Is this the moment Ukraine has been waiting for? | DW News

A turning point in the war in Ukraine?That got my attention.I believe the next six to nine months are a turning point.More precisely, I think the next six are the most critical.

OK, this guy is a senior commander.He's Ukrainian, which could explain the optimism.But he ain't got a crystal ball.I mean, predicting a turning point is impossible.However, you can anticipate the probability of one by analysing trends and key indicators and using mathematics.That's what the author of this new report has been doing.

It echoes the commander's statement, describing the start of what they call a new phase of the war.Co -author George Barras is Director of Innovation and Open Source Tradecraft at the Institute for the Study of War, a non -partisan, non -profit, public policy research group.So what is it here, a turning point or a new phase?

Thank you so much for having me, Ben.We're arguing that we're looking at a new phase.I think the language here is very important because really the reason why we wrote this paper is we've been seeing some new trends.The war has not been interesting to follow for casual observers for really the last three years since 2023.There's not been any major operational moves, and the war has been defined by positional warfare.That is, the lines move, but it's very slow.

that's for a variety of reasons.We're now starting to see some of the prerequisites that are necessary in our judgment to restore maneuver to the battlefield starting to come online and we're making the forecast that we think that the war is going to start breaking out of positional warfare and becoming more, featuring more maneuver.So it's not a stalemate?Absolutely not.The war is competitive.Currently right now the Ukrainians have wrestled

a decisive upper hand in intermediate range strikes, and we're arguing that between the more effective Ukrainian strikes, being able to hit truck drivers that yesterday were safe if they were 100 kilometres away from the front line, but now today are suddenly under very sharp threat.That can substantially weaken the front line troops who rely on those deliveries and supplies to maintain their positions.And the Ukrainians are not just doing this by accident.Their command has matured, their planning has matured, and we assess that they might be able to wrestle and get some more land back.

Okay, I'm going to go through some of this report with you soon, which I've been reading through.But if you can name just one thing, George, what do the Ukrainians have that makes you so optimistic?

They have better operational planning.They've thought drastically about why do the Russian forces advance?How does the Russian operational concepts work to actually facilitate the advances?And the reality is this.In 2025, the average Russian rate of advance was about 15 square kilometres per day.In 2026 so far, And in the last month, the average rate of Russian advance has been closer to two to three square kilometers of advance per day.

The main way the Russians advance are through these small infiltration groups of just one to two to three people who snake their way through the kill zone.But that's not a perfect way to actually do their advance.And it's not a far cry to make that become zero.The Ukrainians are thinking, how can they actually make that zero?And this intermediate range strike campaign, which seeks to destroy Russian logistics at depth, is one of the things that can drive this closer to zero.

OK, let's bring in that senior Ukrainian commander again to get his take on where both the Ukrainian and Russian sides are.right now.

The current state and positions across the entire front line are the best for Ukraine.I won't say it is super optimistic, but it is the best for Ukraine probably since autumn 2022.I believe that right now we see the best trends, meaning they show a certain reduction in casualties, specifically in personnel, nearly zero territorial losses, and even the restoration of some sectors.If the dynamic continues the way it is going now, then in three months, for example, the Russians will be in a worse position, not a better one, both on the battlefield and, possibly, regarding deep strikes.

a map which looks pretty familiar to me, and I guess a lot of people who've seen this map at home on the news, it doesn't really seem, despite what you were saying, to have actually changed all that much over the past few years.But in your report, you say Ukraine is starting to regain more ground than it's losing for the first time since 2023.Is that right?

That's correct.The pattern for the last several months of 2023 has been basically the Russians take more ground than the Ukrainians.But that trend began to be reversed in February of this year, when in the last two weeks of February, the Ukrainians actually gained more ground than they lost at a very small level, a level that's not big enough to actually impact the map of the country wide scale, but that's significant.And then in April of this year, the trend continued with the Ukrainians taking more ground.

What could dramatically change the look of that map then?Are we talking about supply lines to the Russians that could dramatically change things?

What would dramatically change things would be the ability to use tanks and armored personnel carriers in war once again.The positional warfare, the drone -dominant battlefield has denied the Ukrainians to be able to use tanks and armored personnel carriers to do sort of the conventional mechanized assaults that we read in the World War II textbooks.But what was really interesting is that in March, the Ukrainians started using armored personnel carriers for the first time in ways that were not possible 12 months ago.For example, in southern Ukraine, there was an attack, which again, didn't make a big dent in the map, but it showed a Ukrainian heavy vehicle operating almost 20 kilometers behind where the Russians were previously operating.That's substantial.And that actually told us, hey, something's going on here.

The Russian drones should be killing this vehicle, but they're not doing it the way that they used to.Why is that?And we started to study some of the reasons why, and the study in the course of research was the result of that report.

So this is what you're referring to when you say Ukraine is conducting a pattern of more frequent mechanized counterattacks at the tactical level for the first time since 2023.Why is it only happening now?

Well, a big part of it has to do with, I think, the command and control changes.So it used to be the case that about a year ago, different Ukrainian units essentially were looking at how do they deal with the emergency that is right in front of them.They were very reactive.Russian soldiers would come attack their positions, and Ukrainians would simply just put out the fires and eliminate the threat directly at them.Starting in fall of last year, the Ukrainians adopted a new, at scale, intelligence and battle command system.called Delta.

And what this did was enable Ukrainian commanders to start thinking more proactively.Instead of how do I eliminate the Russian soldiers in my immediate area of responsibility, how do I actually dismantle the operational machinery which pushes them to me before they even get to my command posts?And the Ukrainians then, I think, started to think about, okay, we can disrupt their logistics at scale.We can kill their drone pilots and their drone operators.We can make it so that when we want to counterattack, we get to fly drones, but they don't.And so it's those sorts of condition settings that have been successful in helping the Ukrainians right now at a small scale, reintroduce their own armor.

And what we're arguing in the paper is that this is not going to be a decisive advantage at this time, and it's not going to be a permanent advantage.We have a rare opportunity here where the Ukrainians appear to be able to, in very specific places, in geography and in time, achieve these effects to be able to get some vehicles back into the fight.And that if we properly resource this and lean into it for all that it's worth, then we might be able to get some better and bigger results.But this is a major inflection because vehicles are now back in the game in a way that they haven't been in two years.

And at the same time, you say that the Russian rate of advance is plummeting.That's a strong word.

Correct.It's all backed by the data.You know, we track the frontline every single day.And what we can tell you is the rate of advance for the last year was 15 square kilometers a day.In the first quarter of this year, it was closer to seven.And then in the last month, it's gone down closer to two to three.

The reason why is because the Ukrainian kill zone, you know, they perfected this art of positional defense.The Ukrainian drones have become extremely effective at destroying anything that comes into about 25 -30 kilometers of the frontline.and it's forced the Russians to have todisperse their forces in such a way that they're able to sort of advance through infiltrations, they're able to snake through some areas of the line, but those infiltrators are easily caught and killed.They're certainly not able to actually hold ground.And it results with a very, very slow form of maneuver.

And we saw this in Kupinsk last November, when Russian infiltrators managed to sneak their way into the urban environs of the city, But once the Ukrainians actually figured out the pipelines and the underground infrastructure they were using to get into the city, seal them off, lock them off, kill them, the Russian presence in the city has basically been eliminated with the exception of those few sewer dwellers that continue to try to operate in the city.But it's not effective.

George, I was working over the weekend and we were reporting on the strikes on Kiev, which were among the worst in four years of war.How does that match with what you're saying?

So I think the Russians are actually showing signs of desperation.I think the Kremlin is starting to understand that their method for how they wage war has its limits.The war of attrition actually no longer cuts in favor of Russia, because the Ukrainians have found ways to be able to actually make attrition work in favor of Ukraine.And the Russians now understand that if they can't achieve their goals on the battlefield, they have to achieve their goals in other ways.And I think there are two ways that they might be tempted to do that.One would be through strategic bombing.

essentially terrorism of the civilian population and try to force them to capitulate that way.But the historical record for the effectiveness of such strategies is quite limited.The other way that the Russians might attempt to achieve their goals is to indirectly threaten NATO, and basically demonstrates that we have these new wonder weapons, the Oreshnik and the intermediate -range ballistic missiles.If you don't give up on Ukraine, you don't allow us to have our way with Ukraine, then we might try to threaten you.These missile strikes are designed to send a strong political message, not necessarilyachieve decisive military effects.

What about the surprise factor, though?Because, I mean, yeah, the Russians have this hypersonic missile that they've only used a few times, but I guess it's pretty scary.I mean, it's there before you know it, and boom.On the other hand, the Ukrainians seem to have this innovativeness about them and creativity with their drones.They've been making it all the way to Moscow.

Yeah, that's the interesting thing about the Russian long range strike campaign is that for every year going back to 2022, they've tried to put the Ukrainians into the dark.They've tried to destroy the Ukrainian defense industrial base in the homeland.But those have never had a decisive effect on the front.It's terrible to be a Ukrainian civilian in Lviv or in Kiev or in Dnipro, especially during these strikes.But the strikes actually don't really weigh in a whole lot on changing the ability of our frontline brigade or frontline corps to hold the positions, just due to the fact of what the supply chain looks like for those units.So I see it as a form of desperation.

I see it as a form of trying to create problems, trying to put pressure not on the tactical front, but on the strategic rear, but it's not going to be decisive.All the literature, by the way, on strategic bombing campaigns throughout military history since the Second World War had basically shown that strategic bombing doesn't work if you're trying to get your adversary to capitulate.

Okay, back to the front line.What about the rate of casualties and replenishment of forces?I know you have your hands on a lot of data there.

Yeah, so we're limited in our ability to understand, from an original sourcing perspective, the exact casualty counts.But we can rely on classified government information that gets leaked by the press.We can rely on Ukrainian official statements.And all the reporting, be it from Bloomberg, citing Western officials, be it from the Ukrainian casualty counts, of which we can verify some but not all,it indicates that the Russian rate of casualties have actually been outpacing the recruitment since December of 2025.And I think that actually makes a lot of sense when you look at the geolocatable confirmable movements in the front line and how the front line's been moving slower over these last six months that trends with the reported increase in the casualties.

We're also seeing the Kremlin introducing some brand new means to try to recruit soldiers.There's been a lot of ink spilled on the Russian campaign to try to press students into military service, try to press the owners of companies to have employees join the military.So Putin is looking for new and different ways to actually staff the military, given that the casualty rates are just absolutely astronomical.

What about who has the upper hand in the air, on land, at sea, or a combination of these?Is that making a big difference?

Yeah.The paper doesn't touch on the sea component because ever since about 2023, the Ukrainians have been successfully denying the Russians to effectively operate in the maritime domain.The Black Sea fleet's basically been grounded and they've retreated further to the far parts of the eastern Black Sea.In the air, presently, I would argue that the airspace remains contested and neither side has strong control over the airspace.which is why the Ukrainians have been conducting a campaign to destroy Russian ground -based air defenses.We do write about this in the report, and it's actually an important part of this condition setting that I was talking about.

Condition setting is not just the logistics.It's also ensuring that Ukrainians can fly their own drones and more sophisticated drones higher and deeper into the airspace over Russian -controlled territory.And if you look at the number of air defense radars and ground based air defense systems that the Ukrainians have taken out.It's a huge number.The geography is quite impressive, and it's part of thereason why now actually these Ukrainian drones are able to go 100, 120 kilometers to the Crimea Rostov Highway and interdict these trucks.

It's because there was at least six months of a sustained effort to destroy the air defenses.That's interesting.I mean, it points to a higher level of campaign thinking, campaign design and sophistication about systematically degrading an adversary's capabilities.That level of thinking really wasn't there at this scale two years ago.

When it comes to attacks on supply lines, is that something that we need to be watching closely in the next months ahead?

Absolutely.The Russian way of war consumes a tremendous amount of resources.The Russians shoot a large amount of artillery every single day.They take about a thousand casualties per day.And look, soldiers have to eat.Their guns need bullets.

Machines need fuel and lubricants.And the Russians move materials in two ways.They move them through trains and they move them through trucks.And the Ukrainian campaign is targeting both.I think the theory for the Ukrainian concept here is if they can deny the Russians the ability to supply their frontline forces with the food and materials that they need, then over time and through attrition, these forces will become thinned out, units become thin, machines will break down.And then the Ukrainian unit with vehicles, after having established these preferable conditions for a success, can then attack into a weak part of the line, get a vehicle in there in a new way, and hopefully retake some positions.

George, one other thing in your report is that you say open data on Russia's battlefield performance indicates that the character of the war is shifting in favour of Ukrainian forces, at least for now.That sounds like there's a little tiny bit of doubt in there.

Sure.I mean, we wanted to hedge a little bit.because we were aware of the fact that oftentimes media will read a headline of this stature and then project it and make these grandiose changes about how the war is going to change, how all these things are definite, how Ukraine is definitely going to win.And the fact of the matter is, is that a lot of times these inflection points are ephemeral.These are temporary times where one side secures a decisive advantage over the other, but it's not always permanent.What we've seen is that in some parts of the war, the Russians have actually held the upper hand.

Notably, last year, the Russians were the ones that actually had the advantage in mid -range drone strikes.We've written extensively about that.And my colleague actually wrote, like my other co -author of this report, Kateryna Stepanenko, wrote two long -form papers about how the Russians had a superior long -range drone campaign.But now it appears that the Ukrainians do.And we wanted to hedge because we wanted to say that, essentially, This is a temporary opportunity.It should be exploited for all that it's worth, but it's not necessarily going to be the defining state for the war until the war ends.

OK, we'll leave it there.George Barris, thank you very much for joining us and taking us through the report from the Institute for the Study of War.

Thank you so much for having me, Ben.It's been a real pleasure.

Now, I always like to get a second opinion.So Robert Murritt was vice admiral in the U .S.Navy and is deputy director of the Institute for Security Policy and Law at Syracuse University.Bob, do you share George's confidence?

I do.Now, confidence is an important term, I think, but I certainly share his assessment that things are shifting in favor of the Ukrainians.There's plenty of evidence of that just in the last month or so, I would say.And I don't think there's any question that just the whole tone of what's happening on the battlefield and also diplomatically and furthermore in terms of the mobilization in Russia are ample evidence of that.And there's no question that's shifted.

It wasn't that long ago that, you know, everyone was calling this a war of attrition, that this was at a stalemate, that even diplomacy wasn't getting anywhere.This is a big shift.

It is indeed.And we're all hopeful for diplomacy and some kind of a solution to this as soon as possible.The casualties that Russia has been taking are horrific.And it's a tragedy for the Russian people by the very circular, isolated regime inside the Kremlin with Putin and his small group there.But the impact on Russia and I think the whole tone coming out from media sources on Telegram and elsewhere inside Russia suggests that The support that President Putin had for the conflict has gone down considerably.There's a much more open discussion in Russia now about trying to end this conflict as soon as they can.

Does this surprise you?I mean, at the very beginning of the war, it was extremely surprising to see how the Ukrainians fought back, defended their territory, drove the Russians out of the capital and back out of their country, basically, to begin with.Does this step now really take you by surprise as well, to see the Ukrainians suddenly gaining what George said was the decisive upper hand?

Yeah, Ben, I think, you know, the timing, you know, is it a surprise?Not really, you know, every one of the individuals that you need to listen to, like George and others at the Institute for the Study of War, but also personnel that I know in our own armed forces stationed in Europe that have dealt with the Ukrainians, and understand their middle leadership, that they all come back and tell you that the military, the tactical, operational and strategic leadership that theythe Ukrainians have inside their military, their political leadership, which is exceptionally strong, as you know, but that their battlefield successes are not that much of a surprise based upon the very practical assessment that we've got for the operational excellence that the Ukrainian forces have always demonstrated and continue to demonstrate to the present day.

And Ukrainian Brigadier General Andriy Beletsky told the Reuters news agency that Russia's military is becoming exhausted and may soon lose the battlefield initiative.I mean, it sounded like you also share that opinion about this exhaustion.But he says soon lose the battlefield initiative.When would soon be?

Well, you know, it is the fighting season, which will extend into the end of the summer and into September or so forth.Having said that, the new call for additional, significant additional mobilization inside Russia is ample evidence of the fact that they are not able to replace the casualties they're taking.And a comment on that, I mean, the casualties that Russia has had to take in this conflict are horrific.There are credible reports of more than 330 ,000 killed in action and a very lopsided ratio relative to the tragic Ukrainian casualties that are happening as well.But I think it's very clear that the Russian forces are exhausted.And there's ample evidence of that both on the battlefield, but also, as you said, in terms of the mobilisation.

I also heard the Ukrainians outnumber the Russians three to one in some places.Truth to that?

In a certain place, the Ukrainians have done a very effective job, as you know, Ben, it's an extremely long line of demarcation for fighting that extends for hundreds and hundreds of miles.But they have done a very effective job of lifting and shifting their forces.I mean, there are places where it's three to one, others where it's probably different in character.The biggest point, I think, is, you know, relative to the negotiations, Ben, the Russians really want to get a hold of their fortress belt in the Donbas and the Donetsk Oblast, and they've been trying to negotiate their way through that very much since the start of any negotiations.The Ukrainians are not going to let go of that, and they shouldn't.They've been reinforcing it for more than 10 years before the current conflict started.

And I think that their posture relative to that and what they're doing in the front lines has been exceptional.

On the front lines, what about on the water?You're a Navy man.The report didn't go into their naval capabilities.How much better are the Ukrainians on sea?

Far better.They have held at risk the The Russian Navy throughout the Black Sea, as you know, Ben, they've had to withdraw virtually all their maritime forces from Crimea and take them off to the extreme eastern ranges of the Black Sea.And even there, they've had some success in countering them with unmanned vehicles for ships that are actually anchored alongside, supposedly out of the reach of the Ukrainian forces, just never seem to be that far out.The Ukrainians have won the Battle of the Black Sea, and I'm glad to see as a Navy man that people are starting to pay a little bit of attention to that.But they've held them at risk.They've also been successful in opening up shipping lanes through the Trinket Straits to export grain, which is important for their economy.

But the maritime story, which doesn't get as much attention for reasons that we can understand, has very much been a Ukrainian victory in the Black Sea.

Also some impressive marine drones that I've seen in video footage in action.Let's bring up another map.You mentioned Crimea.This shows Russia's main supply lines, both of which connect Crimea.If the dynamic really is changing, what chances do the Ukrainians have of taking back Crimea, consideringthose two supply lines could become risky at some stage?

Yeah, Ben, I think, you know, of the five provinces that have been in play, I think Crimea would probably be the toughest enough to crack.I think, you know, Zaporizhia and other parts of the Donbas, the two provinces are probably more likely to be subject to negotiations and perhaps additional offensive action by the Ukrainians.If I had to rack them and stack them, I would say of the five of them, Crimea might be the toughest lift, even though they have hailed it hazard and there's a lot less happening in terms of tourism or just about anything else in Crimea now because of the success that the Ukrainians have had of holding that at risk as well.

So Bob, just finally, how do you see this war playing out in the next half year, which is said to be critical, according to that general I mentioned earlier?

Yeah, I think a lot of it has to do with the political pressure that is put on Putin, because, you know, this is his war.His and a small band of colleagues there in the Kremlin have shown a tremendous disregard for the Russian people, for their casualties.for the impact of the sanctions on their economy.And just, you know, Russia is in a bad place now.And a final comment on that, Ben, this is a tragedy for the Russian people.A lot of us enjoying my age right now can remember back to the, you know, the 1990s and so forth, when we expected Russia would come along and join the family of nations along with other countries like Poland and Latvia and other former Warsaw Pact countries, and it just hasn't happened.

And the leadership in the Kremlin, what they've done to Russia relative to the invasion of Ukraine and making themselves an international prize has just been a tragedy for the Russian people.And quite frankly, they deserve better.

You heard it from Robert Murritt, a Vice Admiral in the US Navy.Thank you very much for chiming in.It's been great to get your take, Bob.

Enjoyed chatting with you, Ben.Have a good evening.

And now I'd like to know what you think.Let us know what you think or who you think is going to win the war in Ukraine.I'm Ben Fazoulan.Hope to hear from you soon.