Russia captured its smallest monthly slice of Ukrainian territory in years in May, according to RFE/RL's Russian service, Radio Svoboda, citing the Ukrainian mapping project DeepState. The slowdown has tilted the battlefield, with Ukraine clawing back ground for the first time since 2023. Analysts credit Ukraine's drone advances and Russia's mounting losses, while warning that Moscow has adapted before.
A record-low month
DeepState recorded just 14 km² seized by Russia across Ukraine in May, RFE/RL reported. That is the lowest monthly total in years of grinding advance. Analysts caution that the count is imperfect. The front is now a wide gray zone where neither side holds clear control, so figures shift with the methodology used.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed on 28 May that Russia's 2026 advance has slowed sharply. From January through 26 May, Russia took 104 km², plus 628 in an infiltration zone its troops entered but do not control. Over the same span in 2025, Russia seized 1,619 km². For the first time since 2023, Ukraine reclaimed more ground than Russia, ISW analyst George Barros told The Hill.
126 km² in February, 245 in January, some 630 last November — Russia’s gains drop while its attacks hold steady, Deep State says
Where Russia is still pushing
Russia keeps advancing slowly in Donetsk Oblast, its main axis. It is pressing west and north of Pokrovsk, where it has massed more than 100,000 troops. It is also attacking Kostiantynivka, the southern end of a belt of fortress cities, and pushing from the east toward Sloviansk at the belt's northern end. Ukrainian forces ran counterattacks of their own.
They drove Russian troops from Stepnohirsk south of Zaporizhzhia, and cleared areas in southeastern Dnipropetrovsk Oblast and around Kupiansk in Kharkiv Oblast.
What changed
Ukrainian, Western, and Russian sources all describe a shift in the balance. In winter, Russia lost access to Starlink satellite terminals, badly degrading its frontline communications. Ukraine, meanwhile, is expanding its drone production and use, and appears to have reached a new level of drone use in the kill zone, the lethal band near the front.
Ukraine launches “Logistics Lockdown” program with $113 million for middle-strike drones against Russian rear
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The expansion includes sharply scaled-up midstrikes and drone hits on Russian rear positions 100 to 150 kilometers behind the line.
US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll called Ukraine's Delta battlefield network incredible at a congressional hearing, saying it links every drone, sensor, and firing platform into one system.
Ukraine’s “Logistics Lockdown” sets all-time daily record since full-scale war began
Russia's manpower problem
Russia is finding it harder to recruit, even as its losses keep mounting. Ukraine's military openly aims to drain Russian manpower faster than Moscow can replace it.
The head of Britain's GCHQ signals intelligence agency, Anne Keast-Butler, said on 27 May that Russia has lost nearly half a million soldiers killed in the war.
Ukraine has 6 to 9 months to seize the initiative and strengthen its hand in possible talks, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a 31 May interview with CBS News. He said Russia began losing momentum in December 2025 under heavy losses, opening a window for negotiations.
"They couldn't occupy territories more during one month than they lose during the same month," he said.
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Ukrainian drones now roam occupied Luhansk skies — Third Army Corps knocks out Russian logistics in the region
