In the end, it was only ever a matter of time. As mighty as the Surovikin Line’s defenses might have been, representing often quite literal generations of Soviet engineering assets, there was little they could do once breached. Russian forces were depleted, running low on ammo, let alone good food or medical supplies, and the very cream of Russia’s offensive forces had already been thrown into the meat-grinder of the South. While it was true that Ukraine itself had consumed a prodigious quantity of munitions to get as far as they had, Russia was basically feeding directly from increasingly overtaxed factories to the frontline itself.

Over the winter of 2024, which proved to be an unusually cold one, the frozen trenches of the southern steppes would grant Russian defenders no respite. First to fall was the 90th Guards Tank Division, a unit that, by its abandonment of the salient, had barely any functional tanks to speak of–its old T-72As long since broken down and abandoned, if not destroyed outright; its self-propelled guns mere pieces of twisted metal after the intensive Ukrainian counterbattery campaigns. Despite the appendation of the “guards” name, it was at this point largely made up of a hodgepodge of whomever could be scraped up, a unit that, as many had in this long war, had been destroyed and reconstituted already more times than could be counted.

The Marines and VDV forces guarding the southeastern edge of the front facing Beryansk, however, would show themselves at least a little better; holding a surprisingly bitter defense against renewed Ukrainian assaults. Even with much of the VDV annihilated in the first year of the war, and the Marines reinforced by random sailors shanghaied into Ukraine, they were able to hold up against a nominally superior Ukrainian force. It wouldn’t really matter in the long run, though. Freshly intensified Ukrainian infiltration of the left bank of the Dnepr, combined with a free hand to exert pressure on the 58th Guards Combined Arms Army and its component units [not to mention the 4th Tank Guards Division, which had already been effectively destroyed twice in the war], resulted in the gradual erosion of the positions to the point where the coastal roads were in danger of being cut off.

The Special Repositioning Operation

It was only after weeks of attempting to slowly break the news to Putin himself that permission was finally, finally granted for the withdrawal from Kherson Oblast to begin in earnest. It didn’t take long for the Ukrainians to catch on to what was happening, though. While elite Russian units managed to prevent the Ukrainians from turning the retreat east into a complete rout, the evacuation of Russian forces to defensive positions on the Crimean Isthmus was much less successful. The 58th CAA lost a lot of personnel in the withdrawal, and more importantly, much of its heavy equipment–most of which was in a poor state of operation and couldn’t make the move. Even the sabotage of Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant was botched; as while much of the control electronics, diesel generators and associated machinery was destroyed, the actual reactors, turbines and other heavy hardware was left untouched, turning the plant from a complete loss into a mere “royal mess”.

Melitopol fell to the Ukrainians with surprising ease, just going to show the difficulty of conducting a retreat–not that there were any great options there, as the city would have been almost immediately cut off and completely isolated had the Russians chosen to remain there. By Spring 2025, the land bridge was history, and with it the primary gain that Russia had actually realized from the entire war. A brief attempt at a counteroffensive in Donbas quickly turned into another charnel-house in two weeks, with columns of Russian tanks being annihilated in short order. The war split into two fronts; Donbas, and Crimea.

The Fall of Crimea

While Ukraine has thus far shown itself stubbornly stuck in the Soviet mode of thinking–not the least because it has lacked many of the assets which enable Western forces to act the way they do, but often because of simple mechanical limitations–Crimea proved to show the return of the more modern mode of warfare that analysts across the internet had been talking about since at least the Turkish drone wars of 2020.

Isolated, the peninsula rapidly became more so as Ukraine quickly moved to shut off the Sea of Azov. The Kerch Bridge, too, was not long for this world; even the might of Russian air defense couldn’t keep it protected for long, with three of the massive pylons holding up its great spans being shattered into dust by Storm Shadow missiles. The Sea of Azov quickly became a no-go zone for the few Russian vessels not smart enough to evacuate by the time the Ukrainians reached the beaches, and even the Kerch Strait proved too dangerous to ferry as GLSDB attacks struck targets there daily.

That being said, the Crimean Peninsula was not yet an island. Russia immediately commenced an air and sealift to continue supplying the island, even reinforcing it with fresh marines, as Putin issued orders directly to newly promoted Colonel-General Lyamin, head of the 58th Combined Arms Army directing him to take “not one step back”. Gerasimov, for his part, declared “Fortress Crimea” and stated that the peninsula would never fall again to the Nazi invaders, apparently having learned nothing from that period of European history.

The initial Ukrainian presence along the isthmus itself was actually relatively minimal, but they didn’t need masses of troops defending that sector. No, Crimea was to be won in the skies. After a series of Tomahawk strikes on airbases and, perhaps more importantly, fuel depots in the region, Ukraine began to finally employ its F-16s as they were meant to be used. Russian air defense, confined to the peninsula with a limited number of systems despite attempts to reinforce it, were no match for the sustained attrition possible from Ukrainian artillery, HARMs, and other long range fires. While the VVS attempted to mount a defense, it found itself badly electronically outclassed and in particular discovered that its missiles were significantly outranged by the American-made AMRAAMS carried aboard Ukrainian Vipers. Soon, Russia was starting to lose its valuable military airlifters, in ones and twos, and then a whole half dozen–the airlift was effectively called off, limited to low-level flights dropping cargoes in eastern Crimea and helicopters sneaking over the seas providing a constant trickle of supplies–though even this leak would eventually be plugged.

The seas proved no more hospitable for the Russians, as while initially they were able to use Feodosia and the other smaller ports to resupply from Novorossiysk, as long-range air defense on Crimea was attrited, this rapidly became untenable, with Ukrainian strikes sinking a plethora of small craft, civil and military alike, being used for these operations.

And, of course, once the air defenses were dealt with, it was time for the Bayraktars to rule. Having largely taken a quieter profile in the war directing artillery and providing reconnaissance support, the Turkish-made drone was back with a vengeance, striking fear into the hearts of Russian troops across the isthmus as rockets and shells were directed with quite literal laser precision onto specific bunkers and even individual infantrymen, while drone-dropped munitions targeted both military equipment but also tanker trucks and railyards across the peninsula.

By the time Ukrainian infiltration units began moving in earnest during early summer of 2025, the lines on the Isthmus were weak as paper; and the Russian resistance across the island as a whole was demoralized and disorganized. Once the isthmus was crossed, the rest proved surprisingly easy for the Ukrainians; by the fall, most of the peninsula was in Ukrainian hands, though fighting around Simferopol and the southern mountains proved surprisingly brutal, and units held out on the Kerch Peninsula as well.

Still, especially after Feodosia fell and air resupply became virtually impossible, not just improbable, it was only ever going to be a matter of time. Ukrainian troops systematically isolated Simferopol, then Sevastopol; they pushed onto the Kerch peninsula and, once through those defensive lines, quickly overran the remainder. Sevastopol itself held out all the way until January of 2026, putting up a good fight before falling. The result was the complete loss of the freshly reacquired province and with it 70,000 men captured; a body-blow to not just the Russian Army but the Russian Politic.

In fact, the Ukrainians now occupy not just a Russian-majority territory, but one that still has many Russian settlers brought in by the post-2014 incentives and even a few particularly unlucky tourists resident upon it, something which has caused no small amount of tension. The population as a whole remains pro-Russia and pro-Putin and routinely flies Russian flags and banners, which the Ukrainians sometimes take down. Many volunteered to help fight in the siege and were taken prisoner. Others have been arrested for various crimes from embezzlement to espionage to high treason, and a plethora of government officials and bureaucrats have been interred in Ukraine pending Kyiv’s decision as to what to do with them. The seizure of property owned by Russian commercial and government entities, along with the reappropriation of assets that have changed hands in the past decade, have added to the tension between Ukrainian soldiers on the island and most of its residents.

Back At The Home Front…

To say that Russia is grim is an understatement. That Russia continues to hobble on at all is more a reflection of a general fatalism about the whole thing than anything. Manpower remains Russia’s greatest concern, with young men continuing to trickle out of the country–largely to Central Asia now, though surprising numbers are turning up everywhere from Thailand to Tanzania. Core inflation has finally been realized, and in good news for a few Russians, wages are shooting up, especially for jobs in manufacturing and other low-skill industries.

Russian conscription efforts have become increasingly desperate. While conscripts–at least those from the core cities–remain either on the Russian side of the border or maintaining secondary facilities inside Ukraine, unloading pallets, fixing vehicles and doing other menial support work, finding those who are willing and able to fight has become difficult at best. The remote ethnic regions are largely depopulated; many young men have fled. An effort launched to recruit men interned in mental asylums has had… decidedly mixed results, with more being found by relaxing the intelligence requirements [resulting in a cadre dubbed “Ivan’s Idiots” by the Western internet] and rounding up alcoholics and promising them free vodka. The result has been a significant diminishment, if that is even possible, in the quality of remaining soldiery.

The sanctions regime has remained a constant pressure on Russian business; and while most are finding ways to keep on doing something, profit margins are thin to negligible and foreign investment in Russia is effectively nonexistent as everyone waits to see how things play out. And the burden of financing the war has been borne, in part, by a general sort of neglect that is visible in everything from increasingly poor garbage collection to chronically late trains as Russia neglects vital maintenance and upkeep across its economy. Similarly, industrial productivity has begun to sag as software becomes obsolete and hardware purchased from Europe, Japan and the United States has begun to wear out; with one of the more obvious examples being a significant contraction in the number of domestic flights within Russia–while a bare handful of domestically made airliners have been built, their number pales in comparison to the number of Boeings and Airbuses that are sitting parked and slowly rotting across Siberia.

Nobody is brave enough to call out the obvious need for political change, but the number of stalwart defenders of the regime has shrunk to miniscule proportions. Nobody is pulling the trigger on Putin yet–but they’ll have their cell phone out recording you while you do it, not even bothering to pretend to stop you. There is some political action among the cadres of the Russian Army, where a few good officers have made it out, but they feel effectively powerless to do a thing. Still, something will change. It must, especially with Putin’s increasing pallor and constant rumors of illness orbiting him.

While the situation is not great for Ukraine, it is better, especially compared to the dark days of the early war. The economy has begun to mount a recovery of sorts; and not a few refugees have in fact returned as the constant Russian attacks are increasingly flailing and blunted by Western defensive systems. There is even a little hope for the destroyed cities of the East and South [Simferopol and Sevastopol now among them] that they may be rebuilt sooner rather than later. Morale remains strong, with a steady diet of victories sustaining public support, with the fall of Sevastopol being only the latest–soon superseded itself by the Third Battle of Donetsk Airport, which saw the 93rd Mechanized Brigade, sometimes called the “Cyborgs” for their role in the Second Battle of Donetsk Airport, returning to the scene and seizing the patch of tarmac once again for the blue-and-yellow flag, showing just how far Ukraine has come since 2014. That being said, Ukraine remains scant on manpower and lacks the sheer mass of infantry to engage in massive offensives indefinitely. But is there even much left to conquer?

Donbas

While the battle for Crimea has proven a high-tech, modern sort of affair, the fall of Beryansk proved a much nastier slog–as did the Second Battle of Mariupol afterwards, with Ukrainian troops systematically advancing through the countryside to isolate the city in some of the few mobile armored battles this war has seen–not that the Russian T-62s were much match for Ukrainian Leopards–where Russian airborne troops put up almost as bitter a fight as the Marines and Azov fighters whom held out in the city in 2022 for longer than anyone could have anticipated. The city remains in ruins, of course, even more so than before, but the victory over the shattered remains of the Azovstahl just in time for 2025’s Independence Day celebrations was a great symbolic moment, perhaps the greatest in the war since the original Azovstal or the sinking of the Moskva. The war has finally come full circle, now, with Russian forces pushed back to the defenses erected by the DPR and LNR in 2014-22–not that there’s anyone left in the DPR or LNR to man them, mind you.

The Military Situation As It Stands In Summer 2026

The Ukrainian Armed Forces stand poised to launch their last offensive to annihilate the remnants of the once-mighty Russian Army in Donetsk and Luhansk. Anyone can see what they’re doing; planning on launching simultaneous pincers from the south east of Mariupol, at Soledar and Bakhmut, and in the north of Luhansk at Svatove. In all likelihood, they’ll be successful; the odds of Russia salvaging the situation at this point are essentially nil; though the besieging of the cities is expected to extoll a considerable cost in Ukrainian blood and treasure for already-dead metropolises. Manpower is running short, and much of the equipment in Ukrainian hands is badly worn and keeping it operational is a major effort in of itself, but ultimately, it has what it needs to prevail.

The Russian Army, these days, pretends to fight, as their masters in Moscow pretend to pay them. Their modern tanks, artillery and electronic warfare systems are gone. Their artillery barrels have been lost to counterbattery fire, exploded from overuse, and those that remain in service are practically worn smooth and unable to provide any sort of accurate support–not that more than a few thousand artillery shells trickle in across the border on any given day in any case. The Air Force launches a few halfhearted sorties every day to keep the Ukrainians at least a little wary, but their airframes are largely grounded and lacking spare parts or have long since passed their flight-hour lifespans–besides, ground-crews have been sent to the front now, so who’ll fix them anyway? The Black Sea Fleet no longer exists as anything more than an administrative concept and Russian warships hardly sortie anymore, for similar reasons; many sailors–even technical experts–have been sent to fight as well, with only the submarine branch and the strategic forces untouched [and commanding substantial bribes to get into now].

Despite the occasional attempt at an offensive, the Russian Army has no success to point to in the past two years, only a record of failure; and while some good officers have survived, especially above the field grades anyone competent has long since left, been purged, or killed. There are no NCOs to speak of, and the technical experts of the army are largely dead; anything more complex than a rifle results in difficulty. They are one hard push away from being destroyed, and Moscow knows it, the message having finally been transmitted with the fall of Sevastopol. There probably won’t be any last, glorious defense. Putin and those few he relies upon have finally come to the realization that doing so will only mean a certain doom, as opposed to the mere possibility of one if they make peace, which momentum inside the Kremlin is rapidly building to. As for what that will look like–well, the world wonders. Ukraine certainly does. And we shall soon see it.

Casualties:

Ukraine: 80,000 dead, 150,000 wounded, 5,000 captured

Russia: 230,000 dead, 400,000 wounded, 100,000 captured

Ungodly amounts of equipment which I will not even bother tabulating, sorry [though honestly more is being lost to mechanical attrition than actual combat at this point]