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Russia Shifts Donetsk Offensive to Kostyantynivka After Slovyansk Push Stalls, ISW Says
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Russia has shifted the main effort of its Spring-Summer 2026 offensive in the Donetsk region to seizing Kostyantynivka after stalling on the approaches to Slovyansk.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) made the assessment in its campaign update published on June 10.
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The shift narrows Moscow's offensive to a single costly bet: ISW assessed that Russian forces will likely make tactical gains in Kostyantynivka this summer but are unlikely to achieve operational gains against Ukraine's Fortress Belt, while suffering high casualties.
Two Russian tactical groups, "Bakhmut" and "Dzerzhinsk," have advanced south of and into eastern Kostyantynivka, ISW reported on June 10, citing Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets.
Elements of the "Bakhmut" group, built mostly around the 3rd Army Corps, pushed from Stupochky through Novodmytrivka into the city's northeast and along the T-0504 Pokrovsk-Bakhmut road toward the railway station.
The "Dzerzhinsk" group, operating in the 8th Combined Arms Army's zone, advanced from Illinivka into areas stretching from northwestern to southwestern Kostyantynivka, Mashovets noted. He assessed that the group had likely achieved a tactical breakthrough in the city's western-central part, with forward elements of the two groups roughly two kilometers apart.
Russian forces have nevertheless failed to seize the Kostyantynivka railway station itself, and Ukrainian troops cleared Dovha Balka, southwest of the city, of Russian infiltrators, according to the assessment.
The reprioritization follows a failed opening play. Russia launched its Spring-Summer 2026 offensive with mechanized assaults around Lyman, indicating an intent to advance on Slovyansk from the northeast, but made no significant gains there, ISW noted.
The Western Grouping of Forces likely lacks the combat capability to push on Slovyansk while also fighting in the Kupyansk and Borova directions, where recent Ukrainian counterattacks forced Russian units to choose between defending and attacking.
Russia's campaign against Kostyantynivka began in August 2025, after its forces seized Toretsk and most of Chasiv Yar, and intensified in Winter 2026, the assessment reported. Russian troops first infiltrated the city in October 2025 and have since entered roughly 12.69 percent of it.
Russian forces missed their command's deadline to seize the city by May 2026, ISW added, despite redeploying elements of the 70th Motorized Rifle Division to the area in December 2025 and reportedly replenishing 80 percent of attacking units as of June 6.
Sustaining the push is getting harder for Moscow. Some 71,200 people received one-time enlistment bonuses in the first quarter of 2026, down 20 percent year on year, ISW reported, citing Vazhnye Istorii, while Ukraine's tactical drone superiority continues to inflict disproportionately high personnel and equipment losses on Russian forces.
Days before the assessment, the fight in Kostyantynivka was already tilting in favor of the infiltrators. Geolocated footage published between June 4 and June 8 confirmed Ukrainian advances in eastern and western Kostyantynivka and in northwestern Chasiv Yar—areas where Russian sources had claimed a presence.
Russian troops in the city struggled to operate as Ukrainian units counterattacked and struck their logistics with drones, while commanders elsewhere sent repairmen and other rear personnel into assaults for lack of infantry.
The shift toward Kostyantynivka also caps a year of frustrated Russian planning. Over the year to May 2026, Russian forces failed to achieve any significant operational progress across the front, while Ukrainian troops recorded their most notable battlefield gains since the Kursk operation of August 2024.
Ukrainian counterattacks complicated Russian planning near Kostyantynivka, where Moscow's forces had first reached the city's outskirts in October 2025.
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