The Russian strikes on Ukraine are a reminder of its ability to launch major attacks and cause severe damage, but Moscow’s wider military campaign has largely stalled in recent months, analysts say.
Russia took control of roughly 32 square miles of territory in June but it probably lost more than that in other parts of Ukraine, DeepState, a Ukrainian organization with ties to the country’s military that uses open-source intelligence to track battlefield movements, said in a statement.
Where Russia has made gains in the eastern region of Donetsk, it is doing so at one of the slowest rates in any war over the last century, according to a report published on Wednesday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based research group. Russian forces are advancing at an average of 164 feet per day around the city of Kostiantynivka, 230 feet per day near Pokrovsk and 295 feet per day around Sloviansk, the report found.
The Russian military is also suffering far higher casualties than the Ukrainian forces, rising to a rate of nearly eight to one in the first six months of 2026, compared to between two to one and three to one for much of the war, C.S.I.S. said.
Still, even small advances allow Russian forces to extend the reach of their drones, artillery and glide bombs, and they are steadily laying waste to the cities that remain under Ukrainian control in the Donbas. Some of the most brutal fighting is taking place in Kostiantynivka, where Russian forces are steadily pushing deeper into the city.
Strikes deep in Russian territory and a systemic campaign of targeting a garrison supporting Russian forces in the Crimean peninsula is causing fuel shortages, complicating troop rotations and reducing Russian military activity there.
