Ukraine’s capacity to impede the stream of Russian provides and personnel to the entrance traces has grown in latest days, from the southern areas of Zaporizhia and Kherson to the japanese entrance, and has compelled the Russian military to a standstill, in keeping with battlefield evaluation.
In the meantime, Ukraine has continued to strike refineries and munitions factories deep inside Russia, weakening its conflict effort.
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Sensing the rising power of their place, Ukrainian forces struck the town of St Petersburg as Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived there for a high-profile financial discussion board, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote him an open letter telling him he couldn’t win the conflict.
“Your assets are considerably dwindling,” Zelenskyy wrote. “You gained’t come up with the money for and political energy to proceed shopping for the loyalty of Russians, as you’ve been doing for 26 years.”
Zelenskyy invited Putin to face-to-face talks. Russia didn’t reply straight, nor did it acknowledge its deteriorating battlefield state of affairs.
There’s one space the place Zelenskyy conceded the Russians had a bonus.
“You hope that ballistics will do for you what every part else has didn’t do,” he wrote to Putin.
Russia produces 120 ballistic missiles a month, Zelenskyy informed the Ukraine-NATO Council, twice as many because the Patriot interceptors the US produces.
“In comparison with the present challenges, that is nothing,” Zelenskyy informed Face the Nation.
The effectiveness of Russia’s ballistics was demonstrated on June 2, when it fired a cocktail of 656 drones and 73 missiles into Ukrainian civilian areas, killing 23 individuals and injuring at the very least 130.
Ukraine intercepted 91.7 % of the drones and 90.6 % of the cruise missiles, however solely 27 % of the ballistic missiles, in keeping with its Air Pressure.
Serhiy Beskrestnov, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, stated Russia additionally retains a strategic stockpile of 180-250 Iskander ballistic missiles, in contrast to different kinds of missiles, that are fired inside just a few months of manufacture, or drones, that are fired inside two weeks of manufacturing.
“Ballistics is the final Russian argument within the conflict,” Zelenskyy wrote, and known as for the US to permit it to provide Patriot interceptors underneath licence.
The US has refused to take action, however Zelenskyy has pledged to provide a Ukrainian model of the Patriot system by the top of 2027.
On Could 31, Ukraine’s third Military Corps stated it had established hearth management over the cities of Luhansk, Starobilsk, Alchevsk, Bryanka, and Kadiivka, all 50 to 90 kilometres (30 to 55 miles) inside occupied Luhansk, and was in a position to strike armoured automobiles and ammunition depots on the Russian border, 205km (130 miles) away.
It was the primary time Ukraine declared it had such interdiction energy over the japanese area.
Russian army reporters confirmed Ukraine’s functionality to strike queues of Russian vehicles lumbering by means of border checkpoints.
Along with site visitors, Ukraine has additionally begun putting coaching centres.
Ukraine’s Unmanned Techniques Forces commander, Robert Brovdi, stated that on Saturday his forces struck the Tryokhizbenko coaching floor of the Russian third Military in Luhansk, incurring at the very least 30 casualties.
Ukraine has been continuously bettering the vary and efficiency of its drones, and has reportedly now despatched a first-person view drone, usually a short-range weapon, greater than 100km (60 miles) into enemy territory.
Ukraine’s Beskrestnov confirmed that Kyiv was additionally utilizing drones to remotely mine main provide roads in occupied Ukraine, after this was reported on Russian army reporters’ websites.
Russia at a standstill
Ukraine’s techniques appear to be successful. Battlefield analysts have come to the conclusion that Russia is basically at a standstill.
The Institute for the Examine of Battle, a Washington-based suppose tank, lately assessed that Russia had made a web acquire of simply 104 sq. kilometres (40 sq. miles) this yr.
Prior to now week, it stated it had used new proof to reassess these positive aspects at 40.64sq km (15sq miles), together with December 2025, judging that lots of the areas beforehand considered Russian-controlled had been merely infiltrated and contested.
Over the identical interval, the ISW stated, Russia misplaced management of 281.1sq km (108sq miles) it had occupied, as Ukraine contested these lands.
The open supply intelligence undertaking DeepState estimated that Russia had gained a complete of 14sq km (5 sq. miles) in Could, its worst efficiency since September 2023.
“There are virtually no protected roads for the occupier within the south and east of our nation,” wrote Zelenskyy on his Telegram messaging channel.
Russian International Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed that Moscow had heard Zelenskyy loud and clear, describing the Ukrainian chief’s intentions as being “to recapture these lands”.
Russia has insisted on shuttle diplomacy by way of Washington, however confirmed disappointment with the truth that United States President Donald Trump’s efforts to reposition the US as a impartial gave the impression to be failing.
“Proper now, they’re saying within the EU: ‘We’re not mediators, we’re firmly on Ukraine’s aspect’. I used to be stunned that [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio stated the identical factor the opposite day whereas talking in Congress,” Lavrov informed RT Arabic.
He noticed that as a departure from what Trump had promised Putin at their Alaska summit in August 2025.
Ukraine’s deep strikes
Ukraine additionally stored up its long-range strike marketing campaign in opposition to Russian oil and defence infrastructure.
On Could 30, it destroyed a ballistic missile launcher and two Tupolev-142 long-range strategic bombers on the Taganrog airbase on the Sea of Azov.
On Sunday, it hit the Saratov and Rostov oil refineries, adopted by the Ilsky refinery, one in every of Russia’s largest, and the Novoshakhtinsky refinery on Tuesday.
On the eve of the St Petersburg Worldwide Financial Discussion board, Ukraine struck the St Petersburg oil terminal and closely broken a corvette, the Boykyi, berthed within the metropolis.
There have been quite a few different strikes on oil storage tanks and pumping stations.
