https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-2-2025/
Key Takeaways
- Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected the US-Ukrainian peace proposal during his meeting with a US delegation in Moscow on December 2 and remains highly unlikely to accept any compromises short of his original war goals.
- The Kremlin intensified its cognitive warfare effort that aims to portray a Russian victory in Ukraine as imminent in the lead up to the December 2 US-Russia meeting, likely to coerce the West into accepting Russia’s absolutist demands.
- Putin exaggerated Russia’s claimed seizure of Pokrovsk as strategically important for large scale breakthroughs. ISW has not observed evidence to confirm the complete Russian seizure of Pokrovsk, but Russia’s seizure of the town in the near future is unlikely to produce rapid Russian advances.
- Putin also intensified efforts to portray the Russian economy as resilient and able to support protracted hostilities in Ukraine in the lead up to the December 2 meeting.
- The Kremlin’s recent economic policies indicate that the Russian economy is doing markedly worse than Putin’s portrayal, however.
- Putin attempted to preemptively deflect blame onto Europe for Russia’s rejection of any peace plan iterations ahead of the December 2 US-Russian meeting.
- Putin threatened Europe to prevent Europe from engaging in the peace process.
- Russia may be trying to set information conditions to justify Russian strikes against Ukrainian ports to impose a de facto blockade of Ukraine.
- Putin may also be setting information conditions to justify Russian attempts to seize Odesa and Mykolaiv oblasts, although Russia’s seizure of these regions remains unlikely at this time.
- Russian forces are modifying their Shahed-type drones to target Ukrainian air defenders.
- Russian forces recently advanced in Sumy Oblast and near Kostyantynivka, Pokrovsk, and Hulyaipole.
