Ukraine’s General Staff put the estimated number of Russian personnel killed or seriously wounded from January 1 to October 31 at 381,300.

Al Jazeera cannot independently verify casualty claims by either side.

Estimated Russian losses have repeatedly broken new monthly records for the entire war since the summer – 42,860 in July, 46,230 in September and 54,400 in October – as Ukraine’s military sought to reach a monthly target of 50,000 casualties set by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in January.

The losses are far beyond Russia’s estimated recruitment capacity of 24,000-30,000 a month.

While Russia lost firm control of Ukrainian territory in April and May, it increased its areas of infiltration, where control is contested.

In September and October, however, Russia lost both firmly controlled and infiltrated territory, ISW assessments show.

Zelenskyy and his prime minister have cited these worsening trends as the reasons why Russia is intensifying long-range strikes targeting energy infrastructure. Civilians have been killed in those attacks, leading Ukrainians to believe that Moscow is opting for psychological warfare.

Russia unleashed an unusually heavy barrage during the week ending on November 6, including 2,346 drones and more than 80 missiles across Ukraine.

The strikes reached a crescendo on November 3, with 370 drones and 76 missiles.

Hundreds of thousands of families are struggling with blackouts at the beginning of winter.

In one of Russia’s deadliest attacks this year, in the village of Komyshuvakha in the Zaporizhzhia region, at least 50 people were killed.

“The invaders knew that on Mondays, humanitarian aid was distributed at the Komyshuvakha resilience centre. Residents of the community come here for food, medicine, essential items,” Ukraine’s military intelligence service (GUR) said.

The attack came on the day a six-day ceasefire ended in Oleshky, 250km (155.34 miles) southwest of Komyshuvakha in the Kherson region.

Brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump, the localised ceasefire was the longest ever observed and enabled the warring sides to evacuate 800 residents of the besieged town, which is in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory.

Russian military reporter Vladimir Romanov was arrested by authorities in his country after reporting that Oleshky residents who had opted to go to Ukraine had filled 17 buses, while those who opted to go to Russia filled four.

Moscow has cited the alleged abuse of its Russian-speaking minority in Ukraine as one of the main reasons for its full-scale invasion in 2022, and has claimed that it would be welcomed as a liberating force.

The oil war

Ukraine resumed almost daily targeting of Russian refineries during the past week, hitting eight in seven days.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said three refineries were hit on October 30.

Ukraine hit two more refineries in the Ufa complex in the Bashkortostan Republic on October 31. The following day it struck Lukoil’s Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez refinery in Nizhny Novgorod, and a production and dispatch station in the Samara region the day after that. It hit the Yaroslavl oil refinery on November 3, and the Ryazan oil refinery on November 5.

The strikes were designed to deprive Russia of energy and export revenue and scupper a deal reached by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump on October 9, when the US leader invited Russia to sell 1.8 million tonnes of diesel to the global market by the end of the year to help bring down transport prices.

Trump’s invitation flew in the face of US oil sanctions and the Lindsey Graham Act the president had signed into law 11 days earlier, which gave him the power to impose sanctions on other countries buying Russian oil.

The Kremlin has since pumped four tankers full of diesel fuel, reported the Financial Times (FT), in hopes of selling it to the US and effectively ending oil sanctions against it. But those tankers have reportedly failed to find buyers willing to risk the legal consequences of purchasing Russian oil. The Kremlin dismissed the FT’s report as fake news.

On October 27, US Senator Richard Blumenthal, who co-authored the Lindsey Graham Act, warned a Greek shipping company operating one of the four diesel-laden ships not to attempt to offload its cargo in the US.

“The President may have given a licence to facilitate this transaction, but only Congress can make it legally valid,” Blumenthal had written, effectively warning all shippers they would face a legal tangle between statutory law and presidential executive orders.

US courts have struck down many of Trump’s executive orders in his first two years in office.