April is here, and this means spring has finally reached Ukraine. Contrary to tradition, the general mood, and the signs of new blossoming life that go hand in hand with the warmer weather, it is very unlikely that the new season will awaken positive vibes in the minds of the Ukrainians and the people all over the world who support them. The ongoing war and lack of prospects for a lasting peace in the foreseeable future are taking a heavy toll on everyone.

The biggest question that haunts the minds of many is what the next big move will be. Will the Russians try yet another major offensive? Which settlements and areas are in their priority list? Will the Ukrainians keep counterattacking and pushing the invaders, little by little, back to the state border? When will the drone madness end? Are both sides already running dry on resources? I’ll try to answer all these questions below.

Let's start with the most pressing one – will there be a major Russian spring offensive? Actually, it already has begun, but most probably you have failed to notice that. The reason is simple—nowadays the offensives are not what they used to be in the past. Because the drones dominate the so-called “little sky” (altitudes below 1,000 meters) over the battlefield and the immediate rear, the commanders are forced to split their units into small groups (2–3 men). They employ them as miniature assault squads with the sole mission to infiltrate the enemy lines unnoticed. Long story short, a large-scale offensive in 2026 is actually a simultaneous action of many such assault squads along a very broad front. Here and there they are assisted by a couple of tanks or other AFVs; they also receive close artillery and air support thanks to the constant drone surveillance and radio/online contact with the commanding officers. Still, the losses are heavy, because even fragmented into miniature teams, the attackers are fully exposed to the enemy drone observers and are not immune to landmines, incoming shells, and small-arms fire. All this explains why in most of the sectors the Russians are not able to advance more than a few hundred meters a day, not counting the natural and man-made obstacles, such as rivers, ditches, barriers, barbed wire, etc.

In an attempt to escape the trap of this predictable scenario, as well as to break the stalemate, during the second half of March, the Russian command attempted massed attacks with long convoys made of dozens of soft-skinned vehicles, a couple of tanks, and a handful of armored personnel carriers. None of them even succeeded in reaching the battlefield and they were completely destroyed by drones and artillery fire while still en route. Having learned their lesson the hard way, the Russian commanders switched back to the small-scale infiltration tactics and haven’t employed large mixed convoys ever since.

In the northernmost sector of the front — near Sumy and in contested Vovchansk — intense fighting hasn’t stopped since last year, but it is limited to exchanges of fire and small-scale actions because both belligerents are short of manpower and materiel.

Further south, in and around Kupiansk, where the Ukrainians achieved their most recent victory, the Russians keep trying to regain control over the town. They attack simultaneously from the north, along the road leading to the place, as well as from the east, in an attempt to split in two and then eliminate the Ukrainian bridgehead on the eastern bank of the Oskil River. In Kupiansk itself the mopping up operations continue because there are still some small Russian groups and armed individuals hiding in the basements and empty buildings.

Given the high political and propaganda value that Putin attaches to Donetsk Oblast, it is no surprise that the focal point of the Russian spring offensive lies there. The invaders are desperately trying to reach the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration from three directions: From the northeast, through the vicinity of Lyman; from the east, pushing westwards from the already captured Siversk; from the southeast, through Konstantynivka.

For many reasons, the offensive hasn’t achieved any of its ambitious objectives yet. So far the Ukrainians have brought to a halt the northeastern Russian pincer (the one at Lyman) and the southeastern one (at the outskirts of Konstantynivka). By doing so, they have deprived the Russian grouping attacking from the vicinity of Siversk of flanking support, and the latter is taking heavy losses. The fighting for Konstantynivka is equally difficult for the Ukrainians, because the Russian drone operators have taken under their control all roads leading to the badly battered city. This makes the delivery of even small amounts of supplies, let alone evacuations and troop rotations, a high-risk undertaking.

There is conflicting information about the situation in the war-torn Pokrovsk. According to reliable sources, some Ukrainian troops are still present in the northern outskirts of the city, thereby denying the invaders a free movement inside the place. Otherwise, the Russian intentions regarding that area are crystal-clear: to use the Pokrovsk-Myrnohrad agglomeration as a logistic hub to assemble troops, materiel, and supply for a further drive to the northwest, towards Pavlohrad (prewar population of more than 100,000). In the recent days very intense fighting has taken place in Hryshyne and Rodynske, two nearly demolished large villages situated to the north of the agglomeration. The Ukrainians use them as bastions to halt the Russians from moving northwards.

The situation in the vast flat area to the southwest of Pokrovsk, as far as Huliaipole, is also not very clear. It was there that the Ukrainians launched a series of successful counterattacks that drove Putin’s army up to 20 km back and it is quite probable that in certain sectors the counterattacks continue. They allowed the Ukrainian troops to regain control of long stretches of their heavily fortified defensive line. It is said that currently the High Command in Kiev is facing a dilemma: to continue with those counterattacks or to halt them for a while and shift some of the units involved in them to some of the endangered areas.

The long frontline in Zaporizhzhia oblast, stretching from Huliaipole as far as the lower Dnieper, is relatively stable. The Ukrainians are well aware of the critical importance of the small town of Orikhiv (halfway between Huliaipole and the Dnieper) and have turned it into a fortress long ago. Very heavy fighting continues for another critically important settlement — the ruined town of Stepnohirsk — which acts as an outpost protecting the southern approaches to the city of Zaporizhzhia. The Ukrainians are counterattacking repeatedly, wrestling the initiative from the Russians and keeping them at bay.

Numbers don't lie — even a rough comparison of the territorial gains of both sides during the previous month shows that the Russians have taken no more than 6 sq. km at the cost of tremendous losses in men and materiel. To make matters worse for them, it seems that they are experiencing growing difficulties in providing replacements for the badly mauled frontline units. According to multiple sources, since the turn of the year, the enlistment offices all over the Russian Federation have managed to recruit about 80,000 "volunteers," while during the same period Putin’s army has lost at least 90,000 killed, wounded, and missing. Despite the widespread recruitment campaign directed predominately at poor folk, university students, prisoners, and convicts, there is no growing flow of “kontraktniks” (contractors, i.e. voluntary professional soldiers). The amount of money offered to them is crazy by Russian standards – up to 5 million rubbles upfront (ca. USD 65,000) plus a monthly salary of at least USD 2,000 and various bonuses – but even such piles of cash are no longer a temptation for the average Russian adult male. These obvious difficulties sparked rumors that a partial or even a full-scale mobilization is on the horizon.

The growing economic crisis (that even the state media and the top propagandists are no longer trying to hide) and the repeated Ukrainian “deep-strike” drone attacks on the oil infrastructure and key military-related industries are perhaps the two most pressing problems that Putin’s regime must deal with. In March Ukraine launched some 7,000 “deep-strike” drones against various important targets within the territory of Russia and thus for the first time outpaced the opponent, who managed to launch only 5,500. Given the enhanced capabilities of Ukrainian drone manufacturing, many experts consider that this trend will continue throughout the rest of 2026. 

 

Military expert

Kamen Nevenkin

#RUSSIA

#UKRAINE

14.04.2026 05:22