There is an ongoing Ukrainian propaganda campaign to depict the country as winning the conflict with Russia.
The campaign is accompanied by drone attacks on energy targets within Russia. While burning fuel tanks at this or that of many Russian refineries may look impressive the effects on Russia have so fare been mere nuances. Ongoing drone attacks on Crimea have led to inconveniences for the inhabitants of the island.
The Ukrainian campaign is supported by the Europeans who are trying to pull the U.S. back into the conflict. The U.S. however had never left. After the meeting between President Trump and President Putin in August 2025 in Anchorage there was talk about an agreement between the two presidents but no announcement of any specifics.
After the meeting Trump had called for Ukraine to leave the Donbas area to make peace with Russia. But he never applied any pressure to achieve that outcome. Meanwhile U.S. intelligence and weapon support for Ukraine continued.
For a while Russia had seemed to believe in the ‘sprit of Anchorage’ and had expressed hope for an end on the conflict along Trump’s proposal. That view has long since gone away.
Now U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has officially dismissed any talk of an Anchorage agreement:
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump failed to secure any final agreements on Ukraine settlement at their meeting in Anchorage.
“There was no agreement in Alaska. There was a proposal in Alaska, but there was no agreement in Alaska. If there had been an agreement, we would have had an end to the war,” Rubio told journalists in Manama, the capital of Bahrain, in the course of his state visit.
Now Rubio’s underling even declares that Ukraine is winning:
Speaking ahead of the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Gdańsk, US Deputy Secretary of State Jeremy Levin said the conflict has shifted in Kyiv’s favor, Mezha reported.
“As of now, we are in a position where Ukraine is winning the war at this moment” Levin said, adding that the situation on the battlefield has shifted in Kyiv’s favor, allowing Washington to speak about Ukraine’s success as a current reality instead of a distant goal.
Levin said that the conflict dynamics have reversed, with Ukrainian troops now advancing, while Russian forces are effectively waiting for winter. The shift in dynamics has been made possible by Ukraine’s ongoing strikes on critical oil infrastructure in Russia, essentially increasing the cost of the war for Moscow and forcing it to divert resources away from the front, he said.
The facts on the ground are contradicting the view of Mr. Levin. According to Ukrainian frontline news Russian troops are slowly but steadily gaining ground (machine translation):
Russian troops have occupied most of Kostiantynivka in the Donetsk region.
This was reported by a Ukrainian fighter with the call sign “Flour”.
According to him, Russian units are already using most of the city to accumulate personnel, drones and firepower.
Only certain microdistricts at the northwestern entrance to the city remain under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine or in the gray zone. At the same time, the line of contact continues to change rapidly.
Another noticeable advance, according to the military, was recorded in the Sloviansk direction. Russian units have established control over Yurkovka and continue fighting for Rai-Oleksandrivka (the Russian Federation claims that this village has already been captured).
At the same time, pressure is increasing in the Mykolaivka area, where Russian troops are trying to disrupt Ukrainian logistics with strikes on supply routes through Vysokoivanivka and on facilities in the area of the Slavyansk thermal power plant.
In the Pokrovsky direction, Russian forces, according to Muchnoy, occupied the Zaporizhzhia mine and advanced along the forest belts north of it. The situation in Rodinskoye is also complicated, where the northern part of the city was actually isolated.
At the same time, it is noted that Russian units are trying to turn this area into a local “bag”, controlling supply and movement routes with the help of drones and firepower.
The Ukrainian army is in its ever worst position. Moral is terrible, losses are high and the recruitment methods are getting more and more brutal.
The Ukrainian Commander in Chief General Syrski has long insisted on creating new ‘assault’ brigades instead of filling up the shrinking regular brigades which attempt to hold grounds.
A recent investigation by the Ukrainian outlet Babel reveals murder and torture in the recruit training camps of the 425th Assault Regiment Skala (Rock) (machine translation):
A battered head, torn hands, a chiseled lower back, dirty and broken fingers. In this state, 35-year-old Oleksandr Semenov came to the hospital in Kropyvnytskyi in January 2026. He said that he escaped from the 425th separate assault regiment “Rock”, where he was abused, beaten, tied to an ATV and dragged on the ground. In a video taken by local doctors, the man said that he witnessed at least nine suicides in the unit, briefly described their circumstances and named one of the dead. The video at Babel’s disposal was filmed on January 23, 2026, and a few days later, Oleksandr Semenov died in the hospital. The official cause of death is pneumonia.
“The Rock” is the largest assault regiment in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Unofficially, it is also called “Syrsky’s”. It is not part of any corps, but is directly subordinate to the high command. “The Rock” took part in the most difficult battles of the Russian-Ukrainian war. Despite this and combat merits, the regiment is often criticized by the military, journalists and relatives of those who got there. Due to accusations of heavy losses, the regiment has gained a reputation as “meat”. However, “The Rock” loses people not only on the battlefield, but even before combat — during military training – it counted 26 deaths.
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The newly recruited soldiers, snatched from the streets, are living in guarded tents. Going to the toilet is only allowed in groups and under the eyes of an armed soldier. Grounds around the training camp are mined. Torture is routine. People who try to flee will be shot and/or get brutalized to death.
Strana reports that the “Rock” is far from the only such unit.
The mass death of Ukrainian soldiers due to torture while in training is probably what the State Department considers as ‘winning’.
Russia has meanwhile initiated a new campaign against Ukrainian transport infrastructure and logistics. Targets are locomotives, truck depots, large post office warehouses (which run Ukraine’s military logistics), oil storage facilities and petrol stations of which more than 150 have been destroyed so far.
The slow squeeze continues. Ukraine isn’t winning.