Russia Touts Capture Of A Dozen Ukrainian Settlements In Opening Weeks Of March

The Russia-Ukraine war, now at the start of its fifth year, has largely fallen from daily global headlines, given the world’s attention – and markets – seem wholly focused on the fast-moving events of the Iran war, and the standoff in the Strait of Hormuz.

While many pundits are essentially ‘looking the other way’ – Russia continues gobbling up territory, and this week has announced its forces captured 12 settlements in just the first half of March. This comes as its offensives intensify in the east and south.

Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov touted the advances, declaring the push is broad-based and accelerating in all directions.

“The offensive is being conducted in all directions,” he has freshly announced, adding that “12 settlements have been liberated” in just two weeks.

This includes troops now “actively moving towards Sloviansk” – which remains one of the most heavily fortified Ukrainian strongholds in Donetsk, while also claiming 60% control of Kostiantynivka amid ongoing urban combat.

There are running “street battles” in Kostiantynivka Gerasimov described of the assault which has reportedly pushed deeper into the city. Russia says it’s also establishing buffer zones along the Kharkiv and Sumy borders.

The Ukrainian military and government leaders are meanwhile pushing back against this. President Volodymyr Zelensky himself is seeking to contradict the Russian narrative of consistent battlefield gains.

“Ukraine’s defense forces have disrupted Russia’s strategic offensive operation,” Zelensky said Monday. “Although attacks are constant… their intensity and scale are not what Russia had planned.”

The dueling claims highlight a familiar pattern of the last several years of grinding war in the east – one of Moscow touting steady territorial gains, while Kiev insists its troops blunting and reversing the push, even as the front line remains fluid but on the whole somewhat stalemated.

NEW: Continued Ukrainian advances in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast are likely constraining Russian offensive operations in the Oleksandrivka direction and may soon threaten Russian offensive operations in the Hulyaipole direction. Ukrainian counterattacks in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast are… pic.twitter.com/bnNkNRpZJT

— Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) March 17, 2026

But both sides have settled in for a war of attrition, and while neither side publishes freshly updated casualty figures, the lives lost from the tragic war is widely believed to be in the hundreds of thousands.