Phillips O'Brien reports in his substack:
The battlefront has seen Russian advances all but stop, with Ukraine liberating parcels of land. This change has been brought about with declining Ukrainian casualties and rising Russian ones— an indicator of initiative change. The land war is resembling more what the Ukrainians want it to be than the Russians. The Ukrainians adjusted more quickly and efficiently to the realities of this battlefield and the Ukrainians are bringing into play more rapidly the better systems to fight within it. They are also tailoring their whole war effort (mid-range strike) to erode Russian combat possibilities. The Ukrainians have the initiative. They are shaping the land war and the ranged war. Russia will now have to adjust or the Russian strategic situation will get worse.
For much of the last two and a half years, Russia has had the initiative. It used masses of its own soldiers to do the vast majority of the attacking and tried to impose itself on Ukrainian civil society through the almost daily bombardment of Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. Russia did a great deal of damage in this period of its initiative, but also wasted a great deal. Russian casualties, for the ground taken, were out of proportion and seem to have brought the Russian army to an impasse. The ranged bombardment was brutal and destructive, but did not drive Ukraine out of the war and, crucially, was not effective in damaging Ukrainian production to the degree that the Ukrainians could not adjust.
Now there are signs that the Ukrainians are taking the initiative. The battlefront has seen Russian advances all but stop, with the Ukrainians even liberating small parcels of land. This change has been brought about with declining Ukrainian casualties and rising Russian ones—which is an indicator of initiative change. As such, the land war is resembling more what the Ukrainians want it to be than the Russians.
The ranged war is likely showing more adaptation and growth by the Ukrainians, with some notable signs this week. While the Russians are doing what they have been doing, the Ukrainians are broadening out in range and targeting. In both long range and mid range strike (its fascinating that more and more people are finally getting the importance of the latter) the Ukrainians are the ones changing things while the Russians keep doing what they have been doing.
The Russian Oil Facility at Perm burning this week after a Ukrainian long-range attack. Perm is 1500 kilometres from Ukraine. I do not want to get too far ahead of myself, but something similar happened in the naval war a few years ago. The Russians started the full-scale invasion with dominance in the war at sea, but the Ukrainians using newer and better systems and adapting to a changing environment took the initiative and have since them been more imposing upon then imposed upon.
While the change in the war at sea was quite dramatic, what we see on land and air might be not so binary. However it is still worth acknowledging. If Ukraine can continue take the initiative, the Russians, considering the way that they have fought, might struggle to ever take it back.
Long Range And Medium Range Strike
Leaders boasting or threatening in wars is usually a stupid idea. Donald Trump has looked consistently foolish over the last two months with his constant comments about having destroyed and defeated Iran, or his confident statements that because of the US blockade, Iranian oil wells were about to “explode”, etc. When war leaders boast its often a sign of weakness more than the strength that they wish it to be.
I was just struck by President Zelensky in some ways boasting over the last few days about the power of Ukrainian long-range strike. The most notable comment came right at the start of an address to the country on April 29. It was detailed and confident, so I thought I would include the whole first paragraph.
Zelensky even made a comment about long-range strike success in his evening address on May 2.
The three areas that Zelensky mentioned, Russia’s oil sector, military production and military logistics have all been attacked in the last few days—so the boasting has something behind it.
The most discussed attack (at 1500 kilometres or so from Ukraine—thus the one that Zelensky was hinting about) was what seems to have been a successful attack on the Russian oil refining/pumping facility at Perm. in the Ural Mountains about 1500 kilometres from Ukraine.
This facility was one that the Ukrainians have wanted to hit for a while, and have tried to attack without much success. Perm’s importance is clear, it not only refines a great deal of Russia oil, it is one of the few pumping stations that brings oil from Siberia to western Russia. Perm matters and the Ukrainians believe that they have finally hit it effectively—including the crucial distillation tanks.
According to the SBU, drones operated by a special operations unit struck key components of the refinery, including the AVT-4 primary oil processing unit. The attack reportedly ignited both vacuum and atmospheric distillation columns, damage that could significantly disrupt operations.
Its the combination of range and effectiveness of this attack that matters. The Ukrainians have struggled to have the right systems in the right numbers at such a depth before. So they are telling the Russians, and the world, that this is changing. Once again, we need to see if they can keep it up, but if this does represent a consistent change, more and more the initiative in the long-range strike war will go to them.
It will be a nightmare in Russia having to defend the whole area 1500 kilometres or so from Ukraine—Russian air defense is stretched as it is.
If Perm showed range, the success of the medium range strike was obvious much closer to Ukraine. For those who are new, there has been much discussion over the past year in this substack about how the Ukrainians believed that medium-range strike (say anywhere from 50kms-300kms from the front) was an area in which they could have real success. More and more, they seem to have been right.
For instance, in the announcement about Perm that was released by the media arm of the Ukrainian government a day ago, there were also three separate medium range attacks highlighted, mostly in the occupied regions. These were, to quote.
In addition, over the past day Ukrainian forces successfully struck a Buk-M3 surface-to-air missile system near Olkhovatka in the temporarily occupied Donetsk region.
They also hit ammunition depots near Rozdolne in Donetsk region and the settlement of Rovenky in Luhansk region; a logistics warehouse near Melitopol in Zaporizhzhia region; and a UAV warehouse near Dalne in Belgorod region, Russia. Enemy UAV control points were also targeted near Huliaipole in Zaporizhzhia region, the settlements of Shevchenko and Voskresenka in Donetsk region, as well as a command and observation post near Kairy in Kherson region.
And Zelensky this week also did a little boasting about the growth of Ukrainian medium range strike. In a meeting with Defense Minister Fedorov, Zelensky said.
“This year, five times more middle strike assets have already been contracted than last year, and we will continue to scale up contracting and production,”
The confidence here, and I cannot give lots of details, is that not only are the production numbers going up as Zelensky states (five times is a massive increase) but the accuracy and explosive power of Ukrainian mid-range systems are also improving. For the last year they have been working assiduously to weaken Russian air defense in the mid range area—now you might see why.
This Ukrainian advantage in mid-range strike is starting to play havoc with Russian logistics at the front. See Below.
Add it together, and this is what I mean about the Ukrainians maybe gaining the initiative in long-range and medium-range strike. The Russians are doing what they have been doing. This week they continued to attack Ukrainian cities and terrorize civilians. However it is hard to discern much strategic change and improvement in the Russian campaign. Now that might change as the US starves Ukraine of all Patriot missiles, but in the meantime it is the Ukrainians that are showing growth and improvement. That is notable.
The Land War
It is not easy to use the word “initiative” switching when discussing a land war in which so little land is actually changing hands. From a historical perspective what we have seen over the last few months is one of the most static and unchanging front lines in military history. The Western Front in World War I was more dynamic than this.
The Institute for the Study of War has put together this fascinating chart which highlights not only the rapid decline in Russian advances (which were very small to begin with) but also the fact that just recently the Russians have started losing territory relative to their gains.
April seems to have seen the largest net loss of territory for the Russians for a long time.
According to Deep State the change was equally as stark. Even though Russian offensive activity was up significantly in April from the month before, Russian advances were down. Here was how one report summarized their findings.
The Russian army seized 12% less territory in April compared to March 2026.
This slowdown occurred despite a 2.2% increase in the frequency of Russian assault operations during the same period, according to DeepState on May 1.
And this should be the moment when the Russians were restarting their offensive operations after the winter. However, Russian attacks are gaining less and Ukrainian operations are gaining more. The fundamental reason for this will be obvious to those who have been reading for a while, the Ukrainians have changed the balance on the battlefield with their increasing use of UAVs, UGVs, etc to raise Russian casualties and lower their own. And they have developed some tactics to move forward (where possible) in this environment.
This did not come by accident, but has been something that Ukrainians have been working on for almost a year and which they started talking about more openly during the last few months of 2025.
Now it is the Russians scrambling to adjust. They seem to be trying to do something that the Ukrainians switched to a while back. For instance, very small unit (1-4 soldiers) Russian attacks are being seen more and more. However, as of now, it does not seem to be resulting in greater Russian advances or declining Russian losses.
So within a static environment, it is Ukraine which has more of the initiative. The Ukrainians adjusted more quickly and efficiently to the realities of this battlefield and the Ukrainians are bringing into play more rapidly the better systems to fight within it. They are also tailoring their whole war effort (mid-range strike) to erode Russian combat possibilities going forward.
Do the Ukrainians have the initiative? Well, as long as you do not expect massive Ukrainian advances, then yes they do. They are shaping the land war and the ranged war. Russia will now have to adjust or the Russian strategic situation will get worse.
Particularly considering where we were a year ago, this is also notable development.
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