Russia Maintains Major Territorial Goals in Ukraine, Beyond Demands for Ukraine's Withdrawal from Donetsk Oblast.
The Deputy Chief of the Ukrainian Presidential Administration, Colonel Pavlo Palisa, told the Ukrainian news agency RBC-Ukraine on April 8 that Russian forces have ambitious battlefield plans for 2026 and beyond, but lack the manpower to implement them.
This is according to the "Institute for the Study of War" (ISW).
Palisa said that Russian forces will focus mainly on capturing the rest of Donbas and will increase their efforts in the border area between Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporizhia regions in 2026. Palisa said that Russia's military goals include creating a buffer zone along the northern Ukrainian-Russian border in Kharkiv, Sumy and Chernihiv regions; creating conditions for capturing the entire Zaporizhia and Kherson regions; and capturing Mykolaiv and Odessa regions in the long term. Palisa also noted that Russia plans to create a buffer zone in southwestern Vinnytsia region of Ukraine from the territory of Transnistria, a pro-Russian Moldovan parastate, for the first time.
Palisa stressed that Russian forces currently do not have the offensive capabilities to achieve any of these goals. He had already assessed in June 2025 that Russian forces aimed to capture an operationally significant part of Donetsk Oblast by September 1, 2025; the remainder of Kherson Oblast and a buffer zone in northern and southern Ukraine by the end of 2025; and all land east of the Dnieper River in northern and eastern Ukraine and most of Mykolaiv and Odessa Oblasts by the end of 2026.
Palisa’s report on Russia’s military plans for 2026 is consistent with ISW’s long-standing assessment. The Kremlin has regularly claimed that Russia “must” to create a buffer zone in northern Ukraine, signaling broader territorial claims and setting conditions to later require Ukraine to cede some or all of that territory, including in areas where Russian forces have minimal or no military presence.
Kremlin officials routinely invoke the Kremlin's concept of "Novorossiya" - an amorphous region in southern and eastern Ukraine that extends beyond Crimea and the four regions that Russia has illegally annexed - to justify Russia's ever-expanding territorial ambitions in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Russian officials have also characterized Kharkiv and Odessa as "Russian" cities.
Russia's alleged desire to extend a buffer zone to Vinnytsia Oblast is consistent with Russian officials' claims to Ukrainian territory beyond Donbas, and refutes the Russian claim that talks to end the war are entirely dependent on Ukraine ceding Donetsk Oblast.
Ukrainian technological adaptations and innovations in drones continue to give Ukraine a tactical and operational advantage as Russian forces suffer heavy losses. Palisa reported that Russian forces suffered 316 casualties per square kilometer of offensive in Donetsk Oblast in the first quarter of 2026 (January 1 to March 31, 2026).
Palisa reported that Russian forces suffered about 120 casualties per square kilometer of offensive in 2025, and approximately 160 casualties in the Pokrovsk direction alone in 2025. Palisa reported that Ukrainian forces have generally regained their numerical superiority in drones over Russian forces on the front line, and now have 1.3 strike drones for every Russian strike drone. Palisa noted that Russian forces still maintain a numerical advantage in some areas where they concentrate offensive operations.
Palisa added that 32% of Ukrainian drones are electronic warfare-resistant optical drones, compared to 24% of Russian drones. Palisa also noted that Ukraine's campaign of medium-range strikes against Russian drone launch sites and infrastructure, including strikes on the occupied Donetsk city airport and drone relay stations in occupied Crimea, has prevented Russian forces from launching "up to 1,000 drones" at once and has forced Russian forces to spread drone launches throughout the day.
Ukrainian defensive successes, drone adaptations, and the medium-range strike campaign are clearly creating compounding effects that are worsening both Russian front-line forces and Russia’s long-range strike campaign. Recent Ukrainian offensives in southern Ukraine since late January 2026 have also created cascading operational effects on the front line that have forced Russian forces to choose between defending against Ukrainian counterattacks or reallocating manpower and resources to other sectors of the front line.
Ukrainian recent successes are achieving tactical, operational, and strategic combat objectives, despite Russian claims that Ukraine’s front lines are on the verge of collapse.
The Kremlin continues to engage in coordinated information efforts aimed at intensifying rhetoric of nuclear escalation, likely in an attempt to drive a wedge between the United States and the European Union. The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) said on April 8 that unspecified EU leaders were holding discussions about developing a nuclear weapons production capacity in the EU.
The SVR specifically stated that Russia was bringing this accusation to the attention of the United States to help it prevent the EU from developing nuclear weapons. The SVR appears to be making these baseless accusations as part of the Kremlin's ongoing efforts to sway US-EU relations in Russia's favor by portraying the EU as acting contrary to US nuclear interests. The Kremlin has frequently used the SVR to support baseless claims about Ukraine's alleged nuclear aspirations and to make nuclear threats against Ukraine, the UK and France.
The SVR similarly accused the UK and France in February 2026, without evidence, of attempting to transfer a "dirty bomb" or nuclear weapons to Ukraine, which would likely disrupt ongoing discussions about Western security guarantees for Ukraine.