{"id":889,"date":"2026-06-03T15:14:59","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T15:14:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reliablemovingcrews.com\/?p=889"},"modified":"2026-06-03T15:14:59","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T15:14:59","slug":"russia-bets-on-air-war-as-it-stumbles-on-the-battlefield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reliablemovingcrews.com\/?p=889","title":{"rendered":"Russia bets on air war as it stumbles on the battlefield"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>Summary<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>KYIV, June 3 (Reuters) &#8211; Russia is pummeling major Ukrainian cities in an effort to sustain a sputtering war effort marked by a struggle to maintain momentum on the battlefield, where advances over the last month slowed to a near halt, \u200bresearchers say.<\/div>\n<div>Tuesday&#8217;s devastating air attacks on Ukraine &#8211; which killed 23 people and wounded more than 130 &#8211; followed months of stalling progress for Moscow, which has faced stiffer \u200cUkrainian resistance on the ground and mounting strikes on oil infrastructure and military-industrial sites from the air.<\/div>\n<div>While Russian forces are still grinding forward in parts of Ukraine&#8217;s eastern region of Donetsk, their glacial pace &#8211; combined with pushback elsewhere on the front line &#8211; threatens to weaken the Kremlin&#8217;s hand in any future peace talks, analysts say.<\/div>\n<div>President Vladimir Putin has insisted that the war cannot end unless Russia controls all of Donbas &#8211; which groups the Ukrainian regions of \u200bDonetsk and Luhansk. Ukrainian forces still hold around a fifth of Donetsk.<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;In the broader picture, if the Russians can&#8217;t find ways to pick up momentum significantly, the goal of \u200bcapturing Donbas this year is slipping out of their reach fast,&#8221; said John Helin, analyst and co-founder of the Black Bird Group, a Finnish \u2060conflict-analysis team.<\/div>\n<div>According to Black Bird Group&#8217;s latest data, shared with Reuters, Russian forces captured just 82 square km of Ukrainian territory in May, compared to 94 square km in April and \u200b25 square km in March.<\/div>\n<div>That stands in stark contrast to the much larger gains made over the same period last year, when Moscow&#8217;s troops took 538 square km, 226 square km, 185 square \u200bkm, respectively, according to Black Bird.<\/div>\n<div>The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank, said a series of escalating Russian strikes on Kyiv and other cities in recent weeks has been aimed partly at distracting from Moscow&#8217;s battlefield woes and the impact of Ukraine&#8217;s own long-range attacks inside Russia.<\/div>\n<div>On Wednesday, Ukrainian drones struck an oil export terminal in St Petersburg, hours before a major annual economic forum kicked off in the city, in \u200ba bid to embarrass the Kremlin.<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;Putin is using massive strike packages against Kyiv in an effort to break Ukraine&#8217;s will to fight as well as to disguise his weakness,&#8221; ISW said in an \u200bassessment on Tuesday, following the attack on Kyiv and Dnipro, a southeastern industrial hub.<\/div>\n<div>It was the third heavy assault on the Ukrainian capital within a month.<\/div>\n<div>Russia&#8217;s defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment for \u200cthis story. Putin \u2060has said his forces were advancing on the battlefield and could soon conclude the war.<\/div>\n<div>The Kremlin said on Wednesday it would continue striking Ukraine &#8220;systematically&#8221; in response to attacks like those on St Petersburg.<\/div>\n<h2>SLOW PACE OF GAINS<\/h2>\n<div>The Kremlin&#8217;s spring offensive has primarily targeted Ukraine&#8217;s so-called &#8220;fortress belt&#8221; of strategic cities in Donbas, stretching from Slovyansk and Kramatorsk in the north to Kostiantynivka in the south.<\/div>\n<div>Kyiv has vehemently refused to cede the remaining parts of Donbas that Russia has been unable to conquer in four years of war. And analysts say Moscow&#8217;s slower rate of advance means it is losing leverage.<\/div>\n<div>A \u200bdrone-infested &#8220;kill zone&#8221; along the 1,200-km front line, in \u200bwhich territory is fiercely contested and weakly \u2060controlled, makes concrete losses and advances difficult to assess. The front line is often blurred into a &#8220;grey zone&#8221;, with small pockets of troops from both sides intermingled across several kilometers.<\/div>\n<div>Earlier this week, Ukrainian open-source group DeepState said Russian troops in May saw their smallest monthly gains since October 2023 &#8211; \u200b14 square km &#8211; despite a 37.5% spike in assaults by Russian forces.<\/div>\n<div>It added that a delay in showing Ukrainian advances meant Kyiv&#8217;s \u200bforces were likely to have \u2060retaken more territory than Russia captured for the first time since a failed Ukrainian counteroffensive in 2023.<\/div>\n<div>DeepState&#8217;s map shows Ukraine made minor new gains in May around the village of Novoselivka, some 50 km southwest of Pokrovsk, compounding earlier gains near the same area after a successful winter counterattack.<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;The war is entering a new stage and it is important for the Ukrainian state not to lose the initiative,&#8221; the group said \u2060on Monday.<\/div>\n<div>A \u200bsenior Ukrainian commander, Brigadier General Andriy Biletsky, who commands Ukraine&#8217;s Third Army Corps, told Reuters last month that Ukraine had a six-month \u200bopportunity to knock Russia onto the back foot and strengthen its own hand for peace talks.<\/div>\n<div>Mathieu Boul\u00e8gue of the U.S.-based Center for European Policy Analysis said Moscow&#8217;s war machine is also grappling with shrinking industrial capacity due to Western sanctions, \u200bas well as dwindling stocks of nearly all weaponry.<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;They are really slowly, I think, changing the cost-benefit calculus of the Kremlin,&#8221; he said of Russia&#8217;s appetite for continuing the war.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/reliablemovingcrews.com\/?p=887\">CBS News fires Scott Pelley from 60 Minutes, sources say<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/reliablemovingcrews.com\/?p=885\">Trump says Vance and Rubio teaming up for 2028 run would be unbeatable<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/reliablemovingcrews.com\/?p=883\">Hilton, Becerra lead in tight primary race for California governor<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Russia is pummeling major Ukrainian cities in an effort to sustain a sputtering war effort marked by a struggle to maintain momentum on the battlefield, where advances over the last month slowed to a near halt, \u200bresearchers say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-europe"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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