Even at Current Rate of Advance, Russia would Need 230 Years to Fully Occupy Ukraine, Experts Say

Paul Goble

    Staunton, May 2 – A year ago, Russians said that at its current rate of advance, Russia would need 1000 years to occupy Ukraine (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/02/at-current-rate-of-advance-moscow-will.html). Now, Western experts say, Russia has speeded up its advance but still would need 230 years to occupy all of Ukraine.

    Since 2022, Russian forces have occupied 19 percent of Ukrainian territory; but most of that came in the first months of Putin’s war. In the last year, they have expanded control over only 0.5 percent of Ukrainian land (novayagazeta.ee/articles/2025/05/03/pri-nyneshnikh-tempakh-voiny-rossii-potrebovalos-by-230-let-dlia-polnogo-zakhvata-ukrainy-smi-news).

    Neither that figure nor how long it would take Russia to occupy all of Ukraine if it continues at its current pace is obvious either to Russians who are fed a constant diet of stories about Russia “liberating” this or that village or to many in the West who think that Ukraine will simply collapse unless the United States provides more military aid.

    These reactions call to mind one of this writer’s favorite Soviet jokes. It relates that Hitler returned from the dead and visited Red Square at the time of the Victory Day parade. There he watched Soviet tanks and planes parade and gradually an enormous smile broke out on the Nazi leader’s face.

    A Russian came up to him and said: “I bet you are thinking that if you had had such weapons, you would never have lost the war.” “No,” replied Hitler. “I was thinking that if I had a newspaper like your Pravda, no one would ever have found out that I had.” That anecdote only needs to have Pravda replaced with the term Russia Today.