Four Sectors, One Signal: Russian Vulnerability Along the Front

A series of recent Ukrainian successes in four distinct sectors - Donetsk, Zaporizhhia, Sumy and Kharkiv - signal that the combination of these tactical operations could combine and add up to a strategic advantage for Kyiv's forces. 

That this is happening not just in one sector but in what are arguably the four most heavily contested areas of the entire front suggest that Russia does not have the current mass to defend its extended deployment, let alone advance in any significant way in even one of them. JL

Giorgio Provinciali reports:

Ukrainian forces are achieving a series of tactical successes that could significantly alter the geometry of the front. Recent Ukrainian advances between Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia — iand in the Kharkiv and Sumy regions mark the beginning of an operation distorting the front along the pivots where the Russians seemed to be aiming their summer offensive. At this stage Ukraine has no need to pursue a breakthrough: it simply needs to build depth, move drones and artillery closer to Russian supply lines, and make every enemy rotation slower, more visible, and more costly. Every Russian salient transformed from an offensive springboard into a logistical problem deprives Moscow of a choice and gives Kyiv one back. The war will be decided when one side loses freedom of maneuver, the adversary’s logistics are constrained, when salient points become traps, and when offensives no longer create panic but create opportunity.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces are achieving a series of tactical and operational successes that, if consolidated, could significantly alter the geometry of the front. Recent Ukrainian advances between Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia — in Mala Tokmachka, Bilohiria, Ridkodub, and Katerynivka — and then in the Kharkiv and Sumy regions mark the beginning of a complex operational phase that is distorting the front precisely along the pivots where the Russians seemed to be aiming to base their summer offensive maneuvers. 

Let’s be clear: we are not yet facing a Ukrainian strategic breakthrough. Talking today about a “march on Tokmak” or “broken Russian salients in Donbas” would be premature; however, ignoring their importance would be equally wrong.

On the southern front, the value of the Ukrainian successes at Mala Tokmachka and Bilohiria is measured not only by the square kilometers retaken but also by the direction in which they are moving: Orikhiv, Robotyne, Verbove, Tokmak. Anyone who has observed this war closely, or read the reports we have compiled for years, including those from those places, knows that Tokmak is no ordinary name: it is one of the Russian logistical and defensive fulcrums of occupied Zaporizhzhia, the hub protecting access to Melitopol’ and thus the deepest point of the Russian corridor to Crimea. It is the reality against which the largest Ukrainian counteroffensive operation of 2023 was shattered. It is the waking nightmare we lived through between the end of that year and the beginning of the next, when the young men you see in our videos died alongside us defending Ukraine. “Токмак це Україна” (Tokmak is Ukraine) — the inscription that stood out for four years on the flagpole at the entrance to Orikhiv, before a Russian drone destroyed it and other flags, including ours.

Held for over 1,500 days under heavy artillery, drones, guided glide bombs, and constant mechanized assaults, Mala Tokmachka — which translates as “little Tokmak” — has become a vivid demonstration of Russia’s inability to turn mass action into decisive action. 

On the easternmost hinge, Bilohiria completes the picture: it now forces Moscow to defend not only the frontal axis at Orikhiv but also the lateral connection to Huliaipole.

For months, the Kremlin has built its narrative on relentless pressure, marked by small advances, destroyed villages, and flags filmed among the rubble. Today, that propaganda is silent: an offensive system that cannot close Mala Tokmachka continues to consume men and resources for a few pulverized blocks and sees the threat of interdiction toward Tokmak reopening.

It is not advancing. It is paying extremely high interest rates on an operational debt it can no longer repay. Unlike 2023, at this stage Ukraine has no need to pursue a spectacular breakthrough: it simply needs to rebuild depth, improve observation, move drones and artillery closer to Russian supply lines, and make every enemy rotation slower, more visible, and more costly. 

Even more interesting is what is happening on the Lyman salient. Large as they are, Ridkodub and Katerynivka are not important for their size but because they flank a Russian bridgehead that has been trying for months to turn Zherebets into an offensive platform against the northern sector of the Ukrainian Donbas: a salient built by the Russians, leaving tens of thousands of men there. If Ukrainian forces manage to compress enemy positions between Ridkodub, Nove, Katerynivka, and the river crossings, the pressure Moscow intended to exert on Lyman ceases to be a linear problem and becomes a logistical one: who supplies, from where, through which forest strips, under what electronic coverage, and at what risk of being detected by drones before even reaching the position.

In those areas, we documented rapid mechanized assaults, protected vehicles such as the Cobra II and BTR-4E, infantry landing under cover of electronic warfare, jamming or delaying Russian FPVs, and the enemy’s use of fiber-optic drones that are immune to jamming but less readily deployable en masse.

This is where we spent endless nights during relentless bombing. The entrance to this basement collapsed as soon as we entered. We left much later, digging through the rubble in a direction different from the entrance. There was a little mouse that occasionally came to visit us between the mattresses: we named her Larissa :) — copyrighted photo Giorgio Provinciali

It’s the war we’ve been describing for months: a front no longer linear but volumetric, with rear areas that blur into risk gradients dominated by sensors, radio nodes, jamming, and kill zones. Small assault units and the ability to rapidly consolidate a strip of ground have been our home for 1,557 days.

The strategic significance is clear. Lyman is one of the northern gateways to Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the Ukrainian defensive backbone in the Donbas. If Moscow loses momentum on this flank or is forced to shift reserves to prevent its bridgehead from collapsing, pressure on the Ukrainian fortress belt will diminish, and with it any possibility of an outflanking from the northeast.

Every Russian salient transformed from an offensive springboard into a logistical problem deprives Moscow of a choice and gives Kyiv one back. 

The same pattern is unfolding further north, in the Kharkiv and Sumy regions. The Russians’ stated goal was to create a buffer zone for infiltration, observation, drone launches, psychological pressure, and political constraint, transforming the international border into a second permanent line of contact and forcing Ukraine to immobilize reserves that would be needed elsewhere.

The liberation of a growing number of villages in Kharkiv, the Ukrainian pressure toward the border in the Velykyi Burluk direction, and the loss of Russian momentum in Sumy should be interpreted precisely as such: they are the negation of an operational plan, because a buffer zone — or «sanitary zone», as Vladimir Putin chose to call it — only works if it becomes stable. 

Four sectors sending a single signal: the Russian front is crumbling.

We are not facing the end of the war or a general counteroffensive. Russia retains mass, depth, artillery, bombs, missiles, and a brutal capacity to consume men. But the war is decided when one side loses freedom of maneuver, when the adversary’s logistics are constrained, when salient points become traps, and when offensives no longer create panic but instead create operational debt.

For months, Moscow has tried to convince the world that Ukraine could only resist. The camp explains that Kyiv is once again choosing where to strike. Not yet enough to break the Russian front, but enough to prevent it from remaining unchanged.