ISW Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 26, 2025

Key Takeaways from the ISW:

• US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are planning to meet at the White House on February 28, likely to sign a US-Ukraine mineral deal. A draft agreement of the deal published ahead of the meeting does not provide US security assistance or security guarantees to Ukraine, however.
• Russian officials directly involved in negotiations with the United States continue to insist that any peace agreement to resolve the war in Ukraine must be based on Russia’s 2021 demands. They also insist on the surrender to Russia of territory that Ukrainian forces currently hold that is home to major cities and well over a million people.
• Russia is demanding that Ukraine surrender several large cities that Russian forces do not currently occupy and have no prospect of seizing, handing over one million Ukrainians to Russia.
• Lavrov’s and other Kremlin officials’ continued rejections of a ceasefire and other terms that US President Donald Trump and European leaders have identified as necessary to achieve a lasting peace in Ukraine demonstrate that Russian President Vladimir Putin remains uninterested in meaningful negotiations and assesses that he can achieve his war objectives militarily in the medium- to long-term.
• Ukrainian forces recently advanced near Toretsk and Pokrovsk, and Russian forces recently advanced near Kupyansk, Chasiv Yar, Kurakhove, Velyka Novosilka, and Robotyne.
• Russian officials proposed that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) assume control over all Russian pretrial detention facilities amid reports that the FSB is in charge of a pretrial detention facility linked to the abuse of Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs).

Authors: Nicole Wolkov, Angelica Evans, Olivia Gibson, Davit Gasparyan, and Frederick W. Kagan with Nate Trotter and William Runkel.

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