Offensive Lockdown: Ukraine’s growing air superiority threatens the collapse of the Russian front within the next few months

The pace of Russia's spring offensive has been the slowest in the past three years, and by May the front had effectively ground to a halt despite continued heavy Russian personnel losses. Russia's numerical advantage has largely ceased to translate into territorial gains.

The Russian command is confronting a systemic crisis. A decline in contract recruitment rates no longer allows it to wage war as before, relying on a combination of light mechanised assaults and infiltration tactics to sustain offensive operations throughout most of the year. Over the past five months, Russian forces may have shrunk by approximately 40,000 personnel. At the same time, Ukraine's defence forces have achieved air dominance not only along the line of contact but also across the operational depth of the battlespace, including the near and intermediate rear areas of Russian forces.

According to Ukraine's Minister of Defence, the technological advantage enjoyed by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the air has raised the cost of territorial gains for Russia to roughly 200 personnel per square kilometre captured. This implies that even a new ‘partial’ mobilisation on the scale of that undertaken in 2022 would enable Russia to advance only a few thousand square kilometres and would still fall short of fulfilling Vladimir Putin's objective of reaching the borders of Donetsk Oblast.

In addition to the disconnection of Starlink, the shifting balance of power has been driven by a technological breakthrough in the production of Hornet drones, developed in cooperation with a company founded by former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt and scaled through unprecedented investment by Ukraine's partners. Allied governments committed $1.6 billion to drone production in the first quarter of this year alone (over the past five months, the Russian force grouping may have been reduced by approximately 40,000 personnel). At the same time, the Ukrainian defence forces have achieved air superiority not only along the line of contact, but also across the operational depth of the mid-strike zone, that is the immediate and medium-range rear of the Russian forces.

The Ukrainian command's ambitious strategy envisages the creation of a ‘logistical lockdown’, under which Russian forward positions would be effectively severed from rear-area supply networks. Achieving this objective would require a further qualitative increase in the number of drones capable of operating at medium operational depth.

Should Russia fail to adapt, implementation of such a strategy, combined with insufficient rates of manpower replacement, could create a genuine risk of collapse across at least some sectors of the Russian front within the next three to six months.

A stalled offensive and a frozen front

It is now possible to state with confidence that Russia's 2026 offensive has stalled. January was the last month in which Russian forces made meaningful territorial gains, expanding the area under their control by approximately 250-425 sq km. Over the subsequent four months, advances amounted to just 165 sq km according to data from the Black Bird Group project, and 440 sq km according to Deepstat, which bases its calculations on data from the OSINT group DeepState. For comparison, advances over the same period in 2024 totalled approximately 600-620 sq km according to the two projects, while in 2025 they ranged from 950 to 1,150 sq km. The discrepancy reflects the difficulty of measuring territorial control within an expanding grey zone where neither side can claim stable authority. Regardless of the methodology employed, current rates of advance are the lowest recorded since 2023, and the situation in May can reasonably be characterised as a complete operational standstill.

According to Black Bird Group, Russian forces expanded their control of Ukrainian territory by 82 sq km in May, whereas DeepState estimated gains of only 14 sq km. Calculations by Ukrainian military analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko suggest that although Russian forces captured approximately 88 sq km during the month, they simultaneously lost around 68 sq km, producing a net gain broadly consistent with the DeepState estimate. The figures published by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) traditionally present the most favourable picture for Ukraine. According to ISW's assessments, the net territorial balance over the past four months, measured as territory lost minus territory regained, favours Ukraine by approximately 70 sq km. Meanwhile, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Syrskyi, claims that Ukrainian forces have liberated up to 600 sq km of territory since the beginning of the year. Thus, the subject of debate is not so much the question of how far Russian troops have advanced, but rather whether they have advanced at all or have, instead, lost territory.

Figure 1. Dynamics of Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory, 2024–2026, sq km per month

At the same time, the intensity of fighting on the front line remains high. According to data collected by Icelandic OSINT analyst Ragnar Bjartur Gudmundsson, combat activity during the first five months of this year was even higher than during the same period in 2025 and only marginally below the levels recorded at the end of last year. Russian casualties, according to figures published by the Ukrainian General Staff, also remain elevated and approached 34,000 personnel in May, the highest monthly figure recorded since the beginning of the year. As a result, casualties per square kilometre of territorial gain have continued to increase, while by late spring the high level of losses was no longer generating even minimal forward progress.

Figure 2. Average Russian military losses, thousands of personnel per month

The countdown to a war of attrition

As Carnegie Centre expert Michael Kofman, who regularly visits the combat zone on the Ukrainian side, believes, Russian forces are achieving results at least twice as poor as those recorded last year. In Kofman's assessment, Russian tactics over the past several years have relied on a combination of light mechanised assaults involving small infantry groups and infiltration tactics. While insufficient to produce operationally significant breakthroughs, this approach enabled Russia to sustain offensive pressure for extended periods, typically from late March through December. That model now appears to be breaking down. Russian losses have risen to a level roughly equivalent to the inflow of recruits, while successful Ukrainian adaptation on the battlefield has constrained Russia's ability to advance, despite persistent Ukrainian difficulties with force generation and unevenly prepared defensive lines.

Political analyst Fareed Zakaria has observed that Russia's principal advantage throughout the war was never that it fought particularly well, but rather that it could afford to fight inefficiently while compensating through a continuous inflow of manpower. Russia now appears to be losing personnel faster than it is recruiting contract soldiers. Although exact recruitment figures are unknown, various sources suggest that the monthly rate of recruitment may have fallen by 20–25% (→ Re:Russia: The Contract System Has Broken Down). Finnish President Alexander Stubb claimed in a recent interview Russian forces suffered approximately 35,000 killed and wounded in May while recruiting only 27,000 new personnel. If these figures are accurate, Ukraine's expanding ‘drone force’ is beginning to generate a systemic advantage over Russia's traditional reliance on manpower. According to the latest calculations by Janis Kluge, based on regional budget data, the number of contract soldiers recruited during the first quarter stood at 71,200 (23,700 per month). By contrast, Russian casualties during this period are estimated at 90,000 personnel. In April–May, the Russian army lost a further 65,000 killed and wounded. If the recruitment trends of the first quarter continue, this would mean that between January and May the Russian force shrunk by approximately 40,000 personnel (which amounts to roughly 5% of its size, based on Ukrainian estimates from the beginning of the year). This suggests that Ukraine’s ‘drone force’ has now acquired a systemic advantage over Russia’s capability to generate ‘manpower’. In this sense, the conflict is evolving into a reverse war of attrition, one in which Russia increasingly appears to be on the losing side (→ Rogov: End of the Doctrine).

According to Ukrainian Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's technological advantage has steadily increased the human cost of Russian territorial gains. Ministry calculations suggest that Russian forces lost 67 personnel for every square kilometre gained in October, 165 in January, 244 in February, 254 in March and 179 in April. Fedorov has identified a threshold of at least 200 casualties per square kilometre as a strategic objective for Ukrainian forces. With such casualties, even another ‘partial’ mobilisation on a scale comparable to that undertaken in autumn 2022, involving approximately 200,000-300,000 personnel, would allow Russia to advance only a few thousand square kilometres and would remain insufficient to secure control of the entirety of Donetsk Oblast.

Brigadier General of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and commander of the 3rd Army Corps, Andrii Biletskyi, has likewise described Russia's winter and spring offensive campaign as a failure. In his assessment, Russian forces captured only around 10 sq km of territory during May. Russia is increasingly constrained by manpower shortages, a problem that is becoming more acute with each passing month. As a consequence, the Russian military has already lost the capacity to conduct the large-scale attritional assaults that were still common seven or eight months ago. If current trends persist, Biletskyi argues, the crisis within Russian forces will deepen further, potentially producing a decisive shift on the battlefield within six to seven months.

Zone of advantage: drone cooperation and the ‘Martian Hornet’

The Ukrainian ‘drone wall’ became the military's principal counterweight to Russia's manpower advantage as early as last year. It forced Russian forces to adopt infiltration tactics and prevented them from achieving major operational breakthroughs during their large-scale offensive in late 2025. However, Ukrainian military personnel and analysts repeatedly noted that Ukraine possessed only limited strike capabilities against targets in the enemy's near and intermediate rear areas. This constrained its ability to impose costs on Russian operations, while Russia continued to make extensive use of glide bombs to suppress Ukrainian defences. The decisive shift in 2026 has occurred precisely within the battlespace of middle-depth strikes, namely attacks against logistical and military targets located between 25 and 200 km behind the front line.

Although Ukraine has employed medium-range unmanned systems for more than a year, these operations only acquired a systematic character this spring and have begun to pose a meaningful threat to Russian logistics. ISW analysts point out that the first phase of this campaign, beginning in late 2025, focused on intensifying strikes against Russian air defence systems and radar installations. Military expert Kyle Glen notes that large-scale losses of air defence assets can generate a cascading effect across the entire defensive network, making subsequent Ukrainian drone operations progressively more effective. The Ukrainian OSINT group Tochnyi reported 492 Ukrainian strikes on air defence infrastructure between June 2025 and March 2026, while ISW geolocated 41 such strikes in January, 61 in February and 115 in March.

According to Defence Minister Fedorov, the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ technological advantage is now increasingly rooted in its emphasis on middle-depth strike drones. As he argues, ‘the more enemy assets are destroyed at operational depth, the fewer assault operations occur at the front’.

Alongside the termination of Russian military access to the Starlink satellite network in February 2026, the changing battlefield balance has been driven, first, by an exponential expansion of drone production. According to Ukrainian Ministry of Defence figures cited by the Financial Times, Kyiv produced almost 4.5 times more reconnaissance drones during the first four months of 2026 than during the whole of 2025, more than three times as many medium-range drones and approximately 50% more long-range systems. This surge has been enabled in part by growing support from Ukraine's European partners. According to experts at the Kiel Institute in their latest review of Western aid to Ukraine (Ukraine Support Tracker), allied military assistance averaged approximately €2 billion per month in early 2026. Support specifically earmarked for drone production increased from €400 million in 2022 to €1.2 billion in 2025 and reached €1.6 billion during the first four months of 2026 alone. Germany and Norway each allocated roughly €500 million for drone procurement during March and April, while the Netherlands contributed a further €250 million, equivalent to its entire contribution during the previous year.

These investments have enabled the rapid scaling of a new generation of strike systems, most notably the Hornet UAV produced by Perennial Autonomy as part of a partnership between Ukraine and Swift Beat LLC, a company associated with former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt. The Hornet is a strike drone with a wingspan exceeding 2.2 metres, a weight of approximately 15 kg and a cruising speed of up to 120 km/h. It can remain airborne for up to two hours, travel distances of up to 150 km and operate at altitudes reaching 5,000 metres in order to evade short-range air defence systems. The platform is also equipped with AI-enabled target acquisition capabilities. According to Defense Blog, unit costs range between $5,000 and $12,000. By comparison, the Russian ZALA Lancet X-51, which offers similar range and payload characteristics, costs approximately $68,000, notes the Kyiv Independent.

Russian forces first reported encounters with the Hornet in late February and early March, quickly nicknaming the new system ‘the Martian’. In early April, analysts geolocated a Hornet strike against a Russian counter-battery radar in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, approximately 35 km from the front line. On 8 May, the 1st Azov National Guard Corps released footage showing Hornet drones operating over Mariupol and Donetsk. By mid-May, the systems were reportedly striking targets along roads connecting occupied territories to Crimea via the so-called land corridor. Russian pro-Russian bloggers point to the difficulties in intercepting the Hornet. The author of the ‘Veteran’s Notes’ channel claims that they are ‘not visible on the video interception devices we have’. The ‘Witches’ Hammer’ channel, having analysed an intact Hornet that came into its possession, notes that ‘this is an extremely dangerous UAV — it is hard to hear, undetectable by sensors, it flies deep into our rear areas and is resistant to electronic warfare; moreover, as it is a winged drone, it is extremely difficult to shoot it down with small arms’. As the channel’s author adds in another post, it is generally impossible to jam the Hornet using electronic warfare means if it is equipped with a Starlink terminal or if the drone has already locked onto a target using its AI-enabled auto-lock system.

The Russian side is also investing significant resources specifically in drone forces. The aircraft manufacturing sub-sector (OKVED code 30.3; UAVs fall under code group 30.30.6 within it) showed growth of 30% in 2023, 35% in 2024 and 56% in 2025. Nevertheless, reports from military correspondents continue to indicate severe shortages of equipment, including unmanned systems, among frontline Russian units. A statement by First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov claiming that Russia is capable of producing more than 15,000 FPV drones per day was met with criticism from military correspondents. One of Russia’s leading Z-channels, ‘Rybar’, argued that production growth has been achieved partly at the expense of quality. Russia's earlier technological advantage in fibre-optic FPV drones is also reportedly eroding due to sharply rising costs. According to The Kyiv Independent, a 50 km spool of fibre-optic cable that previously cost around $300 has increased in price roughly eightfold. Rybar further identifies the absence of a centralised procurement and innovation system comparable to Ukraine's Brave1 initiative as a persistent structural weakness.

Taken together, these trends suggest that Russia's principal challenge lies not in generating individual innovations but in scaling them rapidly and systematically. This problem is particularly acute in drone warfare, where the operational impact of a new capability is directly related to the speed with which it can be deployed before effective countermeasures emerge.

The theatre of medium-range strikes as a new operational doctrine

By April 2026, the number of Ukrainian middle-depth strikes had doubled compared with March, claimed Ukrainian Defence Minister Fedorov. OSINT researcher Clément Molin has geolocated a total of 1,000 Ukrainian middle-depth strikes since the beginning of the year, of which approximately 35% targeted ammunition depots and storage facilities, 20% transport infrastructure, 12% energy assets and 10% air defence systems and radar installations. According to Molin, the true number of strikes is substantially higher.

During March and April, Ukrainian drones began systematically targeting railway infrastructure in occupied territories and Russian border regions, including Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kursk oblasts, where at least ten freight trains and fuel tankers were reportedly attacked, notes the ISW. By May, Ukrainian drones had begun to place key logistical routes under persistent fire control in Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts. These included the T-0509 Mariupol-Donetsk highway, a critical supply route for Russian forces north of Mariupol, as well as the M-14 and M-18 highways linking Russia with occupied Crimea. On 31 May, the Ukrainian Armed Forces announced that they had taken control of logistics routes in the occupied Luhansk region.

The Ukrainian command views these developments as merely an interim stage. On 27 May, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence announced plans to impose a ‘logistical lockdown’ on Russian forces. According to Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, Kyiv has allocated an additional UAH 5 billion ($113 million) for drone procurement for the most effective combat units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The objective is to expand the scale of middle-depth strike operations in order to ‘systematically destroy enemy logistics and supply lines, depriving the adversary of the ability to conduct offensive operations’. In effect, this is a plan for a form of aerial encirclement, an effort to sever at least portions of the Russian front line from rear-area support and sustainment networks.

At present, however, air control over several transportation routes in the Russian rear does not automatically translate into complete logistical paralysis, notes Oleksander Kovalenko. In his view, establishing a genuine ‘kill zone’ across occupied territories and the intermediate rear would require a substantial increase in the scale of drone operations. Current employment levels, measured in the hundreds of sorties per day, would need to expand into the thousands across the entire line of contact. However, Kyiv is taking steps in this direction. As part of the effort to achieve a ‘logistical lockdown’, Defence Minister Fedorov announced a reform of the drone procurement and supply system in the coming months, which will rely more heavily on competitive tendering procedures. Previously, a comparable reform in the procurement of 155 mm artillery ammunition generated savings of more than 16%.

The Russian army’s adaptation to this emerging threat may prove difficult, notes missile technology specialist Fabian Hoffmann. He compares the current wave of Ukrainian middle-depth strikes to the shock generated by the introduction of HIMARS systems in the summer of 2022. At that time, Russian forces suffered extensive losses of ammunition depots, logistics hubs and personnel concentrations. Russia ultimately adapted to the HIMARS challenge through two principal measures. First, critical logistics assets were moved further from the front line. Second, supply networks became increasingly decentralised. According to Hoffmann, however, neither solution offers an obvious answer to the current threat. Relocating logistics assets even further into the rear would reduce the efficiency of supply operations while doing little to address the growing vulnerability of transport corridors themselves.

At present, the Ukrainian command's strategy appears both ambitious and credible. Should declining manpower replacement rates be compounded by the disruption of supply routes, the result could be a genuine risk of collapse across at least some sectors of the Russian front. Whether such a scenario ultimately materialises should become apparent within the next three to five months. It remains possible that the Russian side will develop countermeasures. However, after two years of fears regarding the collapse of the Ukrainian line of defence, it is now possible to speak of a comparable risk emerging in the not-too-distant future for the Russian front. And this is the new reality of the fifth year of the Russia-Ukraine war.