# Kyiv Says No Peace With Moscow Before 2027 as Russia Pushes to Seize All of Donetsk

*Tuesday, August 18, 2026 at 6:10 AM UTC — Hamer Intelligence Services Desk*

**Published**: 2026-08-18T06:10:58.175Z (3h ago)
**Category**: conflict | **Region**: Eastern Europe
**Importance**: 9/10
**Sources**: OSINT
**Permalink**: https://hamerintel.com/data/articles/14811.md
**Source**: https://hamerintel.com/summaries

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**Deck**: Ukraine’s military intelligence service says it sees no signs Russia is preparing to halt fighting or enter genuine negotiations this year—and believes Moscow is planning for no peace deal before the end of 2026. The assessment, paired with claims that Russia’s General Staff aims to capture the entire Donetsk region by year’s end, points to a long, grinding war with little space for diplomacy. Readers will learn what Kyiv is seeing on the battlefield, what Moscow is reportedly planning, and what this means for Ukraine’s future and Western aid.

Ukraine’s war planners are publicly bracing their country and its partners for a long haul. On 18 August, a senior Ukrainian intelligence official said there are no battlefield signs that Russia intends to cease fire or enter substantive peace talks this year—and that Moscow’s internal planning assumes no negotiated settlement before the end of 2026.

Vadym Skibitskyi, deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate, described the assessment in comments carried by Ukrainian outlets. He said his service’s analysts see nothing in Russian force posture, logistics or political messaging that suggests a readiness to freeze the conflict in 2024. Instead, he asserted, Russia’s General Staff has set a concrete objective: to complete the capture of the entire Donetsk region by the end of this year, while sustaining offensive operations along other sections of the front.

The claims cannot be independently confirmed, and Moscow has not outlined a public, time‑bound plan for Donetsk. However, they match the pattern of Russian offensives in eastern Ukraine, where gradual gains around key towns have come at heavy cost. For civilians in contested areas of Donetsk, the implication is stark: months more of shelling, forced evacuations and uncertain control as Russian troops push westward and Ukrainian forces attempt to blunt them.

For Ukrainian soldiers and their families, the message from Skibitskyi is that there is no near‑term off‑ramp; the fight is not heading toward a frozen line and talks, but toward at least two more years of attritional warfare unless something breaks the current trajectory. That has direct human consequences in the form of ongoing mobilization, rotation stress, and the shadow of rising casualty counts. Every town in the path of a renewed Russian push in Donetsk is a place where homes may be destroyed and residents forced to choose between staying in danger or fleeing deeper into Ukraine.

Strategically, a Russian effort to seize the remainder of Donetsk this year would be designed to present both Kyiv and the West with a new fait accompli—a fully occupied region Moscow already claims to have annexed. Securing that territory would give Russia more defensible lines, additional industrial and mining assets, and a stronger hand in any eventual negotiations. It would also test Ukraine’s capacity to hold under pressure at a time when its air‑defense stocks are strained and units along several sectors report ammunition shortfalls.

The intelligence assessment lands alongside Kyiv’s own forward planning for support. According to a draft government program, Ukraine expects to receive about $101 billion in aid from Western partners in 2026–2027, on top of roughly $49 billion this year and $52 billion anticipated next year. Those figures underscore that, at least on paper, both Ukraine and its backers are preparing financially for a multi‑year conflict rather than a quick diplomatic resolution.

The uncomfortable insight is that when both sides plan for years more of fighting, the war’s center of gravity moves from battlefield breakthroughs to endurance: industrial output, manpower, political will and external support. For Ukrainians, that means the cost of resisting occupation—measured in lives, homes and time—keeps rising with no clear horizon.

Key signals to watch now include whether Russian forces significantly accelerate offensive operations in Donetsk in the coming months, how Ukraine’s leadership speaks about mobilization and fortifications in the east, and whether Western capitals translate projected aid into timely, tangible deliveries of air defenses, artillery and financial support. Any shift in those variables would either harden this path toward a long war or open space, however narrow, for a different kind of conversation.