Russia’s push toward Slavyansk and Kramatorsk may matter far more than the headline-grabbing exchange of deep attacks
For the media, the main theme of this year’s spring-summer military campaign is the exchange of long-range strikes between Russia and Ukraine. Against this backdrop, news from the front recedes into the background. This is partially understandable: the conflict is now in its fifth year, and the capture of yet another small town isn’t exciting news for the media; it needs something new to write about.
Deep strike attacks, however, will not determine the outcome of the conflict; its fate will be sealed on the battlefield. The army that begins to crumble first, losing the ability to hold ground, will lose the war.
Several important events, which we had predicted at the beginning of the year, are currently unfolding: the Russian Army is conducting two strategic operations (in the Konstantinovka-Kramatorsk and Orekhovo-Zaporozhye fronts), as well as a third, auxiliary but very important operation to expand its zone of control along the ‘old’ Russia-Ukraine border.
Today, we will consider the main axis: through Konstantinovka to Kramatorsk and Slavyansk, which the Russian Army is approaching from three directions. This is where the battles for two major cities are coming to an end, and where, in mid-June, an important and difficult line along the Donets Ridge was secured.
Liman: North of the Seversky Donets
Liman is a city with a pre-war population of 20,000 and one of Ukraine’s largest railway stations. The city was first captured without significant fighting at the beginning of the Russian operation, and then just as quickly lost during the Ukrainian military’s Kharkov offensive in September 2022.
Last year, the front again approached Liman. Active fighting for the city began in mid-May 2026, and in less than a month, Russia’s ‘West’ group of forces had almost completely cleared the urban area. By June 18, fighting was already underway in the center of Liman, near the railway station and the Kommunalnaya industrial zone. Ukrainian military still claims that the southern neighborhoods are under its control, but reports from the ground may be delayed.
On June 17, a three-ton aerial bomb disabled the bridge over the Seversky Donets River, the only land supply route for the remaining Ukrainian forces in Liman. It looks like the remnants of the garrison are attempting an organized withdrawal from Liman, meaning the fighting for the city has entered its final stages.
However, the offensive on the flanks of Liman continues. Back in April-May, a bridgehead was established on the southern bank of the Seversky Donets River near Svyatogorsk. Some reports indicate that Russian assault groups have entered Brusovka, but so far there is no proof of control over the area. This brings the front line very close to Slavyansk: following the capture of Liman, Slavyansk will be less than 10 km away from the front. More importantly, the same short distance will remain to Slavyansk and Kramatorsk’s main supply route: the M-03 highway to Izyum. In modern warfare, this means a significant portion of it will be under constant fire control.
Recognizing the importance of the Liman front, Ukrainian forces are attempting to launch counterattacks. In late May, Ukrainian assault groups were spotted in the Yampol area, but there has been no news since; apparently, they failed to consolidate their position there.
Rai-Aleksandrovka: Up towards the Donets Ridge
Unlike other areas, this front remained active throughout the winter; from February to May, assault teams from the ‘South’ group of forces advanced along a broad front from Seversk to the high ridge of chalk mountains near Rai-Aleksandrovka. The terrain in this direction is very difficult (the chalk mountains are up to 100 meters high) and the defense is reinforced by the Seversky Donets-Donbass Canal, familiar from the battles for neighboring Chasov Yar. However, this direction is crucial since it opens a direct route to Slavyansk and Kramatorsk.
Fighters from the ‘South’ group of forces had been pushing at this line for several weeks, and now its defense seems to have collapsed like dominoes. On June 2, the canal was crossed and a bridgehead established near Tikhonovka (expanded to neighboring Malinovka on June 17); on June 15, Russian forces reached the important settlement of Korsunovka on the banks of the Seversky Donets; and finally, on June 18, the village of Rai-Aleksandrovka (pre-war population 1,000) – the Ukrainian military’s main defensive hub in this sector.
The speed of events suggests that Ukrainian forces are unable to counterattack in this direction, so they are deprived of the only means of slowing or stopping the Russian advance.
The next goal is the town of Nikolayevka (pre-war population 14,000), about 3 km from Rai-Aleksandrovka. Nikolayevka is part of the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration, a satellite town of Slavyansk. The Seversky Donets-Donbass Canal begins there.
However, the fighting for Nikolayevka is unlikely to begin until Liman is captured and the northern bank of the Seversky Donets in this area is cleared. The reason for this is clearly visible on the map.
Approaching Konstantinovka
Konstantinovka, with its pre-war population of 78,000, is the largest city captured by the Russian army following the liberation of Mariupol in May 2022.
The example of Konstantinovka clearly demonstrates what a city battle looks like for the Russian Army. First and foremost, there is active fighting for the flanks. The goal is to encircle the city and ensure fire control over the main lines of communication. This is a decisive step that ensures success: once a city is encircled, for the enemy it ceases to be a powerful defensive stronghold and becomes a problem. To supply the garrison, deliver ammunition, and carry out rotations, supply routes must be maintained. The larger the garrison, the more supplies it requires, and the wider the transport corridors must be.
Therefore, the longer the army within the encircled city holds out, the greater its losses – within the city itself (as a result of air and drone strikes), along the ‘road of death’ leading up to it, and, most importantly, due to attempts to break the encirclement with counterattacks.
The most sensible solution for the Ukrainian side would be to evacuate the garrison and not sacrifice soldiers in a futile attempt to hold the doomed city. However, in a military context, this is impossible: if they abandon Konstantinovka, Druzhkovka will suffer the same fate; and if they retreat from Druzhkovka, they’ll expose Kramatorsk, and so on.
Russian forces completed the broad semi-encirclement of Konstantinovka in March. Then, for about two months, advancement here was minimal, and it might have seemed as if the Russian offensive in Konstantinovka had stalled.
Squeezing Konstantinovka
In fact, in the course of those two months, from March to May, the Russian Army was accomplishing the main goal of its offensive: depleting the Ukrainian garrison and its supply lines, and repelling Ukrainian flank counterattacks (at least 15 were attempted during this time). Lacking the Russian Army’s assault experience and air and artillery capabilities, Ukrainian forces are unable to conduct sustained offensive operations, so they end up suffering significant losses without achieving their objective. So, having gone on the defensive, the fighters of the ‘South’ group of forces simply had to wait until the enemy became exhausted and could no longer hold the front with counterattacks.
This happened in mid-May. Within a matter of days, Ukraine’s defense in the southern part of Konstantinovka – a vast area of high-rise residential buildings – collapsed. Moreover, compared to the flanks, there was virtually no fighting within the city: the Ukrainian garrison was by then so exhausted that it was unable to put up organized resistance. Aerial footage of Konstantinovka also provides indirect evidence of this: compared to Bakhmut, the city shows far less destruction. This is partly due to the use of precision weapons, which do not target large areas, and partly due to the exhaustion of the defense, which simply collapsed at some point.
By the end of May, Konstantinovka’s vast industrial zone was cleared. This area the size of Azovstal fell in a matter of days, though in better times, it could have held out for months. In early June, the remnants of the garrison were completely cut off – this was the Russian Army’s second large-scale encirclement (a so-called ‘cauldron’) recently, after Mirnograd. According to some reports, units of the 28th, 100th, and 156th Brigades of the Ukrainian armed forces, as well as the 49th Assault Battalion, were encircled. Attempts to break the encirclement, undertaken around June 13, were unsuccessful, and the remnants of the Konstantinovka garrison were doomed.
The Ukrainian side also acknowledges the gravity of the situation. The portal Deepstate writes that in Konstantinovka, the Russian Army is using the same tactics that it had employed in Pokrovsk. “As a result, they captured Pokrovsk, and we [the AFU] lost a lot of men.”
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Above, we’ve examined three directions from which the offensive on Slavyansk and Kramatorsk is being conducted. Two of these directions (Liman and Konstantinovka) demonstrate the tactics of urban assault operations perfected by the Russian Army, while the third (Rai-Aleksandrovka) shows the art of carrying out complex operations in rough terrain, including climbing 100-meter-high cliffs and crossing deep water obstacles to secure control over areas.