On November 14, 2025, I wrote in these pages that the great Russian offensive of the summer and autumn of that year had failed. At that moment, the thesis seemed counterintuitive to many: Russia continued to press along the Pokrovsk-Donbas axis, maps showed only marginal advances, and Western analyses were largely dominated by pessimism about Ukrainian prospects. Yet the data already pointed then to Moscow having exhausted its surge without breaking the Ukrainian defensive setup. Six months later, that hypothesis has been confirmed and expanded, with a new failure of the Russian spring 2026 offensive—unexpected in ways no prior analysis quite anticipated—thanks mainly to the role of new drones.
The war in Ukraine has entered a new phase. The model of attritional warfare that Russia had trusted to win has begun to work against it. But one should not read this sentence as a reassuring forecast. Ukraine has improved its relative position since the winter nadir, but it has done so from a situation of extremely grave cumulative damage—in its human fabric, in its energy infrastructure, in its economy—and its structural problems have not disappeared. What exists is a shift in the trend in Ukraine’s favor, not a military victor y, in a conflict that has already lasted longer than World War I (1914-1918) and Russia’s Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany (1941-1945).
I. The Front in June 2026: The Geography of a Change
If you compare the current front map with the one from a year ago, at first glance you see a front line that looks similar. More than 1,200 kilometers of trenches and drones, stretching from the Belarusian border to the Black Sea, continue to divide a country the size of France. But the static appearance hides a profound qualitative shift.
“The model of attritional warfare the Russians expected to win with has begun to work against them. But it would be a mistake to read this sentence as a reassuring forecast”
Russia has stopped advancing at a operationally meaningful pace. The Russian forces gained an average of 9.76 square kilometers per day in the first four months of 2025; in the same period of 2026 that figure had fallen to 4.6—less than half—akin to the pace of the Somme battlefield in World War I. Net, Russia could end 2026 without having captured any new territory.
On the other hand, and for the first time since Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive of summer 2023, the territorial trend has shifted. In February 2026, Ukraine recovered 285.6 square kilometers, more than double what Russia conquered that same month. Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi confirmed that these operations allowed Ukraine to nearly liberate the entire Dnipropetrovsk region and halted advances toward Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia. In April 2026, Russian forces suffered a further net loss of 116 square kilometers. On the northern and northeastern fronts, Ukrainian forces had advanced in Kupiansk in autumn 2025 and in Hv oi l i pole in spring 2026, employing combined-arms tactics (i.e., real-time coordination of reconnaissance drones, attack drones, artillery, and infantry in a single combat sequence), which has allowed Ukraine to sustain a favorable casualty rate even in offensive actions.
To the south, the most dramatic picture unfolds around the land corridor connecting Russia with Crimea. Traffic for military convoys on the R-280 highway has fallen by 71% from late May 2026. The Russian command has even prohibited the movement of military materiel on the A-291 road linking Kerch to Sevastopol, citing the risk of “irreparable losses of lives and vehicles”. Russia invested about $11.8 billion between 2024 and 2026 in the Azov Ring road network to reduce its dependence on the Kerch bridge, which had been damaged at the time.
And then there is what no one imagined two years ago: Ukraine bombing St. Petersburg. On June 3, 2026, Ukrainian drones covering more than 1,000 kilometers struck a large oil terminal in Putin’s hometown, triggering major fires as Russia opened its annual economic forum—the Russian Davos—designed to attract foreign investment. That same night, another drone hit the corvette Boikiy in Kronstadt shipyard, the main base of the Russian Baltic Fleet. On Saturday, June 7, a second massive wave struck naval arsenals in Kronstadt—141 devices shot down, according to the regional governor who called the attack “unprecedented”—and oil depots in Krasnodar, 500 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
“Russian bombardments of Ukrainian cities have not only not ceased in 2026: they have scaled up in volume and intensity”
That said, the Russian bombardments of Ukrainian cities have not only persisted in 2026; they have escalated in volume and intensity. In the first four months of 2026 there were 815 civilian deaths and 4,174 wounded—a 21% increase on the same period in 2025 and 93% more than in the first four months of 2024. April 2026 was, with 238 dead and 1,404 wounded, the month with the highest civilian toll since July 2025. The pace continued in May: in the first week the HRMMU verified 62 deaths and 376 additional injuries. On the night of June 1–2, Russia launched 73 missiles and 656 drones; 33 missiles and 54 drones penetrated, killing at least 22 civilians just in Kyiv and Dnipro. On May 13–14, Zelenski stated that Russia had launched more than 1,560 drones in two days—the largest single episode of the entire war. In total, Russia launched 8,150 drones in May 2026 alone, 23% more than in April, according to data from the Ukrainian Air Force analyzed by AFP.
Ukraine’s air defense has responded with a complex evolution. In January 2026, the rate of interception of ballistic missiles fell to 36% in the first two weeks—versus a historical average of 60%. On the night of January 12–13, only 2 of 18 ballistic missiles were shot down. The technical cause: Russia has modified the Iskander-M with quasi-ballistic trajectories and radar decoys, as detailed by RUSI and Kyiv Independent, and has adapted the Kh-101 at least four times since the invasion began, according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense and Ukrainska Pravda, while the supply of interceptor missiles for the SAMP/T batteries was practically nil. The trend reversed in the following months: by March 2026 the interception rate reached 89.9%, and by May it reached 90.75% overall—91.73% for drones, 53% for missiles. But even with 90% interception rates, when thousands of devices operate nightly, the 10% that penetrates is enough to kill dozens of civilians and destroy critical infrastructure.
The cumulative damage to the power grid is perhaps the most severe consequence of the entire war for civilians. Before 2022, Ukraine had about 55 GW of installed capacity; by February 2026 that figure had fallen to 11.5 GW—a loss equal to the generating capacity of two Romanians. In January 2026, with temperatures down to −20 °C, five large coordinated attacks affected infrastructure in at least seventeen regions simultaneously, leaving millions with electricity only for a few hours a day. Rebuilding that capacity will take years and tens of billions of euros.
II. Why the War Has Changed: The Inflexion Points
1. The cumulative failure of the 2025 offensive
The first link in the causal chain is found where I pointed it out in November 2025. The great Russian offensive—concentrated on the Pokrovsk-Donbas axis—failed to achieve any of its declared operational objectives. Pokrovsk, whose fall was deemed inevitable, has withstood more than a year of assaults and remains the site of urban fighting in its northern sector, with Kostiantivka under intense pressure as Ukrainian forces are only partially encircled in its southern sector; Kupiansk remains in Ukrainian hands. The most notable recent Russian advance, the Avdiivka-Pokrovsk corridor of 50 kilometers between February 2024 and January 2026, occurred at an average pace of 70 meters per day: slower than the Allies at the Somme in 1916.
“The cumulative damage to the power grid is perhaps the gravest consequence of all the war for civilians”
But beyond minimal territorial gains, Russia exhausted its assault formations without producing the rupture that the Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov had promised. Over 2025, the Russian army lost more than 400,000 personnel to seize just 0.72% of Ukrainian territory. From February 2022 to the end of the first quarter of 2026, Russian casualties—in terms of deaths, severe injuries, and missing—exceed 1.3 million, more losses than any great power in any war since World War II, a figure that converges with the independent estimate of the UK Ministry of Defence that in December 2025 put Russian losses at 1,168,000 personnel.
2. The Collapse of the Reinforcement Model
Russia’s strategy always depended on a premise: its demographics would allow it to replenish casualties indefinitely without a generalized mobilization that would be politically dangerous, and win the war of attrition. That premise has broken. In January 2026, Russia suffered 9,000 more casualties than it managed to replenish. Since then, the deficit has been structural. Recruitment had fallen to between 800 and 1,000 soldiers daily in the first quarter of the year, compared with 1,000–1,200 in the same period of 2025, a year-over-year drop of 20% despite recruitment bonuses reaching a historic high of 1.47 million rubles—about $19,300—in March 2026. In March 2026, Russian monthly losses reached 35,000, a record that nearly doubled the NATO-median for 2025.
3. The Starlink Cut: An Unexpected Game Changer
At the start of February 2026, one of the war’s most impactful tactical shifts occurred. SpaceX, at the request of Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, implemented a white-list system that effectively blocked unauthorized access by Russian forces to the Starlink network. Elon Musk publicly confirmed the measure. Russia had installed Starlink terminals—acquired on the black market—on its long-range attack drones and on unmanned naval vehicle prototypes in the Black Sea; terminals costing as little as $400 that provided real-time video links, turning cheap drones into first-person precision weapons, as documented by CNN and SpaceX/Technology.org. General Andrii Biletsky, commander of Ukraine’s III Corps, described the impact as “huge” in statements to The Independent: “The Russians’ efficiency level relative to ours has dropped sharply. Starlink can only be replaced with another Starlink.” The Russian plans to deploy naval drones in the Black Sea in 2026 were also neutralized.
4. Ukraine’s Technological Revolution: The Army of Drones and Missiles
The most structural change is the transformation of Ukraine, over four years of existential war, into the world’s most advanced drone power in real combat conditions. In the short and medium range, Ukraine has achieved tactical numerical superiority: in spring 2026 it deployed 1.3 attack drones for every Russian drone, and geolocated evidence documents 41 medium-range Ukrainian strikes in January 2026, 61 in February, and 115 in March—an exponential acceleration. This density has turned the band of 15 to 25 kilometers on either side of the contact line into a kill zone that no side can cross with concentrations of conventional troops, neutralizing the Russian infantry numerical advantage, according to the CFR.
“The most notable recent Russian advance, the Avdiivka-Pokrovsk axis’s 50 kilometers between February 2024 and January 2026, occurred at an average of 70 meters per day”
In the long range, the Peklo (Hell) missile-drone, unveiled in December 2024, has a 700-kilometer range. There are documented 272 confirmed or suspected attacks on Russian energy infrastructure up to early 2026. The International Energy Agency estimated that Ukrainian attacks reduced Russia’s crude-processing capacity by about 500,000 barrels per day, with impact projected at least through mid-2026.
5. Russia’s War Economy: More Fragile Than It Appeared
Russia allocated 7.3% of its GDP to defense and security in 2025—more than a third of its national budget. But the war economy no longer drives GDP growth, which collapsed to 0.6% in 2025, amid high inflation and interest rates that squeeze civil enterprises, according to CSIS. Western sanctions, including those aimed at Russia’s phantom fleet of oil tankers, are now complemented by drones and missiles.
6. Permanent European Military Support
In December 2025, within the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (Ramstein format), European allies collectively pledged more than $45 billion in arms for 2026, with Germany as the largest single contributor at €11.5 billion, mainly for air defense systems (IRIS-T), drones, and artillery ammunition. In the first four months of 2026, Germany delivered material worth €4.2 billion—including Gepard systems, IRIS-T missiles, reconnaissance drones, and thousands of artillery rounds—while the United Kingdom contributed €1.3 billion and Norway €600 million, with funds largely directed to air defense and unmanned systems, according to the Kiel Institute.
III. Ukraine’s Problems
Personnel Crisis: The Achilles’ Heel
The most serious problem lies in the infantry. In January 2026, 200,000 Ukrainian soldiers were listed as AWOL, and about 2 million men of military age are attempting to evade mobilization. Some soldiers have spent more than 200 consecutive days in combat positions without rotation. Troops remaining in combat for more than 40 consecutive days experience a significant drop in effectiveness, according to Jack Watling in Foreign Affairs. The perception that service is “a one-way ticket to the hospital or the grave” fuels evasion and completes a vicious circle. The problem also has a long-term demographic dimension: with between 6 and 7 million Ukrainians abroad and a population already among Europe’s oldest before 2022, the capacity to replenish forces has structural limits that no legislative change can solve in the short term. In March 2026, “key changes” to mobilization policy were announced, but as of the publication of this analysis those reforms had not yet materialized fully.
The Destruction of the Energy System: A Long-Term Wound
Ukraine has lost about 43.5 GW of generating capacity since 2022, and available capacity continued to shrink in February 2026. This destruction has a cumulative economic effect: industry cannot function without stable supply; young professionals leave the country; the return of 6–7 million Ukrainian refugees in Europe partly depends on having minimum habitable conditions, according to RFE/RL via GlobalSecurity. The energy destruction is Russia’s long-term bet: if it cannot win on the battlefield, it will render the land it has not conquered uninhabitable.
IV. Conclusion: Asymmetric Zugzwang
The great paradox of the moment is that Russia is approaching what Watling terms, with precise chess terminology, a situation of zugzwang: every available move worsens its position. It can continue to attack and accumulate unsustainable casualties. It can attempt a general mobilization that is politically risky. Or it can seek to negotiate from a deteriorating position month by month. The air pressure on civilians to break Ukrainian will remains active, but four years of bombardment have shown that this alone is not enough. With more than 600,000 troops deployed and no shortage of munitions, Russia maintains the capacity to press on across multiple axes of the front, but all signs point to it not being in a position to launch a large-scale summer offensive: the structural replacement deficit, Ukraine’s drone superiority, and the pattern already observed in the summer of 2025—when action was located and small-scale despite favorable time and resources—suggest that the most likely path is a continuation of dispersed tactical pressure, not a breakthrough along the front.
“Ukraine has a window of opportunity to consolidate its tactical advantage and improve its negotiating position”
Ukraine, for its part, has a window of opportunity, reinforced by the unlocking of the European €90,000 million loan, which its own commanders quantify as “six months”—as General Biletsky told Reuters—for consolidating its tactical advantage and strengthening its negotiating stance. Any eventual negotiation must take place from a position of strength, and therefore should not be encouraged by either Ukrainians or Europeans; it must, if anything, begin from Putin. Ukraine, after all, continues to benefit from its defensive position and from Russia’s incapacity to advance and break the front. But that window could close if the personnel crisis is not resolved or if Russia manages to balance its drone warfare with its own innovations.
Unlike earlier phases of the war, the current evolution depends much more on Europe’s ability to sustain Ukrainian effort and on Ukraine’s own military-industrial base than on new direct transfers of American arms. Europe must therefore increase and speed up its military aid to Ukraine, prioritizing air-defense systems—Ukraine’s main operational need to protect civilians from the ongoing mass bombings that still claim hundreds of lives each month—and interceptor munitions for Patriot and SAMP/T systems, whose stocks have reached critical levels, according to Kyiv Independent. But air defense alone is not enough: the front also needs artillery and long-range ammunition to sustain pressure on Russian logistics, medium-range drones to continue the campaign against the Crimea corridor, as CEPA argues, and support for Ukraine’s defense industry to build greater autonomy, a point also highlighted by the Kiel Institute.
Additionally, on June 9, 2026, the European Commission proposed its 21st package of sanctions against Russia, which for the first time includes restrictions on the Russian fishing sector, adds thirty new vessels to the Black Fleet blacklist—raising the total to more than 660—sanctions on ports, airports, and refineries involved in the Russian crude trade, a suspension of the oil-price adjustment mechanism through the end of 2026 to prevent Moscow from benefiting from price rises caused by the Middle East conflict, and a ban on entry into the EU for those who have served in the Russian armed forces since the invasion began. The rapid unanimous approval by all Twenty-Seven will continue to erode the Russian war economy at a moment when pressure on its energy revenues is starting to show tangible effects on the ground.
The window of opportunity will not be seized without a sustained and ambitious European effort, particularly solving the interceptor supply problem that today limits Ukraine’s ability to protect its citizens.
