Russian-occupied Ukraine

How much of Ukraine does Russia control?

Russia holds about 19% of Ukraine's internationally recognized territory. DeepState, a Ukrainian project that maps the front line, put the figure at about 117,000 square kilometers in late October 2026, including Crimea. Outside Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014 and which has its own page, Russia holds about 90,000 square kilometers.

By region, measured from DeepState's October 30, 2026 map against Natural Earth borders, Russia holds about 98.7% of Luhansk, about 79.7% of Donetsk, about 75.8% of Zaporizhzhia and about 72.1% of Kherson. Russian forces also hold small parts of Kharkiv (about 4.6%), Sumy (about 0.9%), Mykolaiv (the Kinburn spit, about 0.5%) and Dnipropetrovsk (about 0.1%). A gray zone of about 1,700 square kilometers lies between the two sides on DeepState's map.

Before the full-scale invasion of February 24, 2022, Russia-backed forces held about 16,800 square kilometers of Donetsk and Luhansk. In 2025 Russia gained about 4,300 to 4,800 square kilometers, mostly in Donetsk. In 2026 its advance slowed sharply, and Ukrainian counterattacks retook ground. DeepState's totals show a net Russian gain of about 900 square kilometers from January to late October. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US think tank, assessed on October 16 that Russia had taken a net of about 100 square kilometers since January 1. President Putin said Russia had taken about 6,500 square kilometers in 2026.

How did Russia take eastern and southern Ukraine?

The war in the Donbas began in 2014 after Ukraine's revolution. Russia-backed armed groups seized government buildings in Donetsk and Luhansk and declared "people's republics." Russia said it was protecting Russian speakers after what it called a coup in Kyiv. Ukraine sent its army in what it called an "anti-terrorist operation." Ukraine said Russia sent weapons, fighters and troops. Russia denied it, but the European Court of Human Rights found that Russia had controlled the areas the groups held from May 2014.

The Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015 reduced the fighting, and each side accused the other of breaking them. By early 2022 the war had killed more than 14,000 people, including about 3,400 civilians, by UN counts.

Russia recognized the two republics on February 21, 2022 and invaded three days later. Putin said he was protecting people who had faced "humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kyiv regime." In March 2022 the International Court of Justice said it was "not in possession of evidence substantiating" that claim. Russia besieged Mariupol for 86 days. An air strike on its drama theater killed about 600 civilians, by an AP estimate. Amnesty International found the strike was Russian. Russia blamed Ukraine's Azov regiment.

Ukraine retook most of the Kharkiv region in September 2022 and Kherson city in November. Russia took Bakhmut in May 2023 and Pokrovsk by early 2026.

What did Russia do with the annexed regions?

On September 23-27, 2022 Russia held referendums in the parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson it controlled. Russian-installed officials said more than 87% voted to join Russia in every region. Ukraine and Western governments call the votes illegal, held at gunpoint and with no credible monitoring. On September 30 Putin signed treaties declaring the four regions part of Russia. He called them "new regions" and said their people had chosen Russia. Russia does not fully control any of the four.

The UN General Assembly rejected the annexation on October 12, 2022, in Resolution ES-11/4. The vote was 143 in favor, 5 against (Russia, Belarus, North Korea, Nicaragua and Syria) and 35 abstentions, including China and India.

Russia governs the four regions as Russian federal subjects, with Russian-appointed heads, police and courts. It held State Duma elections there in September 2026, with voting from late August to September 20. Seven single-member constituencies were drawn in the four regions, and United Russia candidates won all seven. Ukraine and the EU do not recognize the results. Zelensky sanctioned 44 people who helped organize the vote, and on October 12 the EU sanctioned 77.

What is life like under Russian occupation?

Russia requires residents to take Russian passports to get public services, pensions, health care and proof of property. In March 2025 Russia's interior minister, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, said 3.5 million passports had been issued in the occupied regions. The EU does not recognize them. Since January 20, 2026 a Russian law has required children to hold Russian passports to travel abroad.

About 582,000 children attend roughly 2,000 schools that follow the Russian curriculum, by the count of the Almenda Center, a Ukrainian rights group. Ukrainian was removed as a subject in December 2025. In September 2026 schools added a course on "spiritual and moral culture of Russia" and textbooks on the history of the Donbas and "Novorossiya." Ukraine, rights groups and the EU call this Russification. Russian officials say Russia is rebuilding the regions and that residents have the same rights as other Russian citizens.

In March 2024 the UN human rights office (OHCHR) reported, from more than 2,300 testimonies, that Russia had created "a climate of fear" in the occupied areas. It found that Russian forces arbitrarily detained people they saw as opponents, often with torture, and that some were never seen again. The same report criticized Ukraine for prosecuting as collaborators people who had only kept essential services running under occupation.

What happens next?

The United States brokered three rounds of three-way talks with Russia and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi and Geneva in January and February 2026. They stalled over territory. Russia demanded that Ukraine withdraw from the rest of the Donetsk region. Putin's aide Yuri Ushakov said in December 2025, "This area is Russian territory." Ukraine refused. Zelensky said Ukrainians would reject such a deal in a referendum.

On October 21, 2026 Zelensky said Ukraine was ready to freeze the war on the current front line. He said Ukraine would never recognize the occupied land as Russian. Russia has not accepted a freeze. The Kremlin says its terms have not changed since June 2024, when Putin demanded that Ukraine leave all four regions Russia claims and give up joining NATO. On October 27 Zelensky said US proposals had included a demilitarized zone on both sides of the front line in the Donbas.

Also on October 21, US envoy Steve Witkoff met Putin in St. Petersburg. On October 28 Ushakov said three-way talks would take place in Abu Dhabi after November 4. Zelensky said he hoped for talks between November 6 and 10.

A US draft plan from November 2025 accepted Russian control of Crimea and the Donbas in practice, though not in law.