But the Donestk oblast — which is smaller than Massachusetts and home to about 4 million people — has been at the center of some of the most brutal fighting of the war, and the Kremlin has not been able to take the entire region after more than three and a half years. Putin reportedly told Trump his forces could conquer Donetsk by October if Ukraine didn’t give up the land as part of a peace deal — but Kyiv and US observers point out that the Kremlin has failed to take it for more than a decade. “Even if we’re being generous to the Russians and say they can maintain their current advance, which we know they can’t keep up and have been pushed back from… It would take about 475 days for Russia to take the entirety of Donetsk, that’s December 2026,” Barros said.
Author: NY Post
Published at: 2025-08-19 21:29:06
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