One of the biggest challenges to everyone analyzing in depth the peculiarities and the dynamics of the Russo-Ukrainian war is to find an intriguing topic of discussion without repeating themselves. In other words, to avoid the trap of redundancy imposed on us by the monotonous events on and off the battlefield and an obvious lack of progress in the field of diplomacy.

Which are the key events and tendencies still worth your time and attention? What is the most important news story of the last fortnight? How do various small, seemingly disconnected pieces of information actually fit perfectly into the giant puzzle called “the struggle for Ukraine”? Is there any hope for a lasting peace? Let’s explore this below.   

A brief frontline update

No major changes took place along the frontline during the last two weeks. The Russians still keep the initiative in most of the sectors, but they gain very little, if any, ground due to the fierce Ukrainian resistance. Heavy fighting is ongoing southeast of Kupiansk, where the AFU (Armed Forces of Ukraine) still maintain a relatively large bridgehead on the eastern bank of the Oskil. The attempts of the invaders to split that foothold or to push its defenders across the river so far proved to be fruitless. The Russian onslaught in the direction of the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration continues unabated.

The push of Putin’s troops from the northeast is contained in the vicinity of Lyman, but the situation there is nearly critical for the defenders. It is the Russian grouping attacking the agglomeration from the east that registered the largest territorial gains in Ukraine during the last week or so, although they are not that significant. Further south, the badly mauled town of Kostiantynivka continues to be at the center of global media attention. Given its natural outpost position (as a protection of the distant approaches to Kramatorsk from the south), it is no wonder that about a fifth of all Russian ground attacks in Ukraine are being launched there this month. My estimate is that this tendency will continue in the foreseeable future.

The AFU are successfully holding the line just north of the Pokrovsk-Myrnohrad agglomeration for now, but my prediction is that we have yet to see the most critical developments in this area. There are no significant shifts in either direction along the southern shoulder of the frontline that lies in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast. The repeated Ukrainian counterattacks have wrestled the initiative out of the Russians in most of the sectors, perhaps save for Huliaipole, which remains the most fragile point in the otherwise solid defensive line of the AFU in that vast area.

The Victory Parade – whose victory?

How to humiliate a dictator? Here are some simple rules: 1) Force them to do something they don’t like; 2) Ask them for your permission to do that; 3) Let the whole world know about the “deal”; 4) Keep them scared and guessing during the duration of the deal. Of course, I mean the crazy situation with the Victory Day parade in Moscow, which happened only because the Ukrainian president Zelensky allowed it and even issued a particular written order about the issue, mentioning the exact coordinates of the Red Square. Never before has the Russian Federation, a nuclear superpower, been humiliated like that. All of a sudden, Putin became a laughing stock in the eyes of the world, and at the same time he came under fierce verbal attacks from the Z-community at home, that is to say, all warmongers and ultra-patriots who are deeply concerned that Russia is not doing “enough” to crush Ukraine. I'll spare you the details of the story, because I’m sure you are already well aware of them, but you should know that the overhyped three-day ceasefire mediated by US President Donald Trump actually failed to deliver. On 9 May alone, according to a report of the Ukrainian General Staff, there were 147 combat clashes along the frontline; the Russians launched 7,704 kamikaze drones and carried out 2,021 attacks on settlements and positions of the AFU troops, including 12 from multiple launch rocket systems. Does anyone still trust Putin’s empty promises? It was all smoke and mirrors, as they used to say.

Drone warfare and aerial strikes

The mid-range and long-range drone attacks, simply known as “middle strikes” and “deep strikes” have become such a huge thing that they definitely deserve a separate mention. While the Russians still resort to their usual tactics, which combine strikes on public infrastructure objects, military facilities and randomly selected residential areas, the Ukrainians continue consistently to put out of operation oil refineries and port installations, as well as to hunt down Russian air defense systems. No big news here, but it is worth pointing out that during the last couple of months the Ukrainian aerial strikes have become far more accurate and destructive. The flames that engulf the unlucky targets are so huge and produce so much smoke that pretty often they are visible even from space. Videos containing catastrophic scenes like the huge fire in Tuapse quickly become viral and take a heavy toll on the mood and nerves of the ordinary Russians. What causes the difference is perhaps the new tactics employed by the Ukrainian drone units – nowadays they repeat their strikes over and over again, making them successive. The Tuapse refinery, for instance, has already been hit four times. The Baltic port of Primorsk, through which goes a considerable part of the Russian oil export, was attacked again last week. But that is not all. The Ukrainian attacks are becoming increasingly diverse and complex. On several occasions the drones approach the target in swarms or waves, thereby multiplying the effect of the strike. Their most advanced method so far is to attack a huge military factory like the one in Cheboksary that was initially struck by a huge “Flamingo” missile and then by at least two long-range drones.

The Ukrainian “deep-strike” attacks gain momentum not only because of the steady increase in drone production and the fixing of some issues that hampered the regular employment of the “Flamingos”. Putin’s paranoia and fears also have contributed to that. The dictator’s concerns for his own safety already have forced the Russian military command to relocate to his residence up to 30 highly mobile Pantsir air-defense systems. Another 100 Pantsirs have been deployed around and within Moscow, thus forming three concentric defensive belts against aerial threats. Still, last Monday, 4 May, a single Ukrainian drone successfully overcame all three of them and eventually crashed into a landmark high-rise building in downtown Moscow. This was a clear warning to Putin that the Victory Parade was at risk and definitely was one of the factors that forced him to beg Trump for help. The decision of Putin and his aides to strengthen the anti-drone protection only in selected areas will have much deeper consequences for many key facilities because it is plain that there will never be enough air-defense systems to protect all the endangered directions. The AFU also contribute to that by putting out of action several dozen radars, Pantsirs and other valuable mobile weapons every single month.

The Odds

Despite the fact that the war in Ukraine has entered its fifth year and the obvious stalemate (it is crystal clear that the conflict is heading nowhere), there are still some people within the Russian power circles who believe that the tide could be turned in Moscow’s favor by putting into effect some winning scenarios. I’ll mention three of them. The first one is the illusion that the Ukrainian state and society will succumb to the unbearable weight of war hardships and will crack from within, thereby surrendering to the Russian will and accepting all the Kremlin’s demands. As we already know, this proved to be a very unlikely turn of events long ago, but there are still people in Russia, even among the ruling elites, who still consider it achievable.

The second scenario relies on simple brute force: Moscow will mobilize, let’s say, another half a million men and before long the Ukrainian defense will collapse under the pressure of numbers. Wars, however, don’t work like that. First and foremost, every battlefield has its own maximum capacity in terms of logistics, and the one in Ukraine has reached its capacity a long time ago. To put it simply, a car designed for four passengers can’t accommodate nine persons. Second, back in the autumn of 2022 Putin already tried that (the so-called partial mobilization) and it failed miserably because about five times more men than those who were conscripted managed to flee abroad. The fate of the conscripts themselves was grim – many of them are either dead or crippled.

The third scenario is the most realistic one – to try to “liberate” Donbas completely (within the administrative borders of 1991) and then freeze the conflict along the existing frontline, thus declaring ultimate victory. This will require the full employment of all available propaganda and media assets under the Kremlin’s control to convince the people in Russia and all over the world that the actual goal of the war was by no means the conquest and fragmentation of Ukraine, but the “liberation” of Donbas and its Russian ethnic element from the “horrors” of “Kiev’s Nazi regime”. Believe it or not, but there are already some signs that Putin and his team are working on that scenario.       

Military expert

Kamen Nevenkin

#ANALYSIS

#RUSSIA

#UKRAINE

12.05.2026 06:41