Ukraine war briefing: Russia losing on the ground so pivots to air war, say analysts

Minimal gains on battlefield as Kyiv largely halts Moscow’s spring-summer offensive; Ukraine missile maker tests homegrown Patriot alternative. What we know on day 1,562 Russia’s failure to advance on the battlefield is why it is escalating its air raids on major Ukrainian cities , analysts say. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) thinktank said the strikes were also aimed at distracting from the impact of Ukrainian long-range attacks into Russia . The Finnish Black Bird Group’s latest data shows, according to Reuters, that Russian monthly territorial gains have fallen sharply compared with the same period last year. Ukrainian open-source group DeepState this week said Russian troops in May saw their smallest monthly gains since October 2023 – 14 sq km – despite a 37.5% spike in assaults by Russian forces. “Ukrainian forces have largely halted the Russian spring-summer 2026 offensive so far , and Russian forces in May 2026 have gained a presence in only a fraction of the territory they did in May 2025,” said an ISW assessment . This year, Ukrainian forces have also recaptured territory. John Helin, Black Bird Group analyst, said: “If the Russians can’t find ways to pick up momentum significantly, the goal of capturing Donbas this year is slipping out of their reach fast .” Mathieu Boulègue of the US-based Center for European Policy Analysis said Moscow’s war machine was also grappling with shrinking industrial capacity due to western sanctions , as well as dwindling stocks of nearly all weaponry. “They are really slowly, I think, changing the cost-benefit calculus of the Kremlin ,” he said of Russia’s appetite for continuing the war. Ukraine’s Fire Point, a missile and drone maker, said it had test-flown a ballistic missile meant for air defence as Kyiv wrangles with a dearth of ammunition for foreign-supplied missile shield systems such as Patriot. The Fire Point CEO, Iryna Terekh, said “a fully controlled manoeuvring flight of the FP-7.X missile” took place and it would form the basis of the future Freyja anti-ballistic interceptor . A Ukrainian attack on “non-residential buildings in Simferopol” in occupied Crimea killed at least three people and wounded seven others, the region’s head Russian official, Sergey Aksyonov, said early on Thursday. Separately, Moscow-installed authorities in the Donetsk region said a drone strike hit a bus, killing seven people and wounding 11. Officials said the bus was hit at Yenakiyevo as it travelled from Moscow to Simferopol in Crimea . Russian shelling killed at least three civilians in Ukraine’s frontline city of Kramatorsk in the east and Moscow’s forces attacked areas near the south-eastern city of Dnipro with drones and missiles, officials said on Wednesday. Vadym Filashkin, governor of the Donetsk region, said 11 people were injured in the daytime Russian attack on residential buildings in Kramatorsk. In the southern city of Kherson, one person was killed in a drone attack that destroyed 36 apartments in a residential building, said Oleksandr Prokudin, the regional governor. The governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Oleksandr Hanzha, said there had been three Russian strikes near the region’s largest city, Dnipro , injuring eight people and triggering a large fire. Three people were in hospital in serious condition. Ukraine’s president. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in his nightly video address that Russian forces struck food storage areas and a postal depot with drones and missiles. Ukrainian drones hit energy and military sites in St Petersburg early on Wednesday, hours before international guests gathered for an economic forum, in a deep embarrassment for Vladimir Putin, Luke Harding and Pjotr Sauer write . Guests arrived for Wednesday’s opening ceremony under a pall of thick smoke. Ukraine also struck the nearby Kronstadt naval base and shipyard in Leningrad oblast, home to Russia’s Baltic fleet, setting fire to the Russian guided-missile corvette Boikiy . Continue reading...