# TESTIMONY: Kostyantynivka — What the Front Says When Moscow Claims Victory

> On June 23, 2026, Vladimir Putin declared before his generals that Russian forces were «practically within range» of Kostyantynivka, an industrial city in the Donetsk region. The statement made the rounds of global news agencies. It was designed to. In Russia's cognitive warfare

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Reportage
- Published: 2026-06-27
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/kostyantynivka-ce-que-le-front-dit-quand-moscou-pretend-avoir-gagne

## Introduction: A City Russian Propaganda Has Already Buried — and That Still Holds

### June 23, 2026: Putin Speaks, the ISW Responds

On **June 23, 2026**, **Vladimir Putin** declared before his generals that Russian forces were «**practically within range**» of **Kostyantynivka**, an industrial city in the Donetsk region. The statement made the rounds of global news agencies. It was designed to. In Russia's cognitive warfare arsenal, a Putin declaration of imminent victory always precedes the attempt to achieve it — or, more often, to simulate it.

That same day, the **Institute for the Study of War (ISW)** — which geolocates and verifies every territorial claim since the beginning of the war — published its offensive campaign assessment. The verdict was unambiguous: Russian gains at **Kostyantynivka** were limited to «**small group infiltrations**», with no consolidated territorial control. Both realities — Putin's and the ISW's — coexist in the media landscape. Only one is backed by geolocated imagery.

### What Ground-Level Data Reveals About the Real War

This gap between Russian propaganda and operational reality is nothing new. What is new is the growing sophistication of the tools deployed to sustain it. **Artificial intelligence-generated videos** showing Russian soldiers raising their flag in Kostyantynivka buildings circulated on Telegram with hundreds of thousands of views before being identified as **digital fabrications**. Cognitive warfare is no longer a supplement to physical war — it has become a **central component**, sometimes as consequential as artillery shells.

This testimony makes no claim to be that of a war correspondent present in Kostyantynivka. It is grounded in the **verified operational data** of the ISW, in the public statements of Ukrainian commanders, and in the analyses of international media outlets that have tracked this front for several weeks. What these sources say together deserves to be heard.

*There is something deeply cowardly about a war where the media victory systematically precedes the military victory — and where the two sometimes have nothing to do with each other. Kostyantynivka is the most recent example.*

## Kostyantynivka: A City of Symbolic and Strategic Value

### The Geography of What Is at Stake

**Kostyantynivka** sits in the **Donetsk region**, roughly **30 kilometers northeast of Avdiivka** — the city that fell to Russian forces in **February 2024** after months of devastating assault. The capture of Avdiivka gave Russia a **bridgehead** from which to attempt a westward push. Yet two years on, territorial advances have been slow, costly, and typically measured in **hundreds of meters per week**.

Kostyantynivka still holds part of its pre-war civilian population, though sustained bombardment has reduced it to a fraction of 2021 levels. Strategically, the city controls **key logistics corridors** in the central Donetsk region. Were Russian forces to take it, they could threaten **Kramatorsk and Sloviansk** — the two major urban centers Moscow has been trying to reach since the intensive occupation phase began in 2022.

### Why Russia Needs It as Much for Media as for Military Purposes

For **Putin**, a breakthrough at Kostyantynivka would carry value that goes well beyond the military terrain. After months of modest results in the east, a visible victory in a city whose name resonates in international **news bulletins** would allow him to **relaunch the narrative of Russia's inexorable advance** — a narrative that ground-level data has contradicted for months. That is why the June 23 declaration was as much an internal communications tool as a military description.

Russian forces are not «**practically at Kostyantynivka**» in any meaningful military sense. According to the ISW, they must cross **20 to 30 kilometers of terrain under Ukrainian fire** to reach the city's outskirts. These are not abstract kilometers — they are 20 to 30 kilometers of Ukrainian FPV drones, artillery fire, minefields, and an active defense that the **19th Army Corps** maintains with documented precision.

*Putin has a military habit that has never gone away: announcing victory before achieving it. That reflex may have worked in the opening hours of February 24, 2022. It no longer surprises anyone today.*

## Commander Madyar: Numbers That Speak Louder Than Flags

### 53 Against 3 — The Asymmetry of Losses

Ukrainian **Brigadier General Yuriy Madyar**, deputy commander of the **19th Army Corps**, released a public statement on **June 25, 2026** about operations around Kostyantynivka. His figures are blunt and precise: Russian losses in the sector run at approximately **53 soldiers per day**. Ukrainian losses run at approximately **3 soldiers per day**. This ratio — which would be extraordinary in any conventional military context — is the result of an active defense doctrine that prioritizes **stand-off strikes** over direct engagement.

Madyar also confirmed that Ukrainian forces had **cleared areas to the south** of the city, where Russian elements had managed to infiltrate. He used the word «**minimum**» to describe the number of Russian soldiers who had reached those positions — validating the ISW's assessment that enemy advances were fragmented and unconsolidated.

### The Drone Factor: Infantry That Moves Under the Sky's Watch

One reason for this asymmetry is the **density of Ukrainian drone coverage** in the sector. Russian forces attempting to advance toward Kostyantynivka must cross zones that Ukrainian FPV drone operators monitor continuously. Geolocated data published by the ISW includes **strike footage of Russian infantry groups** in open terrain several kilometers from the line of contact.

The practical, documented consequence: Russian troops can only advance at **night, in small groups**, avoiding known routes. Their resupply depends on **drone drops** — ammunition, food, medicine — because supply vehicles are priority targets. This operational model is slow, costly in lives, and fundamentally incompatible with a large-scale advance.

*When an army has to feed its soldiers by drone because its trucks keep exploding, that is not an army winning. That is an army surviving on terrain it claims to control.*

## 135 Drones in the Night — and 118 Shot Down

### The Night of June 24–25: Numbers and Their Meaning

During the night of **June 24–25, 2026**, Russian forces launched **135 Shahed drones** against Ukrainian territory — one of the largest salvos in recent weeks. Ukrainian air defenses shot down **118** of them, for an **interception rate of 87%**. The remaining 17 drones reached various targets, causing damage to civilian infrastructure across multiple regions.

These figures capture two simultaneous realities. First: **Ukraine has built one of the most effective anti-drone defense systems in the world**, combining ground-to-air systems of multiple generations, night interceptors, and electronic jamming. Second: even with an 87% failure rate, saturation by sheer volume remains a Russian doctrine capable of inflicting real damage.

### The Economics of Terror: What Each Drone Costs and Returns

An **Iranian-made Shahed drone** costs approximately **$50,000 to $75,000** according to defense analysts' estimates. The missile system that intercepts it costs several times that amount. The **war of economic attrition** Russia is waging forces Ukraine to spend more defending itself than Russia spends attacking. This is an equation the West must look squarely in the face: supporting Ukraine also means accepting responsibility for closing that cost gap.

But there is another dimension that raw numbers obscure. Every night of intense bombardment is also a **night of civilian terror**. The **17 drones that get through** are not simply statistical losses in an interception rate. They are damaged hospitals, destroyed grain stores, families with no home left. Russian doctrine bets precisely on this dimension — **breaking civilian morale** as surely as it breaks infrastructure.

*87% interceptions. An impressive figure. But the 13% that get through are not abstractions. They have addresses. First names. Families. It is worth remembering that every time someone cites military statistics.*

## The Cognitive War: AI in the Service of Tactical Disinformation

### Videos Too Perfect to Be True

On **June 25, 2026**, the ISW documented the spread across pro-Russian Telegram channels of multiple videos purportedly showing Russian soldiers planting flags in identifiable buildings in Kostyantynivka. These videos displayed visual characteristics consistent with **artificial intelligence generation**: unnatural lighting, subtle uniform distortions, unnaturally fluid crowd movements. Reverse image analyses showed that the buildings depicted did not match actual structures at the indicated addresses.

The distribution of these fabricated visuals is not inconsequential. It simultaneously targets multiple audiences: **Russian public opinion**, which needs proof of victory; **Ukrainian supporters**, whom it aims to demoralize; and Western media outlets, some of which occasionally republish such images without adequate verification, inadvertently amplifying adversarial propaganda.

### Ukraine Facing the Narrative War

The Ukrainian military and its partners have developed **rapid-verification** counter-capabilities: fact-checking units embedded within command structures, **OSINT** (**open-source intelligence**) networks, partnerships with organizations like **Bellingcat** and **Mnemonic**. But the race between disinformation and verification plays out in real time, and social media always amplifies faster than it corrects.

The ISW itself has documented cases where its corrections of Russian disinformation reached only a **fraction** of the audience that had seen the original content. This is a **structural asymmetry** of the digital media ecosystem: the spectacular lie travels faster and farther than the precise truth. In wartime, that asymmetry has real military consequences — it can shape public support, funding decisions, and allied cohesion.

*Disinformation is not a communications problem. It is a weapon of war. And like any weapon, it demands a serious military response — not just press releases.*

## Trump, Levin, and Ukraine's «**Battlefield Advantage**»

### When Washington Acknowledges What Moscow Denies

On **June 24 and 25, 2026**, two senior American officials made public statements that directly contradict the Russian narrative. Donald **Trump** said at a briefing that Ukraine held a «**battlefield advantage**». **Deputy Secretary of State Levin** used similar language, adding that Russian losses remained «**unsustainable long-term**».

These statements carry weight beyond mere rhetoric. They come from an **administration not historically inclined** to flatter Ukraine without reason. If Trump — who has sometimes appeared closer to the Russian position in informal comments — acknowledges a Ukrainian advantage on the ground, it is because he is drawing on **concrete military intelligence** that his generals are presenting to him, and that intelligence confirms the ISW's own assessment.

### What It Changes — and What It Does Not

Acknowledging Ukrainian advantage does not automatically translate into increased support. American military aid to Ukraine remains **subject to budgetary pressures and the domestic political trade-offs** Trump must navigate with a divided Congress. Recognizing a battlefield advantage is an observation; deciding to reinforce it through weapons deliveries is a political choice.

But symbolically, it matters. One of Russia's most-repeated propaganda lines holds that Ukraine is **on the brink of military collapse** and that continuing to support it is «**wasteful**». When the President of the United States says the opposite explicitly, that line loses credibility in the Western capitals where support is sometimes hard-won.

*Trump acknowledging a Ukrainian battlefield advantage — that is one of the sentences no one expected to hear in 2026. It is not enough. But it counts.*

## The ISW and Russian Losses: What the Global Numbers Mean

### 57 Square Miles Net Lost in Four Weeks

Over the **four weeks preceding June 15, 2026**, the ISW documented that Russia had **net lost 57 square miles of territory** across multiple sectors of eastern Ukraine. That figure accounts for Russian advances in some areas and successful Ukrainian counter-attacks or withdrawals in others. The net balance is negative for Moscow.

This is not a Ukrainian triumph. It is not a Russian inexorable advance either. It is a **war of attrition in its purest form**: two armies bleeding, meter by meter, in a context where victory is measured not in sweeping breakthroughs but in organizational survival. In that kind of war, Ukraine — backed by Western arms and intelligence — is holding. That is not nothing.

### Less Than 100 Meters a Day — the Real Pace of Advance

Russian advances in the most active sectors of Donetsk were measuring, in mid-June 2026, at **less than 100 meters per day**. At that rate, reaching Kostyantynivka from current forward positions would take **several months of sustained combat**, under the best possible conditions for Russia. And conditions are never ideal: Ukrainian counter-attacks, logistics neutralization operations behind the lines, and strikes on ammunition depots regularly slow any forward movement.

On **June 25, 2026**, the ISW recorded **251 separate engagements** along the entire front line — the highest operational tempo in several weeks. This figure captures the relentless intensity of operations. Russia pushes. Ukraine holds. And the world watches maps where lines move so slowly that media outlets struggle to render them visible.

*Less than 100 meters a day to take a city 30 kilometers away. I will leave you to calculate what that costs in human lives for every kilometer of that ground. These numbers are not geography. They are grief.*

## FAB-1500s Over Druzhkivka: The Bomb That Flattens Hope

### The Glide Bomb as a Doctrine of Terror

While ground combat unfolded around Kostyantynivka, Russian warplanes intensified strikes with **FAB-1500 and FAB-250 glide bombs** against the **Druzhkivka** area, roughly 20 kilometers to the north. These munitions — conventional bombs fitted with guidance fins — are released from **Su-34** aircraft that remain outside the range of medium-altitude air defense systems.

The FAB-1500 weighs **1,500 kilograms**. Its impact creates a crater dozens of meters wide and destroys every structure within a considerable radius. It is used against military fortifications but also, documentarily, against residential areas. Its deployment against Druzhkivka illustrates Russia's doctrine of **systematic destruction**: rendering uninhabitable any zone that cannot be swiftly conquered.

### Why Ukraine Cannot Yet Neutralize Them

Ukraine's response to Russian glide bombs runs into a documented material constraint: **Patriot and SAMP/T systems** can intercept ballistic missiles and drones, but glide-path FABs fly a low trajectory that makes them difficult to engage. Ukraine needs **additional F-16 fighters** to neutralize Russian Su-34s before they release their payloads — but current numbers remain insufficient to cover the entire eastern front.

This is one of the most concrete arguments Ukrainian commanders bring to their requests to Western allies. Not weapons «to win», but weapons to **prevent aerial terror from becoming the systematic leveling of eastern Ukraine**. Druzhkivka today, Kostyantynivka tomorrow — if the FAB doctrine goes unanswered, every city becomes a target for preemptive destruction.

*A 1,500-kilogram bomb dropped on a residential building is a military decision. And it is also a crime. Hesitating to use the right word is not caution. It is silent complicity.*

## The Civilians: Those Who Remain Under the Bombs

### A Residual Population in a City Under Fire

In **Kostyantynivka**, the civilian population that has not yet evacuated consists mainly of elderly residents, families without the means to leave, and a small number of inhabitants who refuse to abandon their homes even under bombardment. **Humanitarian organizations** operating in the region report growing difficulties gaining access to deliver food, medicine, and clean water.

Ukrainian authorities have organized several rounds of **voluntary evacuations**. But the military presence in the city and daily bombardments make these operations logistically complex and **psychologically exhausting**. Every humanitarian convoy entering Kostyantynivka risks a strike — documented in several incidents over the past months.

### International Humanitarian Law Put to the Test of Facts

Repeated strikes against documented civilian areas in the Kostyantynivka region are feeding the case files that organizations like **Human Rights Watch** and the **ICC Prosecutor's Office** continue to compile. Several international arrest warrants have already been issued against Russian military commanders. But at this stage, international justice remains largely powerless in the short term — and near-term impunity continues to fuel Russian military doctrine.

That is no reason to stop documenting. On the contrary, it is the primary reason why the work of the ISW, of journalists present in the field, and of verification organizations is indispensable. **The memory built today is the justice made possible tomorrow.** Even when tomorrow feels very far away.

*The civilians who remain under the bombs are not statistics of resilience. They are people who could not leave, or who chose not to because leaving meant abandoning everything they built. That choice deserves our respect, not our indifference.*

## Ukrainian Resistance: Doctrine, Morale, and Exhaustion

### Four Years of Attrition War — What It Does to an Army

The **Ukrainian army in 2026** is not the army of February 2022. It is **more experienced**, better equipped along certain axes, and deeply shaped by more than four years of intense combat. Human losses have been heavy. Front-line rotations are shorter out of necessity. Soldiers describe a weariness that goes beyond the physical — a **moral fatigue** that no support program can fully compensate.

And yet, ISW figures show an army that holds. That counter-attacks. That **innovates tactically** — notably in its use of reconnaissance drones and integrated guidance systems. The **Ukrainian «active defense» doctrine**, which relies on mobility and stand-off strikes rather than static defense, has demonstrated its effectiveness in the Donetsk theater over the past months.

### Morale Under Pressure and Its Unsuspected Resources

What sustains Ukrainian morale in such a difficult context is not easy to quantify. There is the **awareness of what is at stake** — a military defeat would mean for millions of Ukrainians the loss of their country, their language, their identity. There is international solidarity, which translates into arms and money even when imperfect. And there is something harder to measure: the **cold fury** of a people who know exactly what they are defending because they have seen what losing looks like in the occupied territories.

**Zelensky** remains the symbol of this resistance — not because he is infallible, but because he **did not leave when everyone offered him a way out**. That choice, renewed daily through his presence in Kyiv, carries symbolic and military weight that analysts struggle to quantify but that soldiers on the front recognize immediately.

*The morale of an army is not measured only by its victories. It is measured by its capacity to hold when no immediate victory is in sight. By that measure, the Ukrainian army holds. And that is already a form of victory that history will have to acknowledge.*

## The ISW as a Living Archive: Method and Limits

### What the ISW Does — and How

The **Institute for the Study of War**, based in Washington, has published a daily assessment of the offensive campaign since the beginning of the Russian invasion. Its method rests on the **systematic geolocation** of videos and images published by both sides, cross-referenced against commercial satellite data and official statements compared to ground realities. It is one of the most-cited analytical sources by Western governments, journalists, and military institutions.

The ISW is not flawless. Its assessments sometimes lag events by 24 to 48 hours. Its Ukrainian sources are more accessible than its Russian ones. And its pro-Ukrainian defense orientation is documented — this does not imply a **systematic bias**, but it calls for careful reading. Despite these limitations, it remains the most rigorous publicly available verification instrument covering this conflict.

### What Field Journalists Add

Reporters present in **Kostyantynivka and its surroundings** — correspondents from CNN, The Guardian, Kyiv Independent, France 24 — provide what geolocated data cannot: **immediate human testimony**. Images of a building blown apart by a FAB-1500. The face of a 73-year-old woman who refuses to evacuate. The voice of a soldier three days from rotation. These elements are not peripheral anecdotes — they are the human translation of the data the ISW processes as geographic coordinates.

The war for Kostyantynivka exists simultaneously in both registers. In the ISW's analytical dashboards, and in the eyes of a civilian scanning the sky every thirty seconds. Both are real. Both are necessary to understand what «**holding**» means in this war.

*Geolocated data proves what happened. Human testimony explains what it felt like. Together, they form something that resembles truth. Separately, they form half-truths — and half-truths are the raw material of propaganda.*

## Western Support: Essential, Insufficient, and Never Guaranteed

### What Ukraine Receives and What It Still Lacks

In June 2026, **Western military support** for Ukraine includes **air defense systems**, artillery ammunition, **armored vehicles**, an insufficient number of F-16s, and a **continuous flow of real-time intelligence**. This support has been critical to sustaining Ukrainian resistance. It nonetheless remains below what Ukrainian commanders estimate necessary to mount a **large-scale counter-offensive**.

The specific requests remain consistent: **more Patriot systems** to cover the eastern front, **more long-range munitions** to strike Russian logistics depots in depth, and **more F-16s** to counter Su-34 bombers. Each of these requests runs up against constraints of production capacity, national stockpiles, and political calculation in the capitals that supply them.

### Aid Fatigue — A Real Risk

**«Aid fatigue»** is a documented phenomenon in Western public opinion. After more than four years of war, the level of public attention and generosity is no longer what it was in the spring of 2022. Governments that continue to support Ukraine must make trade-offs against electorates with other priorities — inflation, housing, employment. This context creates constant pressure to **reduce or condition aid**.

That is precisely what Russia is waiting for. Its **prolonged war doctrine** rests on the **bet that the West will tire** before **the Russian army implodes**. ISW figures on Russian losses suggest this bet is far from won militarily. But diplomatically and politically, the window remains open. Kostyantynivka is not only a battle for the Donbas — it is a test of Western consistency.

*Aid fatigue is the greatest gift the West could hand to Putin. And it would be a free gift — because the Russian army, on the ground, is paying a price that very few Western media outlets are truly documenting.*

## 251 Engagements in a Single Day: The Front That Never Sleeps

### Twenty-Five Times More Than a Conflict Called «Frozen»

The figure of **251 separate engagements** recorded on **June 25, 2026** along the entire front line captures the true scale of this war. In most contemporary armed conflicts, a daily count of 10 to 20 incidents is already considered a high intensity level. At 251, this is total war, continuous and distributed across hundreds of kilometers of front.

These 251 engagements include **infantry assaults, artillery duels, drone engagements**, bridging attempts, and reconnaissance-in-force operations. Each one involves real-time decisions, potential casualties, and consequences that accumulate on the map like pixels in an ever-sharper image of mutual exhaustion.

### The Front Line as a Barometer of Political Will

What these 251 daily engagements ultimately convey is that this war is not about to end through a unilateral military decision. Neither Russia nor Ukraine is on the verge of achieving the total victory each defines in its official statements. What is being decided across these hundreds of daily engagements is the **definition of conditions for the eventual negotiation** — where the lines will stand when both sides, exhausted or constrained by external pressure, finally sit down together.

**Kostyantynivka** will not fall tomorrow. It may not fall in the coming months. But every day it holds, every drone shot down, every engagement in which Ukraine keeps its position, is one day that marginally shifts the balance of forces. In a war of attrition, margins count. That is the only arithmetic that matters.

*251 engagements in a single day. I wish every Western legislator who hesitates to vote a military aid budget had that figure in front of their eyes before raising or lowering their hand.*

## The War of Perceptions: When Data Contradicts the Narrative

### The Gap Between Russia's Official Narrative and Documented Reality

On **June 24, 2026**, as Russian screens looped Putin's declarations about the advance toward **Kostyantynivka**, the ISW's geolocated maps told a radically different story. Russian territorial gains in the sector amounted to a few **partially controlled city blocks**, with no consolidated front line, bearing no relation to an imminent city seizure. This gap between official pronouncements and mapped reality is not accidental — it is a **military communications doctrine** that Russia has applied consistently since 2022.

The international press — **Reuters, AFP, The Guardian** — has systematically cross-referenced Russian declarations against available ground data. The result is always the same: Moscow's claims precede reality by weeks, sometimes months. And when reality fails to follow, the declarations are simply forgotten, replaced by the next announcement of imminent victory. This cycle has repeated itself at **Avdiivka, Bakhmut, Marinka** — and now at Kostyantynivka.

### Perception as a Battlefield in Its Own Right

What has changed since 2022 is the sophistication of the disinformation tools deployed. **AI-generated videos**, **coordinated Telegram accounts**, **networks of fake local journalists** — all instruments aimed at creating a **credible parallel reality** in which Russian victories are presented as established before they even occur. The goal is not to convince Western analysts — it is to saturate mainstream media with enough noise to make the truth difficult to perceive.

Faced with this war of perceptions, organizations like the **ISW, Bellingcat**, and the investigative teams of **Kyiv Independent** play a role that governments themselves cannot fully perform. Their credibility rests on their verifiable method, not on institutional authority. This is an informational line of defense whose strategic importance is still underestimated in Western defense budgets.

*The information war is not won with official counter-statements. It is won with method, rigor, and the ability to make verification accessible to the general public. That is daily, thankless, and absolutely indispensable work.*

## Conclusion: Kostyantynivka Holds — and That Is Enough for Today

### What «**Holding**» Means in This War

The **operational reality at Kostyantynivka in this last weekend of June 2026** can be summarized plainly: the city is **not encircled**, Russian forces do not control it, and Putin's claims of an imminent advance do not correspond to available geolocated data. This is not a spectacular victory. It is documented resistance — methodical, costly in lives, and real.

In the war Ukraine has been fighting since **February 24, 2022**, «holding» has been, on several occasions, the condition for the Ukrainian state's survival. Holding **Kyiv** in March 2022. Holding **Kharkiv** against spring offensives. Holding the east while the West decided to deliver heavy weapons. Today, holding Kostyantynivka is one tile in the same **mosaic** — less spectacular than the defense of Kyiv, but just as real in what it means on the map.

### What the World Must Do With This Reality

What the ISW data, Commander Madyar's statements, and the 251 engagements of June 25, 2026 say together is that Ukraine can hold if Western support stays in place. That is not a guarantee. It is not a promise. It is an equation: munitions plus intelligence plus defense systems, against a Russian army losing 53 men per day in this sector alone. **Ukraine is not asking the world to win the war for it. It is asking for the tools not to lose it. That is a reasonable request. And it has not yet been fully met.**

*When we say a city «holds», we also mean that soldiers died for it to hold. Kostyantynivka holds. That is not an abstraction. It is the daily choice of thousands of men and women who decided their territory was worth their lives. We need the courage to name that clearly.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### 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.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [ISW — Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment — June 23, 2026](https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-23-2026/)

- [ISW — Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment — June 24, 2026](https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-24-2026/)

- [ISW/CriticalThreats — Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment — June 25, 2026](https://www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-25-2026)

- [ISW — Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment — June 21, 2026](https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-21-2026/)

### Secondary sources

- [KRDO/CNN — Russia still inching forward in Ukraine but experts say progress claims are exaggerated — June 24, 2026](https://krdo.com/news/2026/06/24/russia-is-still-inching-forward-in-eastern-ukraine-but-experts-say-claims-of-progress-are-exaggerated/)

- [Kyiv Independent — Continuous coverage, Donetsk front — June 2026](https://kyivindependent.com/)

- [Ukrinform — Operational bulletins, Eastern front — June 2026](https://www.ukrinform.net/)

- Militarnyi — Tactical analyses, Donetsk sector — June 2026

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/kostyantynivka-ce-que-le-front-dit-quand-moscou-pretend-avoir-gagne