Over several consecutive days in late May and early June, the Kremlin launched massive drone and missile strikes on Ukraine's capital, leaving dozens dead. Ukraine's air force reported that the assault included 33 ballistic missiles and eight hypersonic missiles – the largest number of such weapons deployed in a single attack since the start of the invasion.
Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said on 2 June that the strikes demonstrated Moscow's unwillingness to end the military campaign, and that by targeting civilians Russia was compensating for its failures at the front. The New York Times reached the same conclusion, reporting on the same day that the Russian army had almost entirely halted its advance in the face of effective Ukrainian resistance.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has noted that Russia is already feeling the effects of sustained Ukrainian strikes on oil infrastructure deep inside its own territory. Ukraine also launched several drone attacks on Moscow during the second quarter, killing two Russians and one Indian national. Denis Nikitin, the commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC), which fights on Ukraine's side, attributed the strikes on Russian cities to Putin's policies. The RVC has operated this year primarily in the Zaporizhzhia region.
Tired of War, but Far from Peace
In April 2025, the Kremlin demanded that Ukraine withdraw from the parts of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions still under Kyiv's control as a condition for ending the war. In the occupied portions of those regions – as well as in Crimea and the fully occupied Luhansk region – systematic violations of the local population's rights have been carried out under a presidential decree signed by Vladimir Putin in autumn 2025.
Russia's core demands remain the same in 2026. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has concentrated above all on the Donbas – the unoccupied remainder of the Donetsk region, centered on the towns of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, which Ukraine has fortified continuously since 2014. A Ukrainian withdrawal from the area is opposed by critics who note, as does the Russian side, that it constitutes the most heavily defended section of the entire front line.
Ceding the Donbas would make it considerably easier for Russia to push westward if Moscow chose to resume the campaign in the months or years ahead. On both sides of the front, war-weary soldiers and civilians have begun to express willingness to trade the region for peace, whatever their countries' strategic interests may be.
A Path Without a Destination
The Financial Times reported in mid-May that Russian generals had persuaded Putin that the entire Donbas would be under Kremlin control by autumn. At a military parade on 9 May – the smallest since 1945 – Putin declared that Russia would prevail in Ukraine and said later that day that the war was drawing to a close. Some analysts dismiss these as hollow declarations aimed at a domestic audience starved of good news.
A saying adapted from the 17th-century Japanese samurai Musashi Miyamoto has been circulating in Russia: a special military operation has no destination, only a path. Estimates put Russian military fatalities at between 280,000 and 518,000, with total casualties reaching up to 1.5 million including the wounded – roughly 3% of Russian men of mobilization age at the start of the war. At least 221,000 Russian soldiers have been confirmed killed, among them Ukrainians conscripted into the Russian army in the occupied territories.
Ukraine's Drones Are Shifting the Front
In mid-April, as in the summer of 2025, Ukraine's 3rd Army Corps seized a Russian-held position without deploying ground troops, using robots and drones to overwhelm the defenders. Russia has yet to field anything comparable since the start of the campaign. The 3rd Army Corps now leads the front in the use of autonomous systems, covering more than 10% of the front line. The pace of automation continues to rise, driving a significant reduction in casualties.
The corps is commanded by Brigadier General Andriy Biletsky, founder and former commander of the Azov regiment, who together with Chief of the General Staff General Oleksandr Syrsky is one of the two military figures who enjoy the highest level of public trust in Ukraine. In an interview with Reuters, he said that "from a military point of view, it is realistic" for Ukraine to consolidate its positions and seize a number of strategic targets in the near term, though he cautioned that the next six months would be critical.
The battlefield picture has given him reason for optimism. ISW analysts report that while Russia occupied or infiltrated 28.28 sq km in April, Ukrainian advances on several sections of the front left the Kremlin with a net loss of 116 sq km. It was the first such reversal since August 2024, when Ukraine launched its incursion into Russia's Kursk region. The trend continued in May, though precise figures are not yet available.
The picture has also changed in territory Russia has controlled for some time. Since the end of May, an unmanned systems battalion of the 3rd Army Corps has been operating over the occupied Luhansk region, significantly disrupting Russian rear logistics up to 100 km from the front. Ukrainian medium-range drones also regularly strike the M-14 highway, better known to the Russian occupation administration as the "R-280 Novorossiysk Highway" – the key overland route linking Russia with occupied Crimea. Photographs and footage from both sides show destroyed Russian equipment lining the road at multiple points.
Europe Pushes for Talks
On 9 May, Putin indicated willingness to negotiate new security arrangements for Europe, naming former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder as his preferred interlocutor. Schröder was spotted in Moscow in early June, though his visit may have been connected to the International Economic Forum, which opened in St Petersburg on 3 June.
Berlin has rejected the proposal. Ukraine's ambassador to Germany, Oleksiy Makayev, told Spiegel that "no one who has represented Russian interests in Germany for years has either the moral or the political legitimacy to act as a mediator today".
Bloomberg reported in early June that Germany, France and the United Kingdom were pressing ahead with efforts to bring Moscow to the negotiating table with Kyiv, seeking to exploit both the shift in American attention towards Iran and Russia's mounting losses. Paris, Berlin and London do not intend to pressure Zelensky into accepting unfavorable terms, according to Bloomberg's sources. Those opposed to negotiations are calling for stepped-up deliveries of weapons and air defense equipment to Kyiv.