Ukraine Has Retaken Over 400 Km This Year As Russian Forces Reel

2026 is half over as of today - and the war has changed dramatically in Ukraine's favor. The Russians have lost over 400 square kilometers of territory to Ukrainian counteroffensives in several sectors. And in Kostiantynivka, contrary to Kremlin propaganda, objective observers assess that the Russians have only gained a third of the ruined city, which may become yet another kill zone trap, as others have before. 

Although the Kremlin - and Putin, personally - continues to claim a false narrative at odds with reality, it is increasingly apparent that global perceptions no longer match Russian distortions. JL

The Institute for the Study of War reports:

The battlefield situation has dramatically changed in the past year. Ukrainian counterattacks liberated much of Kupyansk late 2025, over 400 square kilometers in southern Ukraine in Winter and Spring 2026, and several settlements in western Zaporizhia Oblast since late April 2026. ISW has evidence that Russian forces maintain a presence in only 36.98% of Kostyantynivka. Ukrainian forces have also engaged in highly successful intermediate- and long-range strike campaigns against Russian military assets and oil infrastructure, which are having cascading effects on Russian logistics and battlefield operations as well as causing gasoline shortages and economic frictions across Russia and occupied Ukraine. Putin continues to make greatly exaggerated claims that do not match battlefield realities in order to obscure the growing strain Russia faces.

Since 2022, Russian Forces Have Missed 15 Putin Deadlines For Taking Donetsk

Awkward. It can be so deflating to one's reputation for toughness in the digital era, because it is easy to keep score. Between the Russian invasion in 2022 and now, President Putin has set 15 different deadlines for the Russian army to capture all of Ukraine's Donetsk oblast. There have been three separate deadlines set this year alone. 

But aside from the two most recent deadlines set in the future, the Russian military has failed to achieve any of them - and those two in the future aren't looking like good bets either. JL

Sevinj Osmanqizi reports in the Kyiv Post:

Since the start of the invasion, the Russian army has been given 15 deadlines for capturing Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Russia’s first deadlines came in 2022: March 31, May 9, June 1, Sept. 15 and Dec. 31. In 2023, Putin set two more deadlines for capturing Donbas: March 1, and then, when that failed, Dec. 31. In 2024, there were again two such deadlines. In 2025, when Russia tried to convince US President Donald Trump that Ukraine would fall, Moscow set three more final dates for capturing Donetsk region: Sept. 1, Dec. 1 and Dec. 25. This year, Russia again pushed back the target. First, it was March 31. Then Sept. 1. Now, the deadline has been moved to Dec. 31. "The million Russians who have not yet been mobilized into the army and are arguing in gas lines should think about what awaits them.”

As Chip Prices Rise, Investors Focus On How AI Stack Really Makes Money

Good news. The 'throw money at everything remotely related to AI' era appears to be winding down. The absurd data center build out costs, insupportable power and water demands, questions about actual increases in productivity as well as real sales and profits on top of all the related concerns are finally registering with investors. 

And what is following is not a repudiation of AI, but a much more interesting and nuanced assessment of how money can and will be made from this technology (Gosh, just a like for a real-live business!). Pardon the sarcasm, but what the rise in chip prices - and their manufacturers' stocks - is encouraging is a series of detailed analyses of where, in the chain of production, sales and marketing, profits will most likely be made. And there is one word for this evolutionary development: healthy. JL

James Mackintosh reports in the Wall Street Journal:

The explosive growth in Micron’s profit in the latest quarter is good news for shareholders, but it comes at the expense of the AI companies to which it sells fast-memory chips. Micron and SK Hynix are both up 290%, while Microsoft and Meta are down, Amazon’s flat and Alphabet’s only up 8%. Since April, when the memory stocks accelerated up, all the hyperscalers are down, along with Nvidia. This could be traders shifting money out of the last big wave of AI gains to chase chip stocks. (But) there are only three ways to deal with higher chip prices. Make lower profits (short-term), find efficiencies so you need less (in the long run), or wait for more supply (as fat profits encourage production). All three are likely in AI, and investors need to think carefully about which parts of the AI stack will make money, and how long it will last.

Newly Deployed Russian Combat Soldiers Now Survive Only 20-35 Minutes

Dead men walking The implications of that statistic are staggering. The typical survival rate of a Russian recruit, from reporting for training to deployment is ten days to three weeks. But once they are in combat, their average life expectancy is, at most, 35 minutes. 

Which is one of the reasons why the Kremlin can no longer find enough recruits to keep fueling its war. JL

The New Voice of Ukraine reports:

A newly deployed Russian army recruit survives for just 20 to 35 minutes once they reach frontline combat positions, a staggering drop. After signing a military service contract, a Russian soldier can expect to live for only 10 days to three weeks total — from the moment they arrive at a training ground to their death in battle. Recruitment of new contract soldiers into the Russian army has simultaneously dropped by 30% in 2026. Since the beginning of 2026, total Russian military casualties had exceeded 141,500 troops, with over 83,000 classified as irreversible losses.

Ukraine's New Air Power Paradigm Scales Systematic Russian Destruction

Pictures tell more than a thousand word, but the data reveal that Ukraine's interdiction campaign is working: this year, its forces are making net gains of territory compared to the Russians; the Kremlin is losing 8,000 more troops a month than it can recruit and there are now 8 Russians killed or wounded for every Ukrainian. 

And this does not include the impact of Ukraine's longer range attacks on factories, refineries and other industrial targets essential to the Kremlin war effort. Ukraine is being systematic, relentless - and effective. JL

Jillian Melchior reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Ukraine has a “new paradigm for air power” achieving “the same effects” using “cheaper, less sophisticated” but “equally effective” means. Midrange attack drones are the essential weapon of this strategy. The goal is to “collapse the Russian military from behind,” destroying and disrupting support functions that prop up the front. Ukraine has “quadrupled” interdiction strikes in recent months, forcing the Kremlin to make tough choices about how to allocate air defenses and what to leave exposed.  “Terrain-holding is increasingly untenable for Russian forces under-resourced from the rear and suffering attrition from the front." Ukraine liberated more ground than it’s losing and there are now eight Russian casualties for every Ukrainian killed or wounded, up from three in December. Russia has suffered some 35,000 casualties a month in 2026 while recruiting only 27,000 

Despite Months of Losses, Russians Fail To Take Lyman

Since its troops have repeatedly been proven incapable of taking Lyman, the Kremlin has resorted to what it considers the next best thing: simply claiming they have done so on social media. 

The problem with that approach in the digital age, is that time-stamped video and photos can easily and quickly disprove the attempted fable. The reality is that Russian forces have tried everything from armored columns to bombings to small groups of infiltrators, and none of them have worked. The Ukrainian defenders keep adapting new weapons and tactics faster than the Russians can round up cannon fodder to try variations on their time-worn efforts. Reports indicate that the Russians are unlikely to come close to taking the city anytime soon. JL

 
Euromaidan Press reports:

Lyman holds. The Russians are no closer to capturing Lyman, despite months of effort. If anything, the Ukrainian hold on the city is stabilizing as Ukrainian counterattacks north of Lyman squeeze a Russian salient jutting a few kilometers to the west. They've been trying to bypass the city, but Ukrainian counterattacks keep blunting and rolling back their advances. Small teams of Russian infantry have fared no better while trying to infiltrate Lyman. New AI-assisted fixed-wing drones and tiny first-person-view quadcopter drones with range-extending wings have pummeled Russian supply lines, knocking out hundreds of Russian cargo trucks and sapping the strength of front-line brigades before they can even attempt an infiltration or encirclement.

Ford Rehires 350 Engineers As AI Alone Can't Deliver Required Quality

The hard way. That seems to be the path many corporations are being forced to take as, ignoring all previous experience with technology, they lay off skilled employees because they believed AI could simply be inserted to do those humans' jobs less expensively.

But as experience keeps reminding executives, there is no such thing as plug and play, despite the Silicon Valley hype, and especially now with AI. In this case, Ford had laid off hundreds of quality control engineers and workers before it belatedly discovered that AI does not have the decades of nuanced judgment that comes from actually making cars and trucks. Like most new technologies, it is becoming apparent that AI may work optimally with humans, not as a replacement for them. After the humans were rehired, Ford received JD Powers' top quality award for mainstream brands for the first time in 16 years. JL

Alina Stan reports in The Next Web and Anthony Cuthbertson reports in The Independent:

Ford has admitted it had to rehire experienced engineers after its AI systems failed to deliver expected quality. The automaker mistakenly believed it could swap in AI and still produce a high-quality product. Without decades of engineering judgment encoded in the training data, Ford’s automated tools amplified weak inputs rather than catching design flaws. The company rehired or newly hired 350 experienced engineers to fill the gap. The engineers were tasked with mentoring staff, rebuilding the data pipelines that feed Ford’s AI training, and refining the automated systems they were originally supposed to be replaced by. Ford also created a software quality assurance team. Ford acknowledged AI lacked the nuanced judgement to (fix) complex problems. The staff quality reviews after the AI issues cost the company billions of dollars. The rehirings pushed Ford to the top of JD Power’s 2026 quality among mainstream brands for the first time in 16 years.