Honestly, if you look at a map of Ukraine today, it’s a mess of jagged lines and "grey zones" that change by the hour. We’re four years into this thing. The headlines fly by so fast—Siversk falls, a drone hits a terminal in Rostov, a new village in Sumy gets occupied—that it's easy to lose the plot.
So, what parts of Ukraine does Russia control right now?
As of mid-January 2026, the short answer is about 19.2% to 20% of the country. That is roughly 45,000 square miles. If you need a mental image for that scale, think of the entire state of Pennsylvania or the country of South Korea. It’s not just "a few border towns." It is a massive chunk of Europe’s breadbasket currently under a different flag.
The Big Four: The Annexed Oblasts
Back in 2022, the Kremlin held those big, theatrical ceremonies to "annex" four regions: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. But here is the thing—Russia doesn't actually control all of them. Not even close in some cases. It's this weird, legalistic fiction where Moscow claims the "official" borders of these provinces, while the actual soldiers on the ground are fighting over frozen tree lines and shattered suburbs.
Luhansk: Almost a Clean Sweep
Luhansk is the closest Russia has come to "completing" an objective. They hold about 99.6% of the oblast. For most of 2025, the fighting here was a grueling crawl. The Ukrainian foothold is tiny—basically just a few fields and ruined hamlets on the very western edge. If you're living in Luhansk City or Severodonetsk right now, you're living in a world of Russian rubles, Russian SIM cards, and Russian textbooks.
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Donetsk: The Meat Grinder
Donetsk is where the war is loudest. Russia controls roughly 78% of this region. Think about places like Bakhmut or Avdiivka—they are just craters now. Recently, the Russian push has been focused on the "Oskil River" line and trying to squeeze the life out of logistics hubs like Pokrovsk. They took Siversk and Novomykolayivka just a few weeks ago. It’s slow. It’s bloody. But the line is moving west, inch by agonizing inch.
The Southern Front: Zaporizhzhia and Kherson
These two are the "land bridge" to Crimea.
- Zaporizhzhia: Russia holds about 75%. They have the nuclear power plant—the biggest in Europe—which is a terrifying bargaining chip. But they don't have Zaporizhzhia City itself.
- Kherson: Russia controls the left (east) bank of the Dnipro River, about 72% of the province. The river is a massive, natural moat. Ukraine holds the city of Kherson, but it gets shelled almost every single day from the Russian side.
Crimea: The "Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier"
We can't forget Crimea. Russia has held 100% of it since 2014. For the Kremlin, this isn't even a "war zone"—it’s a province. But 2025 changed the vibe there. Ukrainian long-range missiles and sea drones have made the Black Sea Fleet's life a nightmare. Inflation in Crimea is reportedly hitting 107% this month. It’s "controlled," sure, but it's increasingly isolated and expensive to keep.
The New Creep: Sumy and Kharkiv
This is the part that's bothering military analysts lately. For a while, the north was relatively quiet after the 2022 retreat. Not anymore. Russia has started "probing" again. They’ve grabbed tiny slivers of Sumy Oblast—about 1%—and parts of Kharkiv (around 4.7%). They aren't trying to take the cities yet; they are trying to create "buffer zones" to stop Ukraine from shelling Russian border towns like Belgorod. It’s a classic spoiler move.
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What Life Looks Like Inside the "New Russia"
Control isn't just about where the tanks are parked. It's about the "Russification" of daily life. In places like Mariupol, which was leveled four years ago, the occupation authorities are finally building new apartments, but mostly for Russian settlers or loyalists.
They’ve rolled out the "+7" phone code. They’ve swapped the Hryvnia for the Ruble. There’s a program called "Cultural Map 4+85" which is basically a fancy name for moving Ukrainian kids into Russian "educational" camps. Intelligence reports from this week even show Russia is planning massive geological surveys in Donetsk to start mining rare metals like lithium and titanium. They aren't just occupying; they are strip-mining.
The 2026 Outlook: Why the Map Won't Settle
If you’re waiting for a "Big Arrow" offensive that captures half the country in a weekend, you’re looking at the wrong war. 2025 showed us that gains are measured in meters, not miles. Russia gained about 171 square miles a month last year.
That sounds small. It is small. But it's steady.
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Ukraine, meanwhile, is playing a high-stakes game of "strike the rear." They’ve knocked out almost 40% of Russia’s oil refining capacity with drones. They even have a tiny 4-square-mile foothold inside Russia itself (the Kursk/Belgorod border areas). It’s a mess.
Actionable Reality for Following the Conflict:
- Look at the Percentages, Not the Pins: A pin on a map for a "captured village" often means three basements and a charred tractor. The percentage of an Oblast (province) controlled is a better metric for long-term political stability.
- Watch the Energy Grid: Russia is currently trying to split the Ukrainian power grid east-to-west. Control of "territory" matters less if the capital city is sitting in the dark for 16 hours a day.
- Monitor the "Grey Zones": Places like the Kinburn Spit or the islands in the Dnipro are technically "contested." Neither side really "controls" them, but they use them to launch raids.
The map of what Russia controls in Ukraine is a living, breathing thing. It's a tragedy written in geography. Right now, Moscow is betting that they can hold on to their 20% long enough for the rest of the world to get bored. Whether that bet pays off depends more on factories in the West and drone workshops in Kyiv than it does on the soldiers currently shivering in a trench in Donetsk.
To stay truly updated, follow live-mapping projects like DeepStateUA or the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). They provide the most granular, geolocated data available to the public. Don't rely on a single headline; look at the four-week averages of territorial change to see where the momentum actually sits.