Russia would pay heavy price for full Donetsk takeover — Zelenskyy's Office
Deputy Head of Ukrainian President's Office Pavlo Palisa (photo: president.gov.ua)
Deputy Head of Ukraine's Presidential Office Pavlo Palisa said Russia would need about a year and a half to capture the entire Donbas, and even then, only at the cost of losing the entire grouping of Russian forces currently deployed on the occupied territories of Ukraine.
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He noted that in 2025, Russian forces captured less than 1% of Ukraine's total territory, at the cost of more than 450,000 Russian soldiers.
Palisa said that Ukraine's Defense Forces currently control about 6,000 square kilometers of the Donetsk region. Given the current pace of fighting, the enemy would need more time to occupy the area, at the cost of extremely heavy losses.
"Based on the current dynamics, it will take them roughly a year and a half. And it would require resources equal to the current Russian grouping on Ukrainian territory. It will be very difficult for them to do this, and it certainly won't be as fast as they want," Palisa concluded.
Fighting, talks over Donbas
A few days earlier, the deputy head of the Presidential Office stated that Russia aims to reach the administrative borders of the Donetsk region by late March or early April.
At the same time, peace talks are continuing in parallel with the war, where Russia continues to demand that Ukraine withdraw its troops from Donbas as a supposed condition for ending the conflict.
Commenting on the issue, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently said that Ukraine cannot reclaim all its territories at present, but Russia is also unable to fully seize them and win the war.
A new round of trilateral talks between Ukraine, the US, and Russia is expected on March 4–5. According to Bloomberg, Moscow may walk away from the dialogue if Kyiv refuses to give up Donbas. The media noted that the meeting could prove decisive for signing a potential peace agreement.
