Kostiantynivka Falls

Russia wins its first strategic victory of the year

Kostiantynivka. 93rd Brigade photo

This story was commissioned by Euromaidan Press. Since Substack pays only around a fifth of my bills, I have no choice but to take on a lot of freelance work. I still want my Substack audience to know where to read those freelance stories, however. Hence this excerpt.

Last fall, the Russian Center Group of Forces laid siege to Kostiantynivka, a city with a pre-war population of 67,000 in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast.

Eight months later, the city is on the verge of falling to Russian infiltrators. “We are nearing the end of the battle for the city, the fall of which could be staggered until mid-summer,” mapper and analyst Clément Molin wrote a week ago.

“This is Russia’s first strategic victory of the year,” Molin added. And a welcome one in Moscow.

That’s because 2026 has been a hard year for Russia. Overall, Russian advances in Ukraine have practically ground to a halt in recent months. Russian forces’ daily rate of advance was 13.2 square km per day in 2025, but just 2.9 square km per day in the first four months of 2026, according to the Institute for the Study of War in Washington.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian drones and missiles are striking harder and deeper across occupied territories and into Russia itself. In March, for the first time, Ukraine launched more one-way attack drones at Russia and occupied territories (7,500) than Russia launched one-way attack drones at Ukraine (6,500).

“The character of the war is shifting in favor of Ukrainian forces, at least for now,” ISW noted.

But that hasn’t saved Kostiantynivka, where the Russians have long held a significant manpower advantage, and where the terrain is unforgiving to the defender.

Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.