The front line in Ukraine remains uncertain. Positions shift by meters, not miles. Both armies are stretched thin. Still, Russia failed to achieve its main summer battlefield objectives.

The U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War estimates that Russia has captured roughly 1,300 square miles and 130 settlements since March, half of what Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed. But even these numbers confuse reality: after nearly a year of fighting, Russia has not taken a single major Ukrainian city.