ANALYSIS: Kostyantynivka on the verge of falling — eight months of siege, a city in agony

A city of 67,000 swallowed by war

Since autumn 2025, Kostyantynivka — a former industrial city of 67,000 inhabitants in Donetsk oblast — has been resisting Russia's stranglehold. Eight months. Eight months during which Ukrainian soldiers held untenable positions, supplied almost exclusively by cargo drones and ground robots, after Russian forces turned the main road from the northwest into a kill zone.

Today, according to analyst and cartographer Clément Molin, "we are approaching the end of the battle for the city, whose fall could stretch into mid-summer." That cold formulation sums up a brutal reality: Kostyantynivka is on the verge of falling. Not in a sudden collapse, but through a slow digestion — neighborhood by neighborhood, building by building.

A methodical siege that has exhausted the defenders

The Russian method is now well known: systematic air bombardment to cut off supply lines, then infiltration by small foot-borne groups to bypass Ukrainian anti-drone defenses. This light infantry tactic allowed Russian forces to establish themselves in the Chervone district, in the south of the city, creating a bridgehead from which groups gradually spread toward the center.

The current geography of the conflict at Kostyantynivka resembles a palette of grays: the north is still Ukrainian, the south is firmly Russian, and the center is a chaotic gray zone where both sides contest every building. Most civilians have already fled — the city is largely emptied of its inhabitants.

Eight months of resistance under conditions that were genuinely inhumane deserve more than a few lines in a front-line summary. The men and women who fought in the rubble of Kostyantynivka held on as long as it took to slow the Russian machine. Let their sacrifice at least serve to fortify the next line of defense.

The Chervone district — the tipping point

It was in the Chervone district, in the south of Kostyantynivka, that the battle shifted during the summer of 2026. Russian forces consolidated a presence there that Ukrainian counterattacks failed to dislodge. From that base, according to the cartography group AMK Mapping, "small groups of Russian infiltrators can accumulate and spread outward, deeper into the city."

That centrifugal movement explains why Ukrainians began withdrawing in early June 2026 to avoid encirclement. Remaining in the central zone meant risking units being cut off from any evacuation route. The decision, however painful, is tactically rational: preserve the fighters for the next line of resistance.

Sixteen kilometers separating catastrophe from Kramatorsk

Kramatorsk and Sloviansk — the two last major free cities in Donetsk oblast — are only 16 kilometers north of Kostyantynivka as the crow flies. The city's fall removes a critical defensive lock that had complicated Russia's advance toward those strategic objectives for months.

Those 16 kilometers are now the next battlefield. Some Ukrainian commanders, according to journalist David Axe writing for Euromaidan Press, actually prefer to fight in open terrain rather than in urban rubble: open fields are more favorable to a drone-centered defense, where Russians have nowhere to hide.

The preference some commanders have for open terrain struck me when I read it. It's counterintuitive: cities are supposed to be natural fortresses. But in this drone war, rubble can trap the defenders just as much as the attackers. The Ukrainian doctrinal adaptation is remarkable — and it comes at a heavy price.

Bypassing aerial defense on foot

Russian forces drew a bitter lesson from earlier battles in the Donbas: large assault formations are visible, targetable, and destroyed. Since the summer of 2026, they have been deploying small infiltration groups, moving on foot to reduce their electronic and thermal signature. These light teams seek to avoid zones covered by Ukrainian drones, slipping through blind spots.

That tactic carries a considerable human cost for the Russians — casualties among light infantry in a mined and monitored urban environment are high. But the Russian war machine has a manpower reserve that analysts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) describe as a lasting advantage for Moscow, provided the advances, however modest, continue.

Drone resupply: a feat with limits

Facing the road blockade, Ukrainian forces at Kostyantynivka developed an unprecedented aerial logistics system: troop rotations and resupply ran almost exclusively via transport drones and ground robots. An operational achievement that testifies to Ukrainian ingenuity in the face of adversity.

But that solution has its limits. Soldiers rotating into their positions still had to contend with Russian air bombs, mines and artillery to reach their posts. No drone can replace a secured road. The constant pressure on rotations eventually exhausted garrisons already pushed to the edge.

Drone resupply is a victory of Ukrainian innovation — but it is also a crutch. An army that can only supply its troops by air along a front line is not an army about to counterattack. It is an army that is holding on. You need to know when symbolic resistance must give way to strategic maneuver.

From 13.2 km² per day in 2025 to 2.9 km² in 2026

Data published by Euromaidan Press and analyses from the ISW paint a nuanced picture of Russian progress. In 2025, Russian forces advanced at an average pace of 13.2 square kilometers per day. Over the first four months of 2026, that pace collapsed to 2.9 square kilometers per day — a reduction of more than 78%.

That spectacular deceleration is directly linked to the rise of Ukraine's drone war. In March 2026 alone, Ukraine launched 7,500 one-way attack drones against Russian targets and in occupied territories. Russia, by comparison, launched 6,500 — a gap that illustrates the trend reversal underway.

The ISW sees a transformation in the character of the war

The Institute for the Study of War published a striking assessment: "the character of the war is evolving in Ukraine's favor, at least for now." That cautious phrasing acknowledges both a real shift and its potentially fragile nature. The capture of Kostyantynivka does not reverse that analysis, but it illustrates that Russia can still accumulate local gains despite the overall slowdown.

Putin's theory of victory, again according to the ISW, rests on the idea that steady, incremental advances will be enough to break Ukrainian resistance. If Ukraine could fully stop those advances, it would invalidate the very logic guiding the Kremlin. Kostyantynivka is precisely a demonstration of that dynamic: a slow but real Russian advance that does not yet validate final victory, but that feeds the narrative of organized pressure.

When the ISW says the war is evolving "in Ukraine's favor," you need to read between the lines: it is a conditional, fragile statement, valid "for now." In this conflict, every Ukrainian gain must be defended inch by inch. Slowing the Russians is not enough — they have to be stopped.

Clément Molin: "The first strategic victory of the year"

Analyst Clément Molin does not mince words: the fall of Kostyantynivka, which he describes as imminent, constitutes "Russia's first strategic victory of the year." In 2026, despite constant pressure all along the front, Russia had until now not registered a territorial gain of symbolic and operational significance.

This victory comes at a moment when the Kremlin needs a domestic argument to justify the colossal human cost of its "special military operation." With Kostyantynivka, Putin can show his generals and his domestic audience that the sacrifices are bearing fruit — even if the overall advance remains negligible relative to the losses sustained.

A missed opportunity to stop the Russians

The long battle of Kostyantynivka also represented an opportunity for Ukraine. For eight months, Ukrainian defenders pinned down significant Russian groupings, wearing down their equipment and infantry in a war of attrition. But according to analysts, this battle that could have "stopped the Russians cold" ultimately did not — and that opportunity is now gone.

The next opportunity lies in the 16 kilometers separating the city from the approaches to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. If Ukrainian forces manage to organize a solid defense in that intermediate space — notably by exploiting open terrain for their drones — the dynamic could slow again, or even reverse.

Kostyantynivka is falling, but wars are not won on a single city. They are won over time, through the ability to turn every setback into a lesson. Ukraine has learned to fight with fewer resources against a more numerous army — and it is that constant adaptation that may ultimately decide the outcome.

A military doctrine in transformation

One of the most surprising aspects revealed by David Axe's reporting for Euromaidan Press is the preference some Ukrainian commanders have for combat in open terrain rather than in urban environments. That position, counterintuitive in classical military doctrine, reflects the Ukrainian army's adaptation to the reality of a drone war.

In an open field, Ukrainian drones enjoy maximum visibility — enemy forces have nowhere to hide. In urban environments, rubble, basements and partially collapsed structures create as many shelters for Russian infiltrators as for defenders. The ruined city loses its value as a natural fortress in favor of open terrain monitored from the air.

The toll of urban defense on soldiers

Urban battles in the Donbas — Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and now Kostyantynivka — have shown that defending destroyed cities exhausts Ukrainian forces considerably without always delivering the expected tactical advantage. Rotating soldiers at Kostyantynivka had to cross zones exposed to air strikes, mines and artillery even during simple position reliefs.

That reality is pushing some commanders to reconsider the doctrine of defending built-up areas, prioritizing maneuver and exploitation of drone capabilities. But that doctrinal shift, however rational, involves letting cities fall — a politically and symbolically heavy choice for a country fighting for its existence.

The tension between the imperative to defend every city and the tactical rationality that sometimes dictates letting them fall is one of the most painful decisions of this war. Who can blame a commander for wanting to save his troops rather than a city already reduced to ash? And yet, every abandoned city is a collective bereavement for Ukraine.

The last major free cities of Donetsk

Kramatorsk and Sloviansk are more than names on a map. They are the two last major urban centers of Donetsk oblast remaining under Ukrainian control, with their still-functioning hospitals, their civilian administrations, their supply networks. Their fall would represent a strategic defeat of a scale unseen since the capture of Mariupol in 2022.

Russia's march toward those cities is now less obstructed. The capture of Kostyantynivka opens a potential corridor, even if Ukrainian forces will prepare for it with the tenacity that has defined them throughout this conflict. The 16 kilometers between the fallen city and those two bastions are now a zone of imminent confrontation.

Ukrainian resistance does not disappear: it repositions

The withdrawal from Kostyantynivka does not mean the disintegration of Ukrainian forces. As the previous withdrawals from Bakhmut and Avdiivka have shown, the Ukrainian army is capable of absorbing local defeats and reorganizing on new defensive lines. Soldiers evacuated from Kostyantynivka will join positions further north, bringing with them eight months of experience in intense urban combat.

Analysts note that resistance in the rubble at least managed to significantly degrade the Russian capabilities committed to that axis. Russian human and material losses during that prolonged siege were substantial, even if precise figures remain difficult to establish independently.

Ukraine's ability to absorb blows and reposition is remarkable — and underestimated in Western analyses that focus too heavily on fixed front lines. The fact that Kostyantynivka is falling does not mean Ukrainian resistance is collapsing. It means it is shifting.

A numerical advantage that carries a staggering human cost

The ISW acknowledges that Russia has long held a significant numerical advantage in personnel. But that advantage translates into massive human losses. Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukrainian and Western estimates place Russian casualties at more than 1.4 million soldiers killed and wounded — a colossal figure that far exceeds the losses of all recent wars involving professional armies.

Every square kilometer gained by Russia in the Donbas is paid for at an astronomical human price. And contrary to what Kremlin propaganda suggests, those losses are beginning to have effects on Russian operational capabilities — the quality of engaged units has degraded, with a growing dependence on poorly trained recruits and opportunistic contract fighters.

Putin's theory of victory facing battlefield reality

Putin's strategy rests on a simple bet: that Russia can absorb human and economic losses longer than Ukraine and its Western allies. This attrition logic assumes that time works for Moscow. But the spectacular slowdown in Russia's advance rate in 2026 — from 13.2 to 2.9 km² per day — suggests that this strategy is reaching its limits.

If Ukraine manages to stabilize the front in the coming weeks, to consolidate solid defensive lines between Kostyantynivka and Kramatorsk, the fall of an exhausted city could ultimately prove to be less a Russian strategic victory than a step in a war of attrition that Russia is losing in the long run.

Putin's attrition theory is not irrational — it has worked in certain historical contexts. But he systematically underestimates two things: Ukrainian resilience and the West's capacity to support this country over the long term. Those are precisely the two variables that could invalidate his calculation.

Three active fronts draining Ukrainian reserves

The pressure on Kostyantynivka is not playing out in isolation. Simultaneously, the Pokrovsk and Huliaipole sectors are recording intense activity. According to the Ukrainian General Staff, June 27, 2026 saw 241 engagements in 24 hours across the entire front: Huliaipole with 29 attacks, Pokrovsk with 24 and Kostyantynivka with 21.

This simultaneous pressure on multiple axes is a deliberate feature of Russian strategy: force Ukrainian commanders to disperse their reserves, to be unable to concentrate forces anywhere, and to maintain exhausted lines across hundreds of kilometers of front.

The role of reinforcements and rotations in defensive sustainability

Ukraine's ability to sustain this multifront war depends directly on its mobilization and troop rotation system. The new mobilization waves of 2025 and 2026 have brought new soldiers, but quality and motivation vary. The most battle-hardened units — those who survived the battles of Bakhmut and Avdiivka — are invaluable but exhausted.

Western partners — notably through training programs in Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom — have made it possible to train tens of thousands of additional soldiers. But those programs cannot alone compensate for the pace of losses in a conflict of this intensity.

When I read the statistics of 241 engagements in a single day across the entire front, I try to imagine what that means in human terms. Hundreds of clashes, thousands of soldiers, decisions made in seconds. This war is a machine that grinds men down at a scale our Western societies struggle to conceive.

A military-industrial complex under pressure but not broken

Despite years of Western sanctions — and a 21st package under negotiation in Brussels — the Russian military-industrial complex continues to function. Tank, missile and ammunition factories are operating, often thanks to electronic components imported through third countries like Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and China.

This economic resilience is frustrating for Ukrainian strategists and their allies. It partly explains why Ukraine decided to strike Russian factories directly — such as the Titan-Barrikady plant in Volgograd or the VZPP-S semiconductor plant in Voronezh — rather than relying solely on sanctions to degrade Russian military production.

The ghost fleet and economic circumvention

The Russian petroleum ghost fleet — dozens of tankers operating under flags of convenience to bypass the oil price cap — continues to finance the war. The new EU sanctions, notably the 21st package, aim to tighten the vise on these operations, but Russian oil revenues remain a substantial source of financing for the war effort.

As long as Russia can sell its oil to China, India and other emerging markets, sanctions alone cannot strangle the Russian war economy. That is precisely why Ukraine's campaign of strikes on Russian refineries and fuel depots is taking on growing strategic importance.

Sanctions are a necessary but insufficient tool. They create friction, raise costs, force expensive workarounds. But they do not replace direct military pressure. Ukraine understood that before its allies did — which is why it strikes factories, not just troops at the front.

The NATO Ankara summit: €70 billion at stake

While Kostyantynivka is in agony, the international community is preparing for the NATO Ankara summit on July 7 and 8, 2026. Secretary General Mark Rutte announced defense contracts worth several tens of billions of dollars. The draft final declaration calls for a commitment of €70 billion in annual military aid to Ukraine, with an equivalent amount pledged for the following year.

Those figures are impressive on paper. But the question remains: will those commitments translate into equipment delivered quickly enough to change the situation on the ground at Kostyantynivka and beyond? NATO pledges have an unfortunate tendency to take time between signing and actual delivery.

Trump and the American reversal

President Donald Trump recently called Zelensky "courageous" and declared that Ukraine is "doing pretty well." That shift in tone marks a break from the White House occupant's previous statements, in which he had said Zelensky lacked the "cards" to win. Russia, according to diplomatic sources, is monitoring this reversal with concern.

At the G7 in France, Trump also told Zelensky he would examine the possibility of granting production licenses for Patriot missiles. If that opening materialized, it would represent a major turning point in Ukraine's ability to defend its own sky.

Trump as a reliable ally of Ukraine — who would have believed that eighteen months ago? This is not magnanimity; it is pragmatism. Ukrainian drones interest the United States, battlefield results impress Trump, and Moscow finds itself in a more uncomfortable position than expected. Geopolitics is never simple.

7,500 Ukrainian drones versus 6,500 Russian in March 2026

In March 2026, for the first time since the start of the full-scale conflict, Ukraine launched more drones than Russia: 7,500 one-way systems against 6,500 on the Russian side. That reversal is not accidental — it reflects the intensification of Ukrainian industrial production in the unmanned systems sector.

Companies like Fire Point, whose FP-1 and FP-2 drones now carry out approximately 60% of Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory, have transformed Ukraine's defense industrial landscape. This build-up makes Ukrainian defense less dependent on Western deliveries for certain categories of weaponry.

Technological resilience in the face of logistical blockade

Ukraine's ability to maintain drone pressure on Russia despite supply lines under strain illustrates remarkable technological resilience. But that strength also has blind spots: drones remain vulnerable to Russian electronic warfare systems, which have improved throughout the conflict.

The race for countermeasures is constant. Every new Ukrainian tactic meets a Russian response, and vice versa. It is this dynamic of mutual adaptation that makes this war one of the most important laboratories in modern military history — a terrible laboratory, whose lessons will be studied for decades.

The drone war changed something fundamental: it put within reach of a militarily inferior power the ability to strike deep behind enemy lines. This is a military revolution in progress — and Ukraine is its most advanced laboratory. What we are witnessing here is redefining military doctrine for the 21st century.

A city emptied of its inhabitants before the final fall

Kostyantynivka is "largely devoid of civilians," as the Euromaidan Press reporting notes. Forced and voluntary evacuations followed one after another for months under bombardment. That reality, while it reduces the number of civilian casualties during the final urban combat, must not obscure the trauma of the displaced.

Those families — the 67,000 pre-war inhabitants — have lost their homes, their landmarks, sometimes their loved ones. Some found refuge in other Ukrainian cities still under free control. Others crossed the border into Europe. All carry the weight of an exile forced upon them by an aggression that was not their concern, that did not target a military regime but ordinary people.

The UN and civilian casualty figures: May 2026, deadliest month since 2022

The UN confirmed that at least 274 civilians were killed and 1,763 wounded in Ukraine in May 2026 — the heaviest monthly toll since April 2022. In total, since the start of the invasion, the international body has counted 16,126 confirmed civilian deaths, including 796 children, and 46,590 civilian wounded. Those figures are likely well below the actual numbers, according to the UN itself.

Those cold statistics carry faces, names, stories. Each number is a shattered life — a child who will not grow up, a parent who will no longer wait for their son's return. The industrial war that Russia is waging against Ukraine does not distinguish uniforms from kitchen aprons.

I cannot read the figure of 274 civilians killed in a single month without a deep sense of revulsion. 274 people who were not at war, who were trying to survive in a country that has temporarily stopped belonging to them. Every Russian bomb dropped on a civilian city is a crime — and that crime must be named as such.

The 16 kilometers as a test of the will to defend

The next phase of the battle along this Donbas axis will be fought in the 16 kilometers separating the fallen city from the approaches to Kramatorsk. The quality of the fortifications Ukraine will have managed to build in that space — trenches, minefields, deep defensive positions — will determine whether Russia can turn a local victory into an operational breakthrough.

The lessons of the defense of Zaporizhzhia and the stabilization of the southern front show that Ukraine is capable of building solid defensive lines when it has time. The question is whether that time exists — and whether the necessary reinforcements can be deployed quickly enough.

Western aid and the race against the clock

The €70 billion promised at the Ankara summit, the PAC-3 missiles being prepared in Germany, the discussions on Patriot licenses — all of this converges on the same stakes: Ukraine needs the aid to arrive now, not in eighteen months. Battles are won or lost on a timeline that European bureaucracies have too often struggled to meet.

The Ankara summit will be a test of seriousness for NATO. If the commitments quickly translate into actual deliveries, if member states accelerate their defense production, if manufacturing licenses allow Ukraine to produce on its own soil the systems it needs — then the fall of Kostyantynivka could remain a local defeat in a war that Ukraine is winning in the long run.

The West has a structural problem: its promises precede its deliveries by months, sometimes years. On a front where a single day can decide the fate of a neighborhood, that bureaucratic sluggishness is a luxury Ukraine cannot afford. Kyiv's allies need to learn to work at the speed of war.

Kostyantynivka is lost — the war is not

The fall of Kostyantynivka is painful. It represents the loss of an entire city, its displaced inhabitants, eight months of defensive efforts. It hands Putin a symbolic victory that he needs to feed his domestic narrative. It brings Russian forces closer to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the last free strongholds of the Donbas.

But this defeat unfolds in a context where Russia's advance rate has been reduced by 78% compared to the previous year. Where Ukraine launches more drones than its aggressor. Where Russian missile factories are burning in Volgograd and refineries are going dark in Ufa. The war is long, cruel, costly — but it is not lost.

Kostyantynivka is falling, but Ukraine has not fallen. As long as Kyiv remains free, as long as Zelensky leads a sovereign state, as long as Ukrainians choose to fight, this war is not over. Resistance is not a posture — it is a conviction that has already survived the unthinkable.

The next test: holding the 16 kilometers

The urgent task now is to transform the withdrawal into a viable defensive position. The 16 kilometers between Kostyantynivka and the approaches to Kramatorsk are the immediate stakes. The Ukrainian commanders — those who prefer open ground, those who learned their trade in the rubble of successive cities — will now have to demonstrate that the drone war doctrine can stop the Russian machine in open terrain.

The international community, for its part, must turn its promises into metal. The €70 billion from the Ankara summit, the 35 PAC-3 missiles en route from Germany, the Patriot licenses under review by Trump — all of this must arrive quickly. Ukraine does not have the luxury of the long timelines that Western democracies too often grant themselves.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

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