At the same time, he pointed out that it will not be so easy to completely isolate the infiltration of Russian attack groups into the city, since it is surrounded on all sides by suburbs, and these allow the Russians to manage to accumulate forces near Kostiantynivka.
Although Mašovec claims that the city’s fate can be decided in the next two months, Myrošnykov assumes that the fighting will continue “for a long time.” “However, the finale is probably clear – we do not have the opportunity to radically break the course of combat actions in this part of the front and push the enemy away from the city,” he said.
A city on a strategic belt
Why is Kostantynivka important? Once an important railway junction in the Donetsk region, it is one of the cities that form a strategic belt of defense in the northern part of the region, which the Russians are trying to control. It is an agglomeration of the cities of Kosťantynivka-Družkivka-Kramatorsk-Sloviansk, where more than half a million people lived before the war.
Today, these cities are subject to bombing and drone attacks, with hundreds of thousands of people already fleeing the area as a result of the fighting.
Some anecdotal sources say that Russian President Vladimir Putin is so strongly “fixated on Donbas” that he will not stop until his army conquers it in its entirety. He reportedly firmly believes that the Russian army can do it by the end of this year.
However, the situation on the battlefield does not yet indicate that the Russians would proceed more fundamentally. Although they have intensified their fire – according to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, there were up to seven thousand combat engagements in May – they have not yet been able to make a major operational breakthrough deeper into the Ukrainian interior.
On the contrary, according to some Ukrainian analysts, the beginning of the Russian spring offensive “burned out” and the Russians are entering the summer with symptoms of a “logistical heart attack”. The Ukrainian army managed to get under fire control an important land artery connecting the Russian hinterland with the annexed Crimea.
“It can be said that May was the most unsuccessful month for the Russian occupiers since 2023,” the agency quoted military analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko as saying.
Big losses, small territorial gains
He pointed out, for example, that since the beginning of this year, Russian troops have increasingly lost the initiative, and although they are losing a large number of soldiers – according to Kovalenko, the Russians recorded 34,000 losses in May alone -, the territorial gains they achieve remain minimal.
“According to various estimates, Russian troops captured approximately 88 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory during May. At the same time, the Ukrainian defense forces carried out a series of counterattacks and regained control of approximately 68 square kilometers. The enemy’s net territorial gain is therefore approximately 20 square kilometers,” he said.
According to project analysts, the Russians were able to occupy only 14 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in May.
Not a frontal attack, but isolation
Kovalenko also pointed out that Russian infiltration groups operate to the west and east of Kostiantynivka.
“If the adversary manages to get a hold on the borders (of the city) and block the overpass, he will be able to cut off a large industrial zone. This could become a serious problem for us,” he assessed.
According to him, the Russians try to avoid protracted battles in large industrial zones, because they require significant resources, time and are accompanied by high losses. “Therefore, their main goal will most likely not be a frontal attack on the industrial zone (Kosțantynivky), but its isolation,” added the analyst.
