# DECODING: Kostyantynivka — How Moscow Manufactures Victories With AI and Lies

> On June 23, 2026, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed during a public statement that Russian forces are advancing on all fronts and "practically reaching" Kostyantynivka. Hours earlier, the Russian Ministry of Defense (Russian MoD) had published its now-standard series of "h

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Analysis
- Published: 2026-06-27
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/kostyantynivka-comment-moscou-fabrique-ses-victoires-avec-de-l-ia-et-du-mensonge

## Introduction: The Ghost City Putin "Captures" Every Week

### The declarations and the reality

On **June 23, 2026**, Russian President **Vladimir Putin** claimed during a public statement that Russian forces are advancing on all fronts and "practically reaching" **Kostyantynivka**. Hours earlier, the Russian Ministry of Defense (**Russian MoD**) had published its now-standard series of "hyper-tactical details" about alleged Russian gains inside the city. And that same evening, Russian-language **Telegram** channels were circulating videos showing Russian soldiers hoisting flags in various areas of **Kostyantynivka** — videos that the **Institute for the Study of War (ISW)** assessed as "probably AI-generated or AI-altered."

The reality documented by the **ISW** over the same period is radically different. The deputy commander of the **Ukrainian 19th Army Corps**, **Yuriy Madyar**, stated on **June 23** that Ukrainian forces had cleared zones south of **Kostyantynivka** with a "minimum" number of Russian fighters remaining in the area. He specified that Ukrainian forces are conducting operations to push Russian troops out of the city's center and west. According to **Madyar**, Russian forces in the sector sustain approximately **53 casualties per day** versus only **3 per day** for **Ukraine**. And crucially: **Russian forces have not encircled Kostyantynivka** — an allegation **Madyar** explicitly denied, clarifying that there are far more Ukrainian soldiers inside the city than Russian ones.

### The ISW and its counter-narrative role

The **ISW**, a **Washington**-based think tank that publishes daily assessments of the Russian offensive campaign based on geolocated open-source data, has become one of the most reliable analytical voices for countering Russian propaganda. Its **June 23** assessment is explicit: "The Ukrainian tactical situation at **Kostyantynivka** is deteriorating, but the Russian **MoD** and **Putin** are falsely presenting the capture of **Kostyantynivka** as imminent." Russian infiltrations into the city are documented — but they "do not constitute terrain control in the doctrinal military sense" and will not allow Russian forces to achieve "a rapid operational breakthrough."

*This is the heart of the information war that Moscow wages just as intensely as the physical one: creating an alternative reality in the media space, saturating the information landscape with false narratives so that even serious observers begin to doubt. When AI-generated videos circulate for hours before being debunked, the cognitive damage is already done. This is the Gerasimov doctrine applied at industrial scale.*

## The Mechanics of Russian Propaganda Around Kostyantynivka

### The repeated pattern: infiltration, video, proclamation

Analysis of several weeks of Russian communication around **Kostyantynivka** reveals a very consistent pattern. Step one: Russian infiltrators — groups of **1 to 2 soldiers** according to the description of the **ISW**'s lead Russia analyst **Kateryna Stepanenko** — penetrate into areas of the city. Step two: videos are published showing these soldiers at positions inside the city, often with flags. Step three: the Russian **MoD** issues press releases declaring "advances" in specific neighborhoods, accompanied by interviews with fighters "in the field." Step four: Kremlin-aligned media and milbloggers amplify these declarations on **Telegram** and **X**. Step five: the information circulates in international media, with some outlets reproducing Russian figures without sufficient scrutiny.

What the **ISW**, Ukrainian **Censor.Net**, and other analysts have systematically demonstrated is that these infiltrations do not constitute territorial control in the military sense. Soldiers entering an abandoned building in a city do not control the city. But in media representation, the nuance between "Russian soldiers are in **Kostyantynivka**" and "Russia controls **Kostyantynivka**" is easy to lose — and **Moscow** deliberately exploits this confusion.

### AI as a weapon in service of the lie

The most alarming element of the Russian campaign around **Kostyantynivka** is the confirmed use of videos probably generated or altered by **artificial intelligence**. The Russian **MoD** published footage showing Russian soldiers hoisting flags in the city of **Lyman** — videos that the **ISW** says it could not geolocate and has "reason to believe [are] possibly AI-altered." Similar footage circulated for **Kostyantynivka**. AI video generators can produce convincing images in minutes — and even if they are debunked quickly, their impact on prediction markets (**Polymarket** saw the probability of **Kostyantynivka**'s capture spike by **20 points** upon such a publication) and on international media coverage is real and immediate.

*We are in territory we have never truly traversed before: a war where the adversary uses not only classical disinformation but AI tools to fabricate visual evidence of nonexistent victories. The challenge is no longer just to verify sources — it is to distinguish the real from the synthetic in real combat time. Ukraine fights with drones. Russia fights with deepfakes too. Both are modern weapons of war.*

## What the Numbers Actually Say About Kostyantynivka

### The available ground data

The available assessments of the actual situation at **Kostyantynivka** as of **June 26, 2026** present a nuanced but distinct picture from the tableau painted by **Moscow**. Russian forces have genuinely infiltrated the city — the **ISW**, which had repeatedly resisted confirming Russian gains for lack of geolocated data, has progressively expanded its assessment area in favor of Russian positions over the weeks. Fighting in the southern and eastern parts of the city is documented. Ukrainian soldiers interviewed by **BBC** confirmed that the situation is "serious" — but not nearly as catastrophic as Russian sources claim.

Ukrainian Brigadier General **Oleksandr Bakulin**, commander of the **19th Army Corps**, declared on **June 15** that approximately **123 to 130 Russian soldiers** are present inside **Kostyantynivka** — a figure that "varies by 20 to 30" according to him. "To say the enemy controls a part of **Kostyantynivka** would be premature and an exaggeration," he stated. According to **Madyar**, Russian forces in the **Kostyantynivka** sector must travel **20 to 30 kilometers** to approach the city, while Ukrainian forces strike the surrounding areas heavily. **Russian milbloggers** themselves note that Russian forces struggle to resupply their positions north of **Kostyantynivka** and depend on drone deliveries.

### Failure to meet self-proclaimed timelines

A telling detail that Russian propaganda media have carefully buried: according to **Polymarket** data, **Russia** had set itself a target of capturing **Kostyantynivka** by **May 2026**. It missed that deadline spectacularly, causing the probability of capture by end of June to plummet to very low levels. The rate of advance documented by analysts is less than **100 meters per day** — described by Ukrainian soldiers as "extremely slow progression due to Ukrainian drone strikes." This pace falls far short of the imminent breakthrough **Putin** describes in his speeches.

*If Russia were actually advancing at the speed and with the power that Moscow's propaganda describes, Kostyantynivka would have fallen long ago. The reality of Russian losses — 53 per day in this sector alone according to Madyar — reveals what a media arsenal cannot hide: an army grinding through bodies of its own soldiers to advance a few meters a day. That is not victory — it is a meat grinder.*

## The Strategic Objective of Russian Disinformation

### Creating pressure on Ukraine's Western partners

The Russian cognitive campaign around **Kostyantynivka** is not built to convince Ukrainians — it is primarily an influence operation targeting **Kyiv**'s **Western** partners. By presenting the Ukrainian front as being on the verge of collapse, **Moscow** seeks to fuel Western political currents that advocate forcing **Ukraine** to negotiate on terms that **Russia** dictates: specifically, the "battlefield realities" — an expression **Putin** explicitly used on **June 23**. This language means: accept Russian conquests as accomplished facts and obtain a peace in defeat.

The **ISW** and the **Critical Threats Project** documented on **June 25** that the Russian cognitive campaign has so far **failed** to convince **Ukraine**'s key partners. US President **Trump** and Under Secretary of State **Jeremy Levin** both declared on **June 24 and 25** that **Ukraine** "currently has the advantage on the battlefield" — a statement that directly contradicts the Russian narrative of imminent collapse. **Levin** also emphasized that Ukrainian long-range strikes against Russian oil infrastructure "increase the cost of the war for **Russia** and force it to divert resources from the front."

### Manipulating prediction markets

An unexpected collateral effect of Russian propaganda is its impact on prediction markets. According to **Polymarket** data, the publication of Russian flag videos at **Kostyantynivka** — even unverified — caused the probability of the city's capture on the "captured by September" market to spike by **20 points**. This manipulation of market sentiment has value for **Moscow**: it creates pressure on Ukrainian partners attentive to perceptions of "war trajectory." Prediction market investors are not military analysts — they react to flag videos, not geolocation analyses.

*The fact that Russian disinformation can move prediction markets used by analysts, journalists, and decision-makers as indicators of the military situation — that is deeply troubling. These markets lack the analytical resistance of the ISW. They aggregate perceptions, not truths. And in a war where perception of trajectory influences political and financial support for Ukraine, this manipulation has very concrete consequences.*

## Ukraine's Tools for Countering Disinformation

### Ukraine's offensive response in the information space

**Ukraine** is not passively absorbing the Russian information war. Ukrainian long-range strikes against Russian infrastructure — refineries, military depots, railway infrastructure in occupied **Crimea** and occupied oblasts — are deliberately documented and published, creating a counter-narrative of Ukrainian offensive resilience. The **ISW** counted at least **28 Ukrainian long-range strikes** against Russian oil infrastructure in **June 2026**, following **33 in May** and **18 in April**. This sustained campaign demonstrates that **Ukraine** is not merely defending **Kostyantynivka** — it is striking deep behind Russian lines.

The public statements from commanders like **Madyar** and **Bakulin** — with precise figures on Russian losses, troop numbers present in the city, and ongoing clearing operations — also constitute a counter-disinformation tool. By making public data that directly contradicts **Russian MoD** claims, the Ukrainian command asserts factual primacy in a contested information space. This transparency is a deliberate strategic choice — and broadly effective at maintaining **Western** partners' confidence.

### The limits of counter-disinformation

Despite these efforts, Russian propaganda continues to find audiences in less rigorous media spaces. Pro-Russian **Telegram** channels with millions of subscribers broadcast **AI** videos within seconds. **ISW** fact-checks typically arrive several hours after videos first circulate — and in the social media era, the first hours are crucial to opinion formation. Some international outlets reproduce Russian **MoD** figures as official statements without sufficiently contextualizing their propagandistic nature.

The information war remains a domain where Western investments in verification media and digital literacy are insufficient. **Russia** dedicates industrial resources to disinformation — teams of translators, **AI** content generators, professional trolls — while the Western response rests largely on underfunded non-governmental organizations. This resource gap translates into a reach gap that truth alone cannot bridge.

*I pay tribute to the work of the ISW, Kateryna Stepanenko, and their colleagues who methodically dismantle, day after day, the Kremlin's lies with geolocated evidence. This work is as vital for Ukraine as weapons deliveries. And yet it remains underfunded, little known to the general public, and constantly trailing the industrial output of Russian disinformation. It is one of the most important battles of this war — and the West is not yet dedicating the resources it deserves.*

## The Strategic Objective of Russian Disinformation

### Creating pressure on Ukraine's Western partners

The Russian cognitive campaign around **Kostyantynivka** is not built to convince Ukrainians — it is primarily an influence operation targeting **Kyiv**'s **Western** partners. By presenting the Ukrainian front as being on the verge of collapse, **Moscow** seeks to fuel political currents in the **West** that advocate forcing **Ukraine** to negotiate on **Russia**'s terms: the "battlefield realities" — an expression **Putin** explicitly used on **June 23**. This language means: accept Russian conquests as accomplished facts and obtain a peace in defeat.

The **ISW** and the **Critical Threats Project** documented on **June 25** that the Russian cognitive campaign has so far **failed** to convince **Ukraine**'s key partners. President **Trump** and Under Secretary of State **Jeremy Levin** both declared on **June 24 and 25** that **Ukraine** "currently has the advantage on the battlefield" — a direct contradiction of the Russian narrative of imminent collapse. **Levin** also highlighted that Ukrainian long-range strikes against Russian oil infrastructure "increase the cost of the war for **Russia**."

*The fact that Russian disinformation can move prediction markets used by analysts, journalists, and decision-makers as indicators of the military situation — that is deeply troubling. These markets lack the analytical resistance of the ISW. They aggregate perceptions, not truths. And in a war where perception of trajectory influences political and financial support for Ukraine, this manipulation has very concrete consequences.*

### Manipulating prediction markets

An unexpected collateral effect of Russian propaganda is its impact on prediction markets. According to **Polymarket** data, the publication of Russian flag videos at **Kostyantynivka** — even unverified — caused the capture probability on the "captured by September" market to spike by **20 points**. This manipulation of market sentiment has value for **Moscow**: it creates pressure on Ukrainian partners attentive to perceptions of "war trajectory."

Prediction market investors are not military analysts — they react to flag videos, not geolocation analyses. The response of serious analysts is to systematically tie their probabilities to verified geolocated data. The **ISW** maintains an interactive map updated daily that documents the front line with kilometer-level precision. This map is reality. Prediction markets that do not integrate it produce noisy signals — and **Moscow** knows perfectly well how to exploit this noise.

## Ukraine's Tools for Countering Disinformation

### Ukraine's offensive response in the information space

**Ukraine** is not passively absorbing the Russian information war. Ukrainian long-range strikes against Russian infrastructure — refineries, military depots, railway infrastructure in occupied **Crimea** and occupied oblasts — are deliberately documented and published, creating a counter-narrative of Ukrainian offensive resilience. The **ISW** counted at least **28 Ukrainian long-range strikes** against Russian oil infrastructure in **June 2026**, following **33 in May** and **18 in April**. This sustained campaign demonstrates that **Ukraine** is not merely defending **Kostyantynivka**.

The public statements from commanders like **Madyar** and **Bakulin** — with precise figures on Russian losses, troop numbers present in the city, and ongoing clearing operations — also constitute a counter-disinformation tool. By making public data that directly contradicts **Russian MoD** claims, the Ukrainian command asserts factual primacy in a contested information space. This transparency is a deliberate strategic choice — and broadly effective at maintaining **Western** partners' confidence.

*I pay tribute to the work of the ISW, Kateryna Stepanenko, and their colleagues who methodically dismantle, day after day, the Kremlin's lies with geolocated evidence. This work is as vital for Ukraine as weapons deliveries. And yet it remains underfunded, little known to the general public, and constantly trailing the industrial output of Russian disinformation. It is one of the most important battles of this war — and the West is not yet dedicating the resources it deserves.*

### The limits of counter-disinformation

Despite these efforts, Russian propaganda continues to find audiences in less rigorous media spaces. Pro-Russian **Telegram** channels with millions of subscribers broadcast **AI** videos within seconds. **ISW** fact-checks typically arrive several hours after videos first circulate — and in the social media era, the first hours are crucial to opinion formation.

The information war remains a domain where Western investments in verification media and digital literacy are insufficient. **Russia** dedicates industrial resources to disinformation — teams of translators, **AI** content generators, professional trolls — while the Western response rests largely on underfunded non-governmental organizations. This resource gap translates into a reach gap that truth alone cannot bridge.

## The Wider Context: Kostyantynivka in Russia's Global Strategy

### The city as symbol in the narrative war

**Kostyantynivka** is not in itself a strategically decisive city — it is not **Avdiivka**, it is not **Bakhmut**. What makes it a priority information warfare battleground for **Moscow** is its symbolic value in the narrative of Russian advance. If **Russia** can show that its forces are progressing in the **Donbas** despite Western support for **Ukraine** — even using **AI**-generated images — it fuels the narrative that Western support is useless and costly.

Whether **Kostyantynivka** holds or falls in the coming months will partly determine the credibility of this narrative. If the city holds — with Western support in weapons, intelligence, and training — it will be a demonstration that disinformation does not replace reality on the ground. If the city falls, **Moscow** will have won symbolically, even though the operational reality remains that **Russia** advances at **100 meters per day** while paying **53 daily casualties** in that sector alone.

*We are in territory we have never truly traversed before: a war where the adversary uses not only classical disinformation but AI tools to fabricate visual evidence of nonexistent victories. The challenge is no longer just to verify sources — it is to distinguish the real from the synthetic in real combat time. Ukraine fights with drones. Russia fights with deepfakes too. Both are modern weapons of war.*

### The long-range strike campaign as counter-narrative

While **Moscow** manufactures visual victories at **Kostyantynivka**, **Kyiv** manufactures real ones deep inside **Russia**. The **28 long-range strikes** against Russian oil infrastructure in **June 2026** are not only tactical — they are narrative. Every refinery hit, every fuel depot ablaze, demonstrates that **Ukraine** has the capacity and will to strike deep into Russian territory. This counter-narrative is difficult to contradict with **AI**-generated videos.

This is a lesson **Ukraine** has brilliantly integrated into its communication strategy: images of destruction on Russian territory — documented, geolocated, irrefutable — are the most powerful antidote to **Moscow**'s propaganda. Under Secretary of State **Levin** explicitly recognized this: these strikes "increase the cost of the war for **Russia**." For this reality to remain visible, **Western** allies must continue lifting restrictions on long-range strikes.

## Conclusion: Propaganda as a Systemic Weapon of War

### What Kostyantynivka reveals about Russian doctrine

The **Kostyantynivka** affair reveals the sophistication of Russian informational doctrine in 2026: synchronization between the Kremlin, the **MoD**, milbloggers, and **AI** tools to saturate the information space with false victory narratives. This doctrine does not aim to convince people that **Russia** has won — it aims to create enough confusion and doubt to paralyze the political will of **Ukraine**'s Western partners. It is a strategy that has partially worked in the past. The appropriate response is the same that the **ISW** practices: analytical rigor, systematic geolocation, and a refusal to take official Russian statements at face value.

### What the West must do

The international community must invest massively in counter-disinformation, verification media, and digital literacy. Social media platforms must develop AI-generated video detection tools and limit their viral spread before verification. And Western governments must resist the temptation to calibrate their support for **Ukraine** on battlefield perceptions manufactured by **Moscow** rather than on factual assessments. **Kostyantynivka** has not fallen. **Ukraine** is fighting. And Russian disinformation must not inflict more damage on Ukrainian resistance than Russian missiles themselves.

*The Kostyantynivka affair reveals the sophistication of Russian informational doctrine in 2026: synchronization between the Kremlin, the MoD, milbloggers, and AI tools to saturate the information space with false victory narratives. The appropriate response is the same that the ISW practices: analytical rigor, systematic geolocation, and a refusal to take official Russian statements at face value. Kostyantynivka has not fallen. Ukraine is fighting. And Russian disinformation must not inflict more damage on Ukrainian resistance than Russian missiles themselves.*

**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 — June 23, 2026](https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-23-2026/)

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

- [Euromaidan Press — What Ukrainian generals say about Kostiantynivka — June 22, 2026](https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/22/what-ukrainian-generals-say-about-kostiantynivka-and-what-soldiers-report-are-two-different-things-russia-is-already-infiltrating-city/)

### Secondary sources

- [KRDO/CNN — Russia inching forward in eastern Ukraine, but claims 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/)

- [BBC — Russian forces have penetrated Kostyantynivka — June 21, 2026](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9w2g0ewk95o)

- [Euromaidan Press — Russia pushes forward: Kostyantynivka on the verge — June 25, 2026](https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/25/kostyantynivka-falling/)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/kostyantynivka-comment-moscou-fabrique-ses-victoires-avec-de-l-ia-et-du-mensonge