Putin’s Frontline Just COLLAPSED… Ukraine Goes on the ALL-OUT Offensive | Other War Stories

Putin's spring offensive isn't going to plan, and that is putting it mildly. What is supposed to be Russia's final push to take the Dombas has morphed into something very different. Ukraine is taking everything back. This is diversification in action. And it's not Russia that is making the final push. It's Ukraine. The total liberation of the Ukrainian nation has begun. And Putin isn't ready for the all-out offensive that is coming his way.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Early March saw the beginning of Russia's grand offensive which Putin designed specifically to finally topple the last remaining standout settlements in Luhansk and more importantly [ __ ] the Donetsk fortress belt that stands in the way of Russia and complete control of the Donbass. Russia built up tens of thousands of soldiers. Putin claimed to have reserves and all of the Russian propaganda pointed to the inevitable fall of one of the most important Ukrainian regions. If you listen to Putin, you'd think the collapse of the Dombas was inevitable. It isn't.

Despite Putin's bluster, Russia's spring offensive has been an unmititigated disaster that is achieving the precise opposite of what it was designed to do. It isn't Russia that is gaining territory. It's Ukraine liberating vast swavthes of land. The April numbers are in, and they look terrible for Putin. April 2026 has seen Russia record its first net territorial loss since August 2024. Those with long memories will recall that August 2024 was when Ukraine launched its blistering counter offensive into Russia's Kursk region through which it took control of over 1,000 km or around 386 miles of Russia.

What we're seeing now isn't quite as dramatic in terms of the numbers of where Ukraine is attacking, but it is crucial. Why? Well, rather than taking control of Russian territory, Ukraine is liberating its own, and it's doing it to an impressive degree. In April, Ukraine outpaced Russia to the tune of 116 square kilm or 44.7 square miles of territory. That's according to the Institute for the Study of War, or ISW, which highlights how Russia's spring offensive has devolved into Putin's forces dealing with a host of negative battlefield dynamics that are causing them to spiral.

This hasn't come out of nowhere. March wasn't much better for the Russians. The month the spring offensive started saw Russia achieve close to zero net gains across 31 days of fighting. The ISW reports that Russia only managed to take 23 km or 8.9 square miles of Ukraine in March. And it seems likely that it has lost all of that territory and more in April. What we're seeing here is a complete turnaround in operational tempo that is happening at the worst possible time for Putin.

Contrast today's figures to those from 2025. According to the Kev Post, Russia's forces were capturing about 12.9 square kilm or around 5 square miles of Ukraine every day in March 2025. So 2 days of fighting in March 2025 would have given Russia more territory than an entire month of fighting during March 2026. That's not a good look for Putin. And now we see Russia achieving a net territorial loss for April. It's clear that momentum is shifting. The Russification of Ukraine is now happening at a rate of about 3.87 km or 1.5 square miles every single day.

The Kev Post reports, "How on earth has this happened, the spring was supposed to be the start of the inevitable Russian victory? What is happening right now has caught everybody off guard, barring Ukraine, which had been preparing for this all along. A combination of Ukrainian brilliance and Russian incompetence has led to Ukraine's startling results. And we'll be digging into both. But first, there's one more thing to cover. Russia's losses. They are staggering. We already have the numbers for Russia's catastrophic march. They were record-breaking. As Ukrainian President Vladimir Zalinski revealed, Putin churned through 35,351 of his soldiers to make practically no gains in March, which was over 350 troops more than the 35,000 casualties suffered in December 2025, which previously held Russia's grimmst Ukraine war record.

The numbers aren't in for April yet. Ukraine is still tabulating them. But if April 29th is anything to go by, we're going to see something similar to go alongside Russia's scoring its first net territorial loss since 2024. On April 29th, Russia lost 1,470 of its soldiers. Ukraine's Ministry of Defense reports. Multiply that number by 30 and you get a monthly total of 44,100. It's just getting worse for Putin. His spring offensive has practically collapsed before it managed to get off the ground and Ukraine is taking advantage.

According to the Kev Post, March saw Ukraine liberate nearly 50 square kilmters or 20 square miles of its territory. Gains in February and late January amounted to 480 km or 185 miles. Add the net gain for April and it's clear that Ukraine is in the ascendancy. And this isn't Ukraine taking back empty farmland or pointless territory. The Ukrainian counter push is measured, precise, and it targets key locations that disrupt Russian logistics and maneuvers all across the front. Ukraine's April 2026 result wasn't a one-off. It's part of a pattern that has defined the entire year. Russia boasts, but it's Ukraine that is making all of the positive battlefield moves. Ukraine is on an all-out offensive that is destroying every plan that Putin made for 2026.

But we come back to the question of how this is happening. Russian propaganda indicated that it was Putin's forces in the ascendancy leading into 2026. Coincidentally, that propaganda ramped up in December, which was right around the time that Putin was gearing up to make his case in another round of peace talks. But for all of the propaganda, we're now seeing the opposite of what Russia said would happen. Why? Ukraine has a huge part to play, of course, and we'll be getting to that. But perhaps the biggest issue for Russia is that 2026 is laying Putin's strategic incompetence bare.

Right now, we're seeing a broad slowdown in the Russian offensive across the entire front line. That slowdown has been happening for a long time. As the ISW reports, the Russian rate of advance across the battlefield has been steadily declining since November 2025, as continued Ukrainian ground counterattacks, Ukrainian mid-range strikes, the February 2026 block on Russia's use of Starlink terminals in Ukraine, and the Kremlin's throttling of Telegram have exacerbated existing problems within the Russian military. The institute says, "Indeed, we've seen that slowdown in real time. Back in November 2025, Russia was slow, but it still managed to seize about 575 km or around 222 mi of Ukraine. December saw a drop of around 40 or 50 km or about 15.4 to 19.3 miles. Since then, Russia's advance has been in freef fall in terms of its monthly numbers, all leading up to April 2026 and its first net territorial loss since August 2024.

A large part of the reason why this is happening is that Russia has simply failed to adapt to conditions on the ground in Ukraine. The winter of 2025 and into 26 was a little colder and significantly wetter than the winter of the previous year. The ISW points out, and that has resulted in March and April being exceptionally muddy as a combination of spring rains and defrosting ground creates a sort of soupy terrain. Russia has responded to this the only way that Putin knows how. Throw more meat and metal at Ukraine. It's going about as well as you might expect. We've seen what's happening to the meat as Ukraine logs record casualties against Russia's forces. The metal or Russia's mechanized units are practically useless. Tanks and armored vehicles can barely move through the sloppy Ukrainian ground, which has prevented Russia from providing fire support to its soldiers or protection to those its tasking with assaults. When the mud takes hold of an armored vehicle, a Russian soldier isn't told to hold back until conditions improve. They get out of their vehicle and march through the mud until a Ukrainian drone inevitably finds and eliminates them. It's the same old story from Putin that we've seen throughout the war. Human wave assaults backed by artillery and glide bombs seem to be all that Russia really has in its locker. And the strategy is becoming ever less effective as Ukraine's droneinfested kill zones expand. And Russia's infiltration tactics are turned on their head.

But the real problem for Russia is this. It can't keep up with what it's trying to do in Ukraine right now. And that's a key reason why the diversification is going so well. Lies spread by his generals and a falling appetite for war in his country are combining to thwart Putin's plans. But a quick side note before we dig into that. You're watching the Military Show and we bring you the reality behind the headlines. Hit subscribe if you want to stay ahead of the curve.

Russia's liars, um, we mean generals, are trying to hide everything that's happening. They've crafted an alternative reality where Russia is in the ascendancy. And the craziest thing about this is that Putin probably believes them. Russia's president is a man who punishes those who tell him things he doesn't want to hear, which has resulted in his creation of a group of toadies who lie to him just to ensure they're not the next crony who takes an unexpected fall out of a Russian window. Chief among Russia's spin doctors is Valerie Garassimov, who is the chief of the general staff of Russia's armed forces. On April 21st, AA reported on Garasimov's claims that Russia has taken control over 80 Ukrainian settlements and 1,700 km or 656 square miles of Ukraine's territory. March and April certainly weren't months of no net gains followed by severe net losses. Gasimov added, "Oh no, Russia was still gaining ground during those months." 34 Ukrainian settlements and 700 km or 270 miles had been captured during the first couple of months of Russia's spring offensive. Garasimov claimed Russia's chief of the general staff was lying. Whether that was to fool those outside of Russia or to save his own skin is yet to be determined. Putin will be happy to wallow in the alternate reality his generals are creating because what's actually happening is far from what he wants to hear.

The net territorial losses and diversification of so much of Ukraine's territory are bad enough. But think about what Putin's antiquated tactics need to have any chance of succeeding. Manpower. You can't have a meat grinder strategy if you don't have any meat to feed into the grinder. On top of everything that is going wrong for Russia right now, the fact that it isn't recruiting enough soldiers to sustain the spring offensive that is already falling apart may be the worst thing of all. The UK's Ministry of Defense has already highlighted what's happening on the Russian recruitment front as it says that March marked the fourth consecutive month that Russia lost more soldiers than it was able to recruit. Uncoincidentally, that would mean December was the start of the shortfall, which also just happens to be the same month where Russia's territorial gains started the freef fall that has led them into the situation where Ukraine is the nation pushing forward and claiming land.

The Kev Post goes a little deeper. It points out that Russia plans to recruit 409,000 contract soldiers by the end of 2026, but it isn't getting anywhere close to that target. Russia is recruiting an average of 1,120 soldiers per day, which is just barely covering a daily casualty rate that typically lands between 1,00 and 1,200. And as we saw on April 29th, can climb much higher. At its current rate of recruitment, Russia is going to be short of its target by thousands of soldiers by the end of 2026. Plus, Ukraine isn't going to rest on its laurels. Ukrainian Defense Minister Mikylo Federov has set a target of 50,000 Russian casualties per month by the end of 2026. If Ukraine hits that target, Russia's faltering recruitment will be compounded by more losses on the battlefield. Soon, it won't just be net territory losses that Russia will have to worry about. It will be net soldier losses.

And Russia's army is getting weaker in other ways. Putin doesn't look for talent when he assigns his generals. He looks for subservience combined with a willingness to be as corrupt as you need to be to survive. in the twisted structure of the Russian military. This incompetence, though not the corruption, carries over to the soldiers on the ground. Ivan, who was a Russian recruit who ended up getting sent to the front, outlined Russia's training process for its new soldiers to United 24 media in February. After all the medical checkups, they asked me if I was ready to go to the military base the day after tomorrow. They trained us for 5 days. We waited for another 5 days for a force rotation, and then we went to combat positions. medical plus 10 days of preparation. That's what a Russian soldier gets before they're flung out to the front to try to make the gains Putin wants.

But as Putin languishes in the lies told by his generals and the continued weakening of his own military, Russia is losing ground in Ukraine. Of course, it's not just Russian incompetence that's playing a role here. Ukraine is more than holding up its end when it comes to taking advantage of the situation ahead of it and adapting its tactics to achieve derification of so much of its territory. The ISW highlighted three major plus points in Ukraine's military campaign. Drones, the ground offensive, and taking advantage of Russia's comms situation. We're going to add another, so stick around to find out what that is. But let's start with drones. They are the key to everything for Ukraine. Specifically, Ukraine has added middle range drones to its arsenal over the last couple of months, and they are having a devastating effect. These drones, which fly further than the FPV drones on the front, but cost less and don't have the range of the longrange drones being sent into Russia, are devastating Putin's rear, flying as far as 200 km or 124 mi behind the Russian front. These drones are smashing Russian logistics and destroying air defenses, the latter of which opens up more assaults deeper into the rear. Russia's supplies are being held up or destroyed. Command posts are falling to these drones and the effect on the front is clear as an already dysfunctional military is getting fractured. Strikes against Russia's air defenses in the occupied territories also open the door for longrange drones to take out Russian oil and military infrastructure, which only further weakens Putin's forces. Throw Ukraine's FPV drones and ground robots operating on the front lines into the mix, and you get a lethal cocktail. The KE Post reports that 96% of Russian casualties are now being inflicted by drones. That's tens of thousands of Russians eliminated every month without even getting a sniff of a fight against an actual Ukrainian soldier. It's meat versus machine, and there's only ever going to be one winner in that type of fight. Ukraine's cast kill zones stretch deeper and wider than they ever have before, and Russia is smashing its own teeth against them.

Not that Ukraine's soldiers aren't doing anything. When mechanized assaults get mired in the Ukrainian muck, Putin resorts to sending tiny infiltration units behind the Ukrainian lines. Those units are vital for Russia's propaganda. People like Garasimov come up with their inflated figures by counting territory where one or two Russian soldiers are hiding desperately while they wait for backup. As captured, Ukraine has gotten wise to these tactics and has created seek and destroy units that operate in gray zones to wipe out the Russian infiltrators. These units are being supported by Ukraine's middle- range strikes. If Russia is being wrecked in the rear, it can't send the supplies and soldiers needed to build on what its infiltrators achieve. So, the infiltrators get taken out, never having received the support they were supposed to receive. Again, Russia's military gets weakened.

Then there's Russia's communication situation that's been a nightmare ever since SpaceX shut down Russia's access to Starink, which Putin's forces had due to their access to illicit terminals. In the wake of that shutdown, Starlink data traffic dropped by a staggering 75%, Militani reported on March 12th. That, more than any other figure, shows you how reliant Russia was on this tech. Now it's gone mostly. Some Russian units are still able to get their hands on working Starlink terminals as Russian life reports. But like the Russian army itself, this access is fractured and nowhere near wide ranging enough to be effective outside of small pockets of the front lines. Throw Putin's campaign against telegram into the mix and Russia's soldiers have run out of modern communications options with nothing to replace them.

And that brings us to the fourth plus point in Ukraine's offensive campaign that is leading to the sorts of results we saw in April. Active defense. This is the new Ukrainian strategy for 2026. And it amounts to using precision to take advantage of Russian weakness. Everything that Ukraine is doing forces Russia to react, to shift reserves and make changes to its approach that don't come fast enough. Gaps are created for Ukraine to exploit. Ukraine defends stubbornly where it needs to and it strikes Russia where Putin's forces are at their weakest and least prepared. Ukraine is bolstering this strategy by taking the opposite approach to Russia in terms of military structure. As the Russian military becomes more fractured and places less emphasis on training, Ukraine is increasing the time spent on training and reorganizing its military to ensure unit cohesion. Ukraine is also reducing its dependency on military aid by building a flourishing defense industry focused on building the equipment it needs to execute on its strategy. We're not seeing a grand and sweeping counteroffensive by Ukraine. That's not what active defense is all about. What we see on the battlefield is a series of calculated strikes, be that by middle- range drones in the Russian rear, longrange drones in Russia itself, or troops on the ground taking out Russian positions that have a cumulative effect. Russia's military is being constantly disrupted and discombobulated. Ukraine is hitting all of the right pressure points, and it's only going to get better as its units become more cohesive on the battlefield.

The early results are in. Russia is dealing with record losses and its first net territory loss in almost 2 years. Putin doesn't know it yet, but Russia is losing the war. The tide has turned as the man who can do nothing but rely on tactics that clearly aren't working anymore has no answer for Ukraine. There will be more drones, more death, more losses. Even the warmer months that will come in late spring and into the summer aren't going to save Russia now, as the diversification of Ukraine is underway. Russia's military is being systematically dismantled, and the spring offensive has fallen apart in record time. And somehow, it's getting worse for Putin.

While liberating territory on the mainland is Ukraine's priority, it hasn't forgotten about Crimea. Illegally occupied since 2014, the peninsula is being subjected to its own long-term diversification. Ukraine is isolating Crimea. Something historic just happened on Russia's turf. Ukraine has hit hard with its drones once again, but this strike is different. On the surface, it looks like yet another of the many longrange attacks that Ukraine has pulled off in Russia. But that's the point, one of the many. What we're really seeing here is the tipping point of the Ukraine war. The power has shifted into Ukraine's hands as it has all of the momentum combined with the perfect strategy for taking out Russia. Ukraine has built up to this for years. Now it's paying off.

And to see how, we take you to Russia's Voresh oblast, a Russian region that borders Ukraine's Luhansk and lies near Khiv blast. Vores is around 150 km or 93 mi away from the front lines of the war. That makes no difference to Ukraine. It hasn't for a while as it has been striking targets far deeper than that for several years. But on April 29th, Ukraine hit something special and it did it via a coordinated effort that took advantage of a strategy that Ukraine put in place months ago. It all started with a Russian rotor craft. That chopper was on an airirstrip in Vines along with three other helicopters to undergo refueling and complete pre-flight inspections ahead of yet another deployment into Ukrainian territory. The pilots would have done this many times before. Of the four, at least one was an MI28 gunship with another being an MI7 transport chopper. These are the kinds of assets Russia relies on to ship troops into Ukraine and rain down fire on anybody who tries to stop them. April 29th's refueling was meant to be just another pit stop before the helicopter pilots could continue their work. Instead, it became the date when Ukraine pulled off one of its most spectacular strikes of the war so far.

As Russia's choppers refueled, Ukrainian drones flew into the sky. Loaded with firstperson view cameras, these drones flew the 90 plus miles to Vorz and zeroed in on the parked helicopters. Russia couldn't do a thing about it. What was supposed to be a safe zone was compromised. Air defenses either failed or weren't there to begin with, and one by one, Ukraine's drones closed the distance and scored direct hits. Video evidence of the strikes has already been shared, gleefully so, by the commander of Ukraine's unmanned systems forces, Robert Brody. The hits were inflicted in the rear central part of the engine compartment, bypassing the main propeller blades. As a result of this strike, at least one helicopter maintenance specialist was killed after being hit by the drone. Bravy shared in a Telegram post announcing the strike. The accompanying video showcases just how accurate Ukraine's drones have become.

For Russia, the cost of the attack was immense. It's not just a technician who has been lost. That alone is damaging enough. Russia is quickly running out of people who have any sort of expertise in its military as it sends tens of thousands of people to die on the front lines rather than training them in support roles. But it's the choppers that Russia will miss the most. It has since been speculated that Ukraine managed to take out an MI8 along with the other helicopters we mentioned earlier. This chopper is a multi-roll craft that can transport troops along with providing fire support to ground units. It being downed means that Russia has lost about $6 million to a Ukrainian drone that likely costs less than a tenth of that amount. The MI8 taken out by the same types of longrange FPV drones cost Russia around three times as much to build. Add $18 million to $6 million and you get a $24 million day for Ukraine. More than that, actually, the MI7 that Ukraine took out costs as much as $32 million according to Aircraft 24. It's not clear if that's Russia's cost to build or its export price, but even if we assume half that amount for Russia to build the chopper for its own use, that's another expensive piece of equipment shattered by Ukraine's flying sanctions.

Frankly, Russia should be used to these kinds of losses by now. Its choppers haven't fared well against Ukraine. Russian choppers have been blown up on the ground by Ukrainian Partisan groups, as we saw when an MI28N was taken out in a training center in the TA blast back in August 2025. They've also been taken out in mid-flight as we saw in September when Ukrainian drones downed an MI8 while it was in the air in a sort of attack that is so rare that Russia could never have seen it coming. So far, Russia has lost 352 of its helicopters since Putin launched his invasion per Ukraine's Ministry of Finance. But this time, something is different. Here is where we are seeing things shift in Ukraine's favor as a tipping point has been reached.

Before we get into that, it's worth highlighting the sheer level of coordination that allowed Ukraine to pull off this most recent strike. This was no one-off strike carried out by a single Ukrainian unit. It took planning. For a start, Ukraine's intelligence services had to be involved. You don't just launch drones at an air strip almost 100 m away, hoping that there just so happens to be something of value to strike. Ukraine's drone units would have known exactly what Russia's refueling choppers were doing, and they sent their weapons into the sky so they would arrive at the perfect moment to strike. There's nothing a helicopter can do to stop a drone when it's grounded and being refueled. Ukraine knew what it was going to do well ahead of time. And when the moment was right to launch its operation, Ukraine didn't do anything by halves. Three of its units were involved in the attack on Vores, including the 429th Separate Brigade, which has become known as the Achilles Brigade in Ukraine. the 43rd Separate Artillery Brigade and the unit that is so often behind Ukraine's most impressive drone strikes, the Alpha Unit of the Security Service of Ukraine. It seems pretty clear that the Alpha unit handled the actual drone strikes. As for the other two units, it's difficult to say. Bravy revealed that they took part, but he didn't say how. That's smart. Why tell Russia how Ukraine is pulling off its drone strikes? Putin's pathies don't need any clues about how they could prevent another attack like this from happening in the future.

But right now, Ukraine's coordination isn't what Putin will be worried about. It's not even the loss of choppers and both the degradation of Russia's military and the monetary cost that comes with them that will have Russia's president shaking in his boots. Putin's real problem now is what this latest attack represents. Ukraine didn't get lucky in Varnage. It's executed an attack made possible by the systematic destruction of the one thing that has been keeping Russia safe from Ukraine's drones and long-range weapons since the beginning of the war. That changes everything. And by the way, if this is the kind of insight you want to see more of, make sure you are subscribed to the Military Show. We break it down like this every single week.

What Ukraine pulled off on April 29th and so much of what it's doing against Russia right now has been made possible because of a consistent campaign that has focused on the degradation of Russia's air defenses. Now, the evidence that this campaign has worked is starting to come. Russia was never as effective at protecting its skies as it would have wanted. It simply isn't possible to protect everything. Russia is the world's largest country with a total area of 17 million km or around 6.5 million square miles. Russia could build nothing but air defenses and still be unable to protect all of its territory. Add in the fact that it has to send huge numbers of air defense systems into occupied Ukraine to protect against strikes in the near rear and you get the inevitable. Russia's air defenses were already stretched. Ukraine has been making that problem so much worse that Russia no longer has the systems it needs to protect some of its most high-V value targets. The Vein air strike is just one of many that Ukraine is pulling off all over Russia and the occupied territories. We only need to look at the last couple of days before the creation of this video to see many other examples.

On May 1st, the news broke that Ukraine's drones had managed to strike an airfield that is over 1,700 km or a little over 1,50 mi away from the front lines. The Shagal air base in Chelabinsk was hit with drones that struck a pair of Russia's ultramodern SU57 fighter jets along with an SU34 and another aircraft that hasn't been specified. This was among the deepest strikes that Ukraine has ever pulled off and it's cost Russia some of its best fighter jets along with up to around $250 million. On the same day, Leond reported that Ukraine's drones had also managed to reach a major oil refinery in Pam, which is 1,500 km or around 930 mi away from Ukraine. This strike is part of another of Ukraine's campaigns, which is to prevent Russia from profiting from its crude oil and refined oil products. It's all about the degradation of Putin's war machine, and that happens when you combine strikes against assets that cost Russia money to make and attacks against the financial lifelines that would enable Russia to make more.

Fast forward to May 3rd and the regional governor of the Leningrad blast, Alexander Drossenko, was reporting that Ukraine had launched yet another drone strike against Russia's Baltic Sea oil terminal in Primosk. Russia claims to have shot down 60 drones targeting the export terminal, which is able to handle up to a million barrels per day, according to Alazer. But Ukraine said it hit facilities along with a warship, patrol boat, and shadow tanker. Primorse has been a repeated target for Ukraine for much of April and now into May. The same can be said of Touapsa. On May 1st, Ukraine's drones struck the Tuapsa oil refinery which is in the Kranadar Cry region of Russia. And this most recent attack is the fourth in about a month. That sort of repetition shouldn't be happening. Even if Russia made the mistake of not protecting its vital oil facilities, one successful Ukrainian strike should be enough to force Putin's hand into sending more air defenses. But that isn't happening. Ukraine is clearly establishing safe aerial corridors that allow it to send its drones deep into Russia where they strike all over the country. But Putin's bigger problem is that these corridors aren't being closed once a strike occurs. They remain open for Ukraine to use again and again. And when Ukraine's drones reach places like Primosk and Suapsa, where they have struck before, they're finding that Russia hasn't installed any new air defenses to stop them. Bear in mind that all of the Ukrainian drone strikes we just discussed happened in the space of 3 days. The attack against Russia's choppers in Vines happened just before. What we're seeing here is a clear sign of Russian weakness that is allowing Ukraine to seize a massive upper hand in the war.

For years, Putin has been able to protect most of Russia's most valuable assets, mostly because Ukraine didn't have the long-range capabilities needed to go after them hard. Stretched air defenses were enough for the first few years of the war. In 2025, Ukraine started intensifying its strikes, as we saw with its campaign against Russian oil refineries that often saw it hit the same refinery several times over the course of months. By the end of 2025, Ukraine had hit Russian oil infrastructure over 140 times, which was more than a 50% increase over 2024. But the key to all of this is Ukraine's attacks against Russia's air defenses. Already stretched, those defenses are now depleted. There are now gaps in Russia's air defense network. Gaps always existed, of course, but those gaps are staying open longer than ever, and in some cases simply never being filled. This isn't negligence by Putin. It's necessity. Russia no longer has air defenses to spare. So Putin is being forced to pick and choose what to protect. Ukraine has been turning the air defense screw for months to create this situation. According to the Kev Independent, Ukraine conducted 492 strikes against Russian air defenses inside Russia and the occupied territories between June 2025 and March 2026. That number accounts for almost a third of all Ukraine's verified long and medium-range strikes during this period. Systematic destruction of Russian air defenses was the name of the game. And Ukraine hasn't just stopped because it's reached a tipping point of a long-range war. That's the thing about a tipping point. It's the critical moment before everything changes. And Ukraine is now focused on forcing that chain.

On May 1st, Ukraine's Ministry of Defense announced that 25 Russian air defense and radar systems were taken out in April due to Ukraine's middle-range strikes. That's almost a system per day. And all will need to be replaced by air defenses that were either elsewhere in Ukraine or inside Russia if Putin hopes to keep hold of that territory that his troops have snatched. Russia is also struggling with stockpile issues. The commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces, Alexander Sieski, said toward the end of April that Russia doesn't have enough air defense missiles to counter Ukraine's drones. Degradation is leading to devastation. And it's not like Russia is going to be able to build new air defense systems and radars quickly enough to replace what it's lost. If it could do that, Russia wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.

Of course, none of this would mean anything if Ukraine weren't capitalizing on Russia's air defense degradation with its long and middle- range drone strikes. Ukraine has capitalized. It's accompanied its ruining of Russia's air defenses with constant strikes that are made possible by relentless pursuit of building better and stronger weapons that can be used to hit high-V value targets inside Russia. The FP9 is one of those weapons made by Firepoint. The FP9 is a ballistic missile that can strike as deep as Moscow and is larger than Russia's own Iscanda ballistic missiles. Ukraine was never supposed to be able to build a weapon like this. Putin thought the country would collapse long before, but Ukraine has the FP9 on the way, and Ukraine has already laid the groundwork for that missile to absolutely obliterate whatever it chooses to target inside Russia. A year of taking out defenses amounted to setting up the pins. The FP9 along with Ukraine's longrange drones will be knocking those pins down.

Along with the improved quality of its longrange arsenal, Ukraine is building in vast quantities. On April 30th, ABC News reported that Russia had broken its own record for launching missiles and drones into Ukraine. A staggering 6,84 of Russia's projectiles entered Ukrainian territory per Ukraine's air force, which broke Russia's previous record of 6,600 set in March. You may be wondering why we're telling you about Russia's monthly drone and missile numbers when we're talking about Ukraine's quantities. There's a simple answer to that. Neither of Russia's recent record-breaking months surpasses what Ukraine did in March. Russia revealed itself. Its defense ministry said that Ukraine fired 7,347 drones into Russia, which is the highest monthly total reported for either country and amounts to an average of 237 projectiles per day. Ukraine has blown past Russia in one of the key areas of the war. And it's doing it now because it's worked for months to [ __ ] the air defenses that could stop its drones. Now that those defenses are so scattered and broken that Ukraine can almost strike at will, it's willing to send record-breaking swarms into Russia that will soon be accompanied by ballistic missiles like the FP9.

Oh, and if you're wondering if Ukraine beat Russia on the long-range drone numbers front again in April, we don't know. Russia's defense ministry has suddenly gone very quiet about Ukraine's attacks. That isn't surprising. The ministry revealed more than it should have in March, and it doesn't want to come out again and say that Ukraine is beating it in the longrange game, but it doesn't need to. The evidence is there for all to see in the destroyed helicopters in Vores, the burning oil in Toapsa and Primosk, and the shattered fighter jets on a Russian airfield that is over 900 miles away from Ukraine. Russia simply can't protect its most valuable assets anymore, be they in the occupied territories or in its own turf. All Ukraine has to do now is continue to apply the pressure. Every air defense system that it takes out degrades Russia just a little bit more. This is the death of a defense by a thousand cuts being played out in real time. And it's happening because Russia's air defenses have proven themselves to be useless at protecting themselves against Ukraine's newest generation of drones. In essence, Ukraine isn't doing anything new. This is a classic air defense suppression strategy. Only it's taken years to implement because Ukraine has had to build the weapons it needed to make it happen while it was being bombarded by Russia. Now Ukraine has those weapons. It doesn't have to worry about seeking permission or about Russia's targets being out of range anymore. What Ukraine wants to hit is what it will inevitably take out. And that is why the power has shifted. Russia's air defenses will continue to fall apart. More strikes like those we've talked about will happen as Ukraine's drone swarms grow larger and it introduces its ballistic missiles into the field. Putin never saw any of this coming. And now he can't see a way to stop it.

A healthy dose of salt has been rubbed into the Russian wounds. Russia is imploding. Its casualty rate is climbing. Its economy is collapsing and its frontline forces are going nowhere fast. The once mighty Kremlin war machine is but a shadow of its former self. And despite being hundreds of miles from the battlefield, Moscow is feeling the heat. There, in the beating heart of Russia itself, Kremlin officials, hardened nationalists, and even President Vladimir Putin can no longer hide from the grim truth staring them straight in the face. The tide is swiftly turning in Ukraine's favor, and Russia is slipping dangerously close to one of the most humiliating and costly strategic defeats the world has ever seen.

Putin never saw this coming. In the early days and weeks of the war, way back in 2022, his forces did exactly what he expected them to. They advanced over the border from the north, east, and south into Ukraine and captured territory at a relatively rapid rate. Ukrainian towns and cities soon fell, and the Kremlin's army even began to draw dangerously close to the country's capital city, Kev. At one stage, in late March 2022, Russia occupied around 27% of Ukraine. Putin probably already had the champagne on ice, as it appeared almost inevitable that his far larger army would continue to tear through its opponent. It looked like only a matter of time until the four eastern regions Putin had originally targeted, Daetsk, Luhans, Kersson, and Zaparisia would fall entirely into his control. And we now know that didn't happen because what actually happened is that the Russian army's performance peaked in March 2022.

In the months that followed, everything changed. Aided by its allies across the western world, Ukraine orchestrated a massive counteroffensive effort, recapturing thousands of square miles of lost land, forcing the Russians entirely out of certain regions, and stabilizing the front lines at last. Russia's control slipped from 27% all the way down to around 18% by the end of 2022. It has spent every year since then, desperately attempting to claw that terrain back. Thus, a war that looked like it was going to be over within weeks or a few months at most has now lasted longer than the Soviet Union spent fighting Nazi Germany in World War II. And the more time that has passed, the worse Russia's performance has become.

Initially, even after the setback of late 2022, the Kremlin's war machine was still able to regroup, rally, and recapture Ukraine's terrain. It wasn't moving anywhere near as fast as it did in those early weeks, but it still made reasonable gains here and there from time to time. In 2026, however, Russia's frontline forces have more or less reached a standstill. Their gains have dropped to almost zero, and in some areas, they've actually started losing more land than they're taking thanks to Ukraine's increasingly strong counteroffensive measures. Two experts on the situation, international political consultant Dr. Jason J. Smart and former Navy Sealed Team 6 squadron leader Chuck Farre recently sat down to discuss the Kremlin's terrible 2026 Q1 performance with Farre summing up the situation quite succinctly as follows. Thus far, Jason, in Q1, the Russians have captured the sum total square km footage of Fresno, California. So, it's not a win.

And there's plenty of data to back up this claim. A report from the Institute for the Study of War, ISW, for example, published on March 31st, 2026, found that Russian advances slowed quite dramatically through the latter stages of 2025 and into early 2026, with the first few months of 2026, seeing a drastic decline. Russian forces advance at an average of 5.5 km per day in the first 3 months of 2026, compared to an average rate of 11.06 06 km per day in the first 3 months of 2025. Looking further into those figures, the data shows that Russia made gains of approximately 319 km or 123 miles in January. February witnessed a major drop off with the Kremmond's forces progressing just 123 km or 47 miles. That was the smallest advance since April 2024. February 2026 was also a notable month because it saw Ukrainian forces capture more territory than they lost. As confirmed by one of the ISW's own conflict analyst, George Baros, who told Business Insider, "The Ukrainians are gaining more ground." Notably, in February, the Ukrainians liberated more territory in the theater than the Russians seized. The last time we had seen Ukrainian forces make more ground than the Russian forces seized was in 2023. This is new. This was a huge moment, a sign that Russia wasn't just slowing down, but Ukraine was actually starting to overtake it.

In March, it got even worse for the Kremlin, with Russia's army recording almost no territorial gains to speak of on the front lines of Ukraine for the first time in 2 and 1/2 years. To be more precise, it seized a mere 23 km or 9 square miles while also losing some territory in other areas. In other words, the Russian army hasn't just slowed down, it's barely even moving. Indeed, despite actively being on the offensive in most areas since January 2024, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, CSIS, found that Russian forces have been moving at a snail's pace in the majority of those locations. In one of their biggest campaigns, for example, the long-running push for the city of Pulcrosk, which was originally supposed to last no more than a few weeks, but ended up taking several years, the Russians moved a mere 50 km, 31 mi, from Adifka to Pocross, between February 2024 and January 2026. That's an average pace of about 70 m, 230 ft a day. It's slower than the Allied forces managed to progress during the infamous Battle of the Som in World War I over a century ago. Russia's offensives in other locations like Kupansk and Chassis have even been slower with the Kremlin sometimes needing several months to capture even the tiniest settlements or crater strewn strips of land. At these plummeting paces, it would take years for Russia to eventually capture the four regions Putin originally targeted. The more time passes, the more expensive this war becomes for Russia's economy and the more damaging it becomes for Putin's legacy.

And the reason Moscow is panicking isn't just because the Russian army is moving so slowly. It's because it's also bleeding troops at an unprecedented rate. 2025 was bad enough, but the early months of 2026 have been positively disastrous for the Kremlin's forces, with March alone seeing over 35,300 casualties in total, a 29% increase over February's numbers. While estimates vary from source to source, in the first quarter of the year, Russia has reportedly lost over 100,000 men. As Chuck Farre notes, those kinds of numbers are utterly unsustainable. The truth is, Russia loses 360,000 casualties a year. Essentially, 1,000 people a day. That's two battalions of forces. Depending on whether you have large or small, it could be three battalions. No army can cope with those kinds of losses. Even one belonging to literally the biggest and one of the most populous countries on the planet. Because even with more than 140 million people in its population, Russia cannot simply keep on replacing dead or wounded troops at Infinitum. The numbers will eventually begin to dwindle. In fact, it's already happening. Reports throughout early 2026 have revealed that Moscow is having an increasingly difficult time finding enough recruits to replenish its ranks and compensate for those ridiculously high casualty figures. Even after resorting to desperate measures by intimidating ethnic minorities, recruiting mercenaries from Africa, shipping in troops from North Korea, sending convicted rapists and murderers to the front lines, and even deploying people with long-term illnesses, Russia is way off track to hit its recruitment goals. It's now even having to pile pressure on places like universities and businesses across the country, almost begging them to encourage students or employees to sign away their futures and join the military. Even then, these types of recruitment campaigns have limited effectiveness. And with Ukraine hoping to soon inflict up to 50,000 casualties on Russia each month, there's absolutely no way that the Kremlin will be able to keep its ranks reinforced. As far as says, such numbers will not cover their losses and certainly won't allow them to build up bigger forces ahead of major military maneuvers or operations like the next so-called summer offensive. Smart agrees, pointing out that when we look at the casualty rate combined with the snail-like progress of frontline forces, Russia is now losing around 316 soldiers per square kilometer in the Daetsk region. That's a staggering statistic. Russia has been hemorrhaging troops for minimal gains throughout the entire war. But in 2026, its numbers have reached unprecedented levels with tens of thousands of losses for almost no notable gains whatsoever.

But before we look at the reasons why this is happening, The Military Show brings you the full picture, not just headlines. So, hit subscribe to stay ahead of the curve. Now, there isn't just one reason behind Russia's 2026 struggles, but a whole web of interconnected elements that have slowly but surely dragged the Kremlin's forces down to grim new depths. Farra points out, for example, how Moscow's army has lost so much of its armor over the course of the war. So far, Russia has lost more than 11,000 tanks, which is five times the amount of tanks fielded by all of European NATO partners combined. He goes on to note that even Russia's huge Soviet stockpiles of armor are now being heavily drawn down, but not yet exhausted, with hundreds of T72 and T80 variants still actively in use and undergoing refurbishment. And without sufficient numbers of newer or more capable models at its disposal, the Kremlin war machine is increasingly forced to rely upon older platforms like the T62, which is a veritable relic dating all the way back to the early 1960s. As Far says, this is the kind of tank that cold war leaders like President John F. Kennedy were briefed on during its introduction, an era when even cultural icons like Elvis Presley were serving in Europe under the shadow of rising east-west tensions. though his fears at the time were more about losing his fame than any specific weapon system. That's how old and outofdate

It is. It's a damning indictment of what is supposed to be one of the world's leading military superpowers. If the best tank it can muster is something that belongs in a museum, not a battlefield. And without tanks or other armored vehicles to call on in large numbers, it's no wonder Russia's front lines are imploding. You can't capture vast swaths of land or conquer cities with small groups of soldiers alone. You need armor. You need big, powerful vehicles that can smash through fortifications, blow holes in defensive lines, penetrate defensive positions, and pave the way for troops to push through and claim ground. Russia doesn't have that. It has little more than suicide squads.

Small groups of 15 to 20 soldiers at a time thrown into the meat grinder, ordered to march straight into contested kill zones where Ukrainian drone operators, artillery units, snipers, and other specialists can pick them off as though they were shooting fish in a barrel. Another problem is that Russia's assault units in 2026 are nowhere near what they were at the beginning of the war. Back then, the Kremlin's army was largely made up of, for a lack of a better word, real soldiers. Men who had dedicated their lives to the military. Men who had years of experience in combat, who knew how to handle the weapons and vehicles at their disposal, who were able to remain relatively cool under pressure and confident in combat scenarios because they'd been in those kinds of situations before. These were people who genuinely wanted to fight for their motherland and believed in what they were doing.

These days, it's a very different story because as the years have passed, so many of those original lifelong soldiers have been either wounded or killed in Ukraine, and the people who replaced them are not up to the same standard. As mentioned earlier, Russia's army today is largely made up of convicts, people who are sickly or infirm, people who have been pressured or blackmailed into signing up, or people who are only there for the money. Lured by promises of hefty payments and large salaries to help support their loved ones back home. These are not career soldiers. These aren't people who are truly willing to lay their lives on the line for Mother Russia. These are people who, when all is said and done, don't want to be on the front lines at all. People who would prefer to be anywhere else and will often take any opportunity they can get to either surrender, desert, or otherwise avoid being sent out on the Kremlin's suicidal assaults.

As far as these soldiers also aren't being properly trained or prepared for what awaits them at the front lines. He says that Russia has entered an incredibly dangerous and irrecoverable military phenomenon where they don't have time to train their soldiers. So the civilians that arrive on the Ukrainian battlefield, they lack fundamental skills that are necessary to survive in ground combat. The former SEAL Team Six squadron leader cites a video in which he saw a group of up to 20 Russian soldiers just standing together in a gigantic group in a forest before a Ukrainian thermal drone finds and hunts them down. He goes on to say that more often than not, these new recruits simply have no idea what to do or where to go when they get to the front, with some simply wandering off and getting lost.

As a result, morale is also declining rapidly. And that matters because morale is one of those invisible but vital measurements of success in any long-term conflict. If your soldiers are confident, motivated, and inspired by those in charge, they'll be much more willing to give every operation their all, which can lead to major gains on the ground, even against the odds. On the other hand, when you have an army of people who are disillusioned, frightened, and thinking almost exclusively about their own survival rather than the collective effort, they're not going to go out there and give their all or die for their country. They're going to look for any way out and do what's in their best interests, not the army's. That's why, as Jason Smart says, more and more soldiers are now deserting because Russian troops don't want to stick around in those fearsome frontline kill zones any longer than necessary.

This is seriously bad news for the higher-ups in Moscow who are facing challenges they simply no longer have any answer to. And the issues aren't just on the front lines, but all across Russia, where the effects of the war are being felt more than ever. According to SMRT, 35 different Russian regions are now struggling to make ends meet because of the fact that they're having to spend so much money on one-time sign-up incentives and recruitment bonuses. Increasingly, disgruntled officials across the nation are having to spend their limited time, funds, and resources convincing reluctant civilians to sign up for a war they don't want to fight, rather than investing in essential services like education, healthcare, and maintenance of their roads, towns, and cities.

As a consequence, life in Russia is getting worse by the day. Not only are people having to see more and more of their loved ones sent to die in Ukraine, with increasing numbers of Russian families now having at least one member who's either been killed or wounded in the war, but they're also having to spend more money on everyday essentials while suffering the effects of worsening public services. In turn, the ISW notes that Russia's state polls have slowly but surely demonstrated growing societal discontent with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Those polls, despite being carried out and published by Kremlin-owned media agencies, show that Putin's approval declined in six successive weeks from March 2nd through to April 12th, going from 72.9% down to 66.7%. General levels of trust in Putin have dropped too, as has the popularity of his ruling political party, United Russia. Polls also show that more than 60% of Russians have a negative opinion of the current political situation in their country, and the vast majority are eager to see the war brought to an end. It's a very telling sign when even the Kremlin's own media mouthpieces are openly admitting that the people aren't happy. It's yet another reason why Moscow is gripped with panic right now, with Putin's allies, advisers, and commanders wondering where they go from here.

But the situation may be about to get even worse. Because while Russia is building up to yet another summer offensive in which the Kremlin will hope against the odds that their forces can push on and make the most of the warm weather conditions to gain ground, the fact of the matter is that Ukraine is getting stronger all the time. In fact, it's Kyiv's forces, not Moscow's, that are most likely to enjoy a relatively successful summer period, according to experts like Farah. "I think inevitably Ukraine is going to make progress pushing through them." The former SEAL goes on to cite several notable examples of Ukrainian successes that Kyiv's forces can look back on and potentially recreate, like in Kherson in 2024 when Ukraine managed to push Russian forces all the way back across the Dnipro River, or in and around Kyiv to the north where Ukrainian forces yet again forced the Russians all the way out of the Sumy Oblast. Farah concludes that the exact same thing could happen sometime soon, citing the brittleness of the command structure, the ineptitude of the officers, their corruption, and a lack of basic military resources beyond rifle ammunition as some of the core reasons behind Russia's imminent collapse. Looking at the larger picture, Farah adds that Moscow's officials are also growing increasingly concerned about having so much of their money and military resources tied up in Ukraine. He notes that according to UK intelligence sources, 97% of Russia's military capacity is now focused in Ukraine, and its forces are being depleted there quite rapidly. That leaves very little left over to defend or deal with any other threat. China, despite being a tentative ally of Russia in some ways, could potentially take advantage of that fact to move in and claim some of the Far East territories that it's wanted to capture for decades. If it did so, Russia would be more or less powerless to stop it, which shows just how far this once mighty nation has fallen. All because of its president and his ruthless pursuit of power at any cost.

The unthinkable just happened to Russia. Ukrainian drones have attacked once more, and Russia has lost everything that it was trying to build up in occupied Ukraine. Putin thought it was impossible. Ukraine did the unthinkable. But now the real problem for Putin is that what Ukraine did is just the start. Something even worse is coming, as Ukraine has set the stage for the real chaos to begin. How? We'll be answering that question in a few minutes. First, there's what Ukraine has pulled off deep inside the occupied territories.

Ukraine's drone forces have been steadily expanding the size of the kill zones they created to force Putin to churn through the saps that he's sending to fight his wars. The original kill zones were bad enough, stretching miles behind the front lines and loaded with drones and anti-tank defenses. Those zones spell death for thousands of Russians caught within them. But now, thanks to the introduction of a new generation of drones, Ukraine is striking deeper, harder. The Russian rear is taking a beating like never before. And we saw how bad that beating is between April 23rd and 25th. In the Donbas region, Ukraine's drones struck hard in Luhansk and Donetsk. Further south, the occupied portions of Zaporizhzhia came under fire as Ukraine struck a heavy blow against Russia's ambitions of taking Zaporizhzhia city. What we saw during these three days was a sustained operation targeting Russia's energy, logistics, and command structure. Ukraine is coordinated and clever. Its drone units are cooperating like never before. And whether it's the occupied territories, the Baltics, or even as deep into Russia as the Urals, Ukraine's drones are doing the unthinkable. The April attacks have stunned Russia. And with each Ukrainian strike, the dire situation for the Russians has escalated.

It all started in Luhansk as Ukraine's first SPS center of the unmanned systems forces took aim at an ammunition and supply depot serving Russian soldiers on the front. If Putin's 'patsies' thought they were going to be able to push beyond Luhansk anytime soon, they're sorely mistaken. They'll still launch assaults. Putin will demand it, but their rifles won't have ammo, and the troops will be churned up by Ukraine's drones. Ukraine's Nemesis unit followed up this crippling of Russia's Luhansk logistics with an attack on a drone landing site and storage depot in Zaporizhzhia on April 24th. More logistics down, with a side helping of wrecking Russia's own mid and long-range drone strategy. Not to be outdone, the first SBS center took aim in Luhansk again on April 24th, taking out another ammunition depot. And as all of this was happening, the first SBS center was coordinating with Ukraine's 9th Kairos battalion to strike a bunch of targets in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia between April 23rd and 25th. Communications hubs went down across both oblasts. Ukraine also took out a communications tower, making it harder for Russia's commanders to deliver their orders of "charge head first into Ukraine's drones and hope for the best" to their soldiers on the front. Ukraine's K2 brigade of the unmanned systems forces got in on the fun on April 24th, too. It struck another target in Luhansk, this time taking out a Russian logistics hub. And Nemesis wasn't finished. It followed up its attack on the drone landing and storage facilities in Zaporizhzhia with a strike against another communications tower. This time, Ukraine's drones hit so hard and heavy, they forced the entire tower to collapse. The hits kept coming. On April 25th, the 9th battalion took out a temporary Russian deployment point in Zaporizhzhia. Well, Russia's communications had gone down. May as well take out the confused soldiers who were wondering what to do next in the process. And finally, the 9th battalion struck once more in Donetsk. Three Russian trains were hit during the course of the day, taking out critical parts of the logistical lifelines that keep Putin's forces pushing in the partially occupied oblasts. Phew, that's a lot of strikes in 3 days.

And one man who was delighted about it was the leader of Ukraine's unmanned systems forces, Roman Bravy. In a gleeful Telegram rant against Russia's soldiers, in which he posted a video showcasing the success of Ukraine's mid-range strikes, Bravy had plenty to say. "They raped civilization in the 'toot' with their narrow measure. Well, like 'Vvelum' in the Stone Age, railway logistics on dog sleds and gondolas, communications in the internet, on pigeons, warehouses, oil depots. But now beyond the Urals headquarters in holes and dugouts. Light, if you need it. The agenda of the worms stay in the 'toot' is changing." Bravy declared, "We're not quite sure we get everything that Bravy is saying there, but the gist of his message to Russia's forces is simple: Ukraine's drones are sending Russia's forces in the occupied territories right back to the Stone Age." It's hard to argue with Bravy. What we're seeing here is the result of consistent work by Ukraine to expand the size of its kill zones to the point where they no longer just cover the gray areas ahead of the front lines and a few miles behind the lines. We mentioned a new generation of drones in play. Mid-range unmanned aerial vehicles such as the FP2 have enabled Ukraine to start attacking the types of targets it hit during its 3-day April splurge with abandon. The kill zones that were already so dangerous to Russia's forces have now been tripled in size across some areas of the front, stretching as deep as 93 miles due to the emergence of these new drones.

For Russia, the timing couldn't be worse. It has already been dealing with the loss of its illicit Starlink connections and Putin's crackdown on Telegram usage, both of which have made communications incredibly difficult. Now, Ukraine has mid-range drones, and it's using them to attack logistics, ammo, troops, and what's left of Russia's communications infrastructure. This is all part of Ukraine's plan. It was already launching drones deep inside Russia. Speaking to the BBC, Brody said, "1,500 to 2,000 km, 930 to 1,240 miles, inside Russian territory is no longer the peaceful rear. The freedom-loving Ukrainian bird flies there whenever and wherever it wants. But it's the near rear in the occupied territories that will really worry Putin. If Russia itself is no longer safe, these much closer positions are in danger to an extent that nobody could have imagined earlier in the war." We've seen Ukraine's mid-range campaign ramp up. Over the last few months, Aviation Week reports that the period between December 2025 and March 2026 saw Ukraine launch 1,588 mid-range drones, which combined to engage 408 targets. March alone saw Ukraine hit 222 targets, which is more than half of the 4-month total, as it unleashes swarms of its FP1, FP2, CAT 6, FD29, and E300 drones against the Russian occupiers. Those drones are attacking the sorts of targets that we've already discussed, along with taking aim at the air defenses that Russia has set up in the occupied territories. We just gave you a big clue about the real chaos that is just beginning for Russia. Putin's air defense problems are where things will really start to shift for his forces. For now, mid-range drones are doing great work for Ukraine. They're only going to get more effective and numerous. The strikes we're seeing right now in the occupied territories involve the use of drones that are made in Ukraine. But as we've seen so often during this conflict, Ukraine has built something great, and it's now leaning on its partners in Europe to turn what it has developed into a true game-changer. Norway has already jumped on board. On April 27th, United 24 media reported that Ukraine and Norway have signed a new defense deal that will see the two nations cooperate on the production of thousands of mid-range drones. Norway is financing the entire project, which will see Ukraine set up production facilities on Norwegian territory. This is smart. If Putin wants to do anything about those facilities, he'll have to launch missiles at a NATO member. The deal adds to the $7 billion in funding that Norway had previously allocated for Ukraine in 2026, which will also see Norway spend $1.5 billion on purchasing weapons made in Ukraine for use by the Ukrainian Defense Forces. This is the tweak of Putin's nose after Ukraine spent April 23rd to 25th delivering gutshot after gutshot. More mid-range drones are coming, and there's nothing that Russia's leader can do about it.

Back in Ukraine, the country's unmanned systems forces are scaling up. Earlier in 2026, they established the Deep Strike Center, which is being used to coordinate the types of attacks that we saw during Ukraine's 3-day April rampage. That center has drastically increased the tempo of Ukraine's mid and long-range strikes. Brody's goal now is to expand the unmanned systems forces so that its personnel account for 5% of Ukraine's entire military. Those soldiers will be operating untold numbers of drones, essentially amounting to a robot army that is far more powerful than 5% of Ukraine's military implies that it should be. All of this sends a big message to Putin. Distance no longer protects Russia's military assets. Ukraine's drones can now strike well over 1,000 miles into Russian territory, which puts Putin's invaluable oil and gas supplies at risk. Along with the factories that build the equipment Russia is sending into Ukraine, the near rear is no longer safe due to the expansion of Ukraine's kill zones. Drones are smashing everything in places like Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia, which has a clear impact on a Russian front line that is increasingly disorganized and bereft of the supplies needed for the spring offensive that Putin has launched. It's already pure chaos for Russia, and Ukraine. But the real problem is this: the unthinkable has already happened to Russia, but something much worse is coming. As Putin's 'patsies' try to deal with the never-ending flights of Ukraine's drones, they're struggling with an issue that will lead to those drones being more effective than ever before. Before we dig into what that issue is, this is a quick reminder that you are watching the Military Show. If this is the kind of insight that you need to see, make sure that you are subscribed, as we break it down like this every single week.

Right now, Russia is in a crisis. And that crisis expands far beyond the three days of hell that Ukraine just put Putin's forces through. A huge reason why Ukraine's mid-range strikes are now so successful, beyond Ukraine having built the drones to pull them off, is that Russia is dealing with a massive shortage of the very weapons that are supposed to be stopping those drones in their tracks. Russia's air defenses are crumbling because they're running out of missiles. That's according to an April 27th report by Business Insider, which says that the commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, has noted that Ukrainian strikes on Russian production facilities are crippling Putin's anti-air missile stockpiles. "I noted that systematic strikes on Russian production facilities further degrade the enemy's air defense capabilities, which are already experiencing a shortage of missiles to counter Ukrainian unmanned systems and strike assets," Syrskyi wrote in a statement following a meeting with Canada's chief of the defense staff, General Jennie Carignan. There were hints that this was coming before Ukraine unleashed its most recent attacks in the occupied territories. Back in March, United 24 media also reported that Russia was struggling with an anti-aircraft missile crisis. This report came as Ukraine was in the midst of a record-breaking campaign of territory liberation that led to the country reclaiming more land than it lost to Russia during the final weeks of February. These gains were made possible in part because Ukraine had been able to strike the Russian rear that was supporting the scattered units of Russian infiltrators that were setting up defenses in gray zones beyond the front lines. Russia's shortage is primarily focused on the older air defense platforms that it has in Ukraine, such as the Pantsir. But there are problems all over. As Russian military blogger Rybar reveals in an illuminating post, simply fabricating tens of thousands of Pantsir missiles out of thin air is physically impossible. Rybar says, adding that Ukraine's intensification of its mid and long-range drone campaigns is putting a greater strain on Russia's air defenses than ever before. When the long-range campaign is also striking the production facilities that build anti-air missiles and the components that go inside them, the problem compounds. It's pretty simple: Russia burns through its missiles as Ukraine takes out the means of production. Eventually, the missiles run dry, and more of Ukraine's drones start breaking through and striking their targets. The attacks on production don't stop either. This is the systematic degradation of Russian air defenses in real time, and the occupiers in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and even places like Crimea are feeling the results as they're delivered by drones that can no longer be stopped.

And it's not just missiles that Russia is running short of. The actual systems designed to fire those missiles are being taken out in massive numbers. Ukraine has accompanied its campaign against Russian anti-air missile production with mid and long-range strikes against air defense systems and radars. In a March 31st report, The Kyiv Independent revealed that 492 of the 1,530 verified Ukrainian strikes carried out between June 2025 and March 2026 targeted Russian air defense systems. Ukraine also took aim at Russia's anti-access/area denial assets, which are the sorts of systems needed to support air defenses. Think electronic warfare systems, missile units, and command systems, and you get the idea. What Putin and his cronies are now realizing, far too late, is that Ukraine has planned for all of this. For a year, Ukraine has been degrading Russia's air defenses to the point where the types of strikes that we saw between April 23rd and 25th became possible. At the same time, Ukraine was building its new generation of mid-range drones. None of this is coincidental. Ukraine is proving that as it's still going after Russia's air defense network, it's likely to set up more strikes in the future. On April 27th, Defense Express revealed that the previous week had seen Ukraine destroy Russian S-350, Tor-M2, OSA, and Tor-M2KM air defenses in a series of strikes that cost Russia $25 million and will likely end up costing a lot more once Ukraine's mid-range drones exploit the gaps left by the loss of these systems in the occupied territories. Precision, power, and planning are combining to weaken Russia's rear. We can add sheer numbers to that list. We've mentioned the increasing tempo of Ukraine's strikes already. The sheer number of drones that Ukraine unleashes is staggering. For the first time since Putin launched his war, Ukraine is launching more long and mid-range drones than Russia. March saw Russia's defense ministry report downing 7,347 of Ukraine's drones. Take the word "downing" with a pinch of salt here. Russia has a habit of claiming that Ukraine's drone debris causes the massive damage Ukraine causes to Russia's infrastructure and assets, rather than the drones themselves. Even if we take the supposed downing literally, there are enough confirmed Ukrainian strikes from March that the numbers would be closer to 8,000. Meanwhile, Ukraine's Air Force says that Russia launched 6,462 drones in March. Russia just told on itself. Its defense ministry has revealed that Ukraine is now the front runner on the mid and long-range drone fronts. Again, none of this is coincidental. As Pravda points out, the scale of Ukraine's mid and long-range attacks has been steadily intensifying for years. In January 2024, Ukraine launched 110 drones at Russia. Now, that monthly number doesn't even make up a day's worth of strikes. Ukraine's record-breaking March saw it fire an average of 237 drones per day at Russia. The scope of Ukraine's attacks is expanding, though it's also narrowing. The occupied territories weren't being hit as much in the past because Ukraine didn't want to burn through its limited stockpiles of long-range drones to hit targets inside Ukraine when there was more valuable game to hunt inside Russia itself. Nowhere is safe for Russia now. Higher numbers of Ukrainian drones being launched also feed into Russia's air defense problems. More drones lead to more systems being taken. Russia also has to burn through hundreds, if not thousands, of extra air defense missiles every month as Ukraine ramps up. Even if Russia manages to thwart an attack, its declining anti-air missile stockpiles means that it remains open to follow-ups. For years, Russia has been attempting to topple Ukraine's air defense network through pure volume. Now, Ukraine has turned that strategy against Putin, and there's nothing that Russia's president can do about it other than cry as the chaos unfolds.

Knowing that Russia's missile production is failing and its air defense network is being shattered, Putin has been throwing around threats. He's not happy that Ukraine is signing the types of deals that it's signing with the likes of Norway. And he had Russia's defense ministry make that clear in an April statement which said, "We consider this decision to be a deliberate step leading to a sharp escalation of the military and political situation on the entire European continent and creeping transformation of these countries into a strategic rear for Ukraine." Putin's favorite mouthpiece, Dmitry Medvedev, also made mention of a list of potential targets for the Russian armed forces in Europe that may face unpredictable consequences if support for Ukraine isn't pulled. These are empty threats, the type that Putin and his cronies have been making for years. Nothing will come of it, just as nothing has come of the many threats that Russia has made over the past 4 years. It's worth noting that Norway's deal with Ukraine was announced after Russia made its latest batch of threats, which tells you everything you need to know about how well Putin's limp attempts to intimidate Ukraine's partners are working out for him. But this is all that Putin has now. Russia's air defenses are falling apart, and Ukraine is producing the perfect types of weapons, both in-house and alongside its partners, to exploit that fact. April 23rd-25th was a nightmare for Russia in the occupied territories. But the unthinkable is just beginning. As the damage mounts and Ukraine hits everything that serves Putin's war machine over and over, unbridled bedlam lies in Russia's future. And for Putin's 'pansies' on the front, this will only add up to more death and destruction as they're ordered into the ever-expanding kill zones.

Russian offensive meets Ukraine's brick wall. That's what Putin must feel like his soldiers have run into as Russia's front line collapses against the Donetsk fortress belt. The big spring push that Putin had planned was supposed to topple that belt. Instead, the Russian offensive is imploding as the fortress belt shuts it down and turns the territory that Russia wants to capture into a death trap. Putin didn't see this coming. But now, experts from the Institute for the Study of War, or ISW, are predicting the total failure of Russia's 2026 plans. Those plans were simple: take the fortress belt in 2026. Russia's entire spring offensive is built around the collapse of the fortress belt. France 24 reports this string of heavily defended cities is the key to taking the Donetsk region, which will in turn lead to the collapse of the Donbas, which Putin has been demanding that Ukraine cede since peace negotiations began between Ukraine and Russia. What Putin has always wanted to convey, both to the West and the Russian people, is that the fortress belt is vulnerable, that Ukraine is on the verge of collapse. And with the fall of that belt of cities, Russia would also get its hands on what former Vice Admiral of the US Navy, Robert B. Murik, calls "a veritable highway for any army that wanted to conduct operations further into Ukraine and beyond." The juice, then, is worth the spring squeeze for Russia. At least that was the Russian plan. But the fortress belt is no easy foe to topple. A collection of four large cities and many small settlements that run north to south along the H20 Konstantinovka-Slavyansk highway. The belt is approximately 50 km, or 31 miles, long and was home to over 380,000 people before Putin invaded Ukraine. That gives you a sense of the size and scale of the task that lies before Russia's forces as they have been commanded to topple that belt of cities by the end of 2026. The spring offensive was supposed to be the start of Russia's glorious path to success in Ukraine. Sure, the fortress belt has been a thorn in Putin's side even before Russia launched its full-scale invasion. Since the start of hostilities in 2014, which led to the illegal annexation of Crimea and caused disruption in the Donbas, Ukraine has been building up its defenses in the fortress belt. Over a decade of fortification has also translated into the same amount of time that Russia has failed to make a dent in that belt. But Russia needs the belt. It will be key to taking the last 30% or so of the Donetsk region that will allow Putin to put himself in a position where he could spin the obvious failure of his "special military operation" into some sort of success story. Nobody would buy that outside of Russia, but that doesn't matter to Putin. He has plans for the spring, and he isn't going to move away from them. It doesn't matter that Russia has been fighting for over 20 months just to topple Chasiv Yar, which is a tiny settlement outside of the fortress belt, by the end of 2025. Somehow, Russia's leader thought his troops would be able to turn such a grinding failure in these sorts of outskirt settlements into the complete destruction of far more powerful defenses in the fortress belt. All Russia would need was more manpower for the job, and Putin has provided it. But we're already starting to see that things aren't going according to the weak plan that Putin has created for the fortress belt. The 2026 spring offensive is off to a terrible start, as the casualties are starting to mount even before Russia's forces get anywhere near the belt. Just a few days into the new operation, Russia's losses were already hovering around 10,000 soldiers killed or injured. The National Interest reports Russia's campaign to topple the fortress belt is also a record-breaker, but in the worst possible way. March 17th saw Russia lose 1,710 of its soldiers in a single day, which is the highest number seen at any point in 2026 so far. We'll put an emphasis on those last two words: "so far." A lot worse is to come for Russia, as Putin's strategy has failed to evolve from his approach of throwing more cannon fodder at Ukraine's defenses. These early losses were already signs that the spring offensive was off to such a terrible start that the goal of collapsing the fortress belt seemed a long way off. Russian military bloggers and propagandists are already starting to turn against Putin, as you'll discover if you stick with us.

But this is where things start to shift from serious to catastrophic for Putin and his fortress belt plans. These losses would at least be acceptable to somebody as callous and tactically inept as Putin if they were made in return for territorial gains along the fortress belt. But those gains are not happening. And ISW expert and Ukrainian military observer Konstantyn Mashovets explains what we're really seeing on the ground. The ISW reports that Mashovets claims that Russia has deployed elements of its Third Combined Arms Army in its push against the Donetsk fortress belt. Right now, those soldiers are fighting against Ukraine near Zakitne and Kreminna, both of which lie east of Sloviansk, which is at the northern tip of the fortress belt. It hasn't been going well for Russia in that region. Though Putin's forces managed to make some minor strategic advances earlier in March, the offensive has stalled out as of March 29th, as Putin's 'patsies' have failed to make any sort of push forward for the week up to the ISW's report. That means practically no real movement since March 22nd. It gets worse for Russia. In the Konstantinovka, which you may remember as the other end of the fortress belt, Russia has deployed its Third Army Corps and its Eighth Combined Arms Army. They're doing even worse than the Third Combined Arms Army. While the Third at least managed to make some progress before running into the Ukrainian brick wall, the forces Putin deployed at the southern tip of the fortress belt haven't even managed that. They're somehow moving even slower than the Third Combined Arms Army, which leaves Putin in something of a pickle. The plan was to attack the fortress belt from both ends. That can't happen when the troops at one of those ends haven't even made it close to the positions that Russia needs them to be in. Russia is trying to do the only thing that it knows how to do to solve the fortress belt problem that it's currently grappling with. More manpower will lead to victory, Putin believes. Even if that means that yet more of Russia's young men are crushed under Ukraine's defenses. Mashovets says in a March 29th Facebook post that Russia has already been forced to start pulling forces from what he calls its "mobilization reserve" in the occupied regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. These are soldiers who are likely supposed to have stayed in the occupied regions for far longer, perhaps to serve as reinforcements once breakthroughs have been made along the fortress belt, but they're already being sent into the fight, as are the Russian Volunteer Assault Corps. In other words, Russia is committing more soldiers than it intended in the early weeks of the spring offensive because it's losing more troops than it anticipates and getting practically nothing in return for those losses.

Coming back to the attack from both ends strategy, Putin wants to pull off a classic pincer move. Attack from two different flanks and you box the enemy in, forcing them to defend on both sides as you whittle away at their forces. It's a military strategy as old as war itself. And it's what Putin wants to achieve with the dual pushes in both the north and south of the Fortress Belt region. But in the south of the Fortress Belt, particularly around Lyman and Konstantinovka, the advances that Putin expected to see haven't happened. Without those advances, a pincer can't be executed. That's left Putin with a tough choice to make. Does he rely on his already failing troops in the south of the Fortress Belt? That seems to be a bad idea, and they're the ones being whittled away in return for no progress. Or does Putin send some reinforcements from the Third Combined Arms Army that has at least achieved a modicum of success in the north, even though it's stalled out now? That's not a great option either. Every soldier that Putin sends from the north is a soldier who can't defend the positions that Russia has. Opportunities for Ukrainian counterattacks will arise. At the same time, weakening the Third Combined Arms Army means that its already faltering offensives either get weaker or can't happen at all. So no reversal of a week of no gains can come. This is what we mean when we say the fortress belt has shut down Russia's offensive. The ISW says the few advances that Russia has made could support operations in the Lyman and Konstantinovka directions. They're nowhere near enough to do that. While allowing for a drive towards Sloviansk, Putin has to pick one or the other. And in both cases, he's sending his soldiers into a death trap that has already resulted in the scale of Russia's losses skyrocketing during the first couple of weeks of the spring offensive. The fortress belt is supposed to fall to this approach, but that's looking increasingly unlikely, especially if the goal is for that belt to collapse in 2026. The spring offensive is already imploding. And if Putin has been paying attention, he might have been able to see this coming.

Before we go deeper into that and reveal a crazy twist that makes all of this so much worse for Putin, this is a quick break to remind you that you are watching the Military Show. We give you the full picture, not just the headlines. If you're getting value from the channel, remember to subscribe so you stay ahead of the curve. Right now, Putin will be furious with his failing troops. But he should be even angrier with himself because all of this was predicted months before Russia even started the spring offensive that was supposed to collapse the Fortress Belt by the end of 2026. Somehow, after over a decade of failing to take the Fortress Belt, Putin still hasn't realized that this isn't a task that his forces can complete in a little under a year. And again, it's the ISW, specifically two of its Russia researchers, Jenny Olmstead and Jessica Subies, who pointed this out back on December 18th. They noted that at the time, Russia was still in the midst of a 22-month campaign to seize Pokrovsk and Minor. That alone should have been a hint to Putin that the much more fortified belt that he has in his sights will be far from an easy victory. As for when the fortress belt might fall, the duo claims that 2026 is ambitious at best. "Russian forces are unlikely to seize all of Donetsk in the fortress belt any sooner than 2027 or '28, assuming Ukraine's international partners continue supporting Ukraine," the duo said in December. What we're now seeing during the early weeks of the spring offensive is that this prophecy is almost certain to come true. This isn't a failure all of Putin's making, as inept as he and his military commanders have proven themselves to be. Russia has spent much of the latter part of 2025 trying to prepare for its spring offensive, not just with the pushes in Pokrovsk and Minor, but also by taking territory in Ukraine's south. The idea was to create a buffer zone in the southern region that would prevent Ukraine from funneling reserves to the southern tip of the fortress belt that Russia intended to attack. For a while, it even looked like Russia had been successful. However, the loss of access to the illicit Starlink terminals that Russia has been using for much of the war spelled doom for the southern position. Starting at the end of January, Ukraine has been conducting a counteroffensive in the south that has liberated as much as 400 km, or about 154 square miles, of territory that Russia occupied. Any buffer zone that Putin had hoped to create has been shattered. Now Russia is also having to send reserves to Ukraine's south to try to push the counteroffensive back, which adds up to more soldiers intended for the fortress belt that aren't doing what Russia intended. Plus, with the buffer gone, Ukraine has carved a route through to the south of the fortress belt, which goes some way to explaining why Russia's forces in that region are failing so badly. RBC Ukraine notes that the soldiers being sent from Donetsk for Ukraine's south aren't your basic rank-and-file infantry. Elite units and paratroopers have been tasked with snatching the territory that Ukraine has liberated back. What does that leave Russia with during its spring offensive against the fortress belt? Meet cannon fodder. Soldiers with barely any training and even less strategic nous who are just being sent to die against fortifications for which they are in no way prepared. There's a reason why Russia just broke its own record for casualties in a single day. And we're probably going to see that record get broken several times over before the spring is done. As Putin watches the fortress belt shut down every offensive that Russia launches, he'll be asking himself what went wrong. Ukraine doing the unexpected in the south played a part. And Putin is far too egotistical to believe that he could be anything less than a strategic genius. But he won't see the part he and his Kremlin cronies have played in all this.

But behind the problems that Russia is experiencing on the battlefield lies an even bigger issue that Putin needs to get a handle on. Russia's military bloggers are turning against him. And one of them is among the most influential propagandists that Putin has in his Russia-based disinformation army. "Little by little, the advantage is going to our enemies. Very experienced guys are working there. They are highly qualified specialists. They know how things work and they are working to take advantage of the technical superiority they have," were the words of Yuri Podolyaka when assessing the offensive against the fortress belt so far. To understand why this particular propagandist is so important, you need to know who he is. Podolyaka was a former Ukrainian citizen who transferred his loyalty to Russia in 2014 amidst Putin's first campaign of aggression against Ukraine. That makes him the perfect type of propagandist for Putin. Who better than a former Ukrainian to tell Russia's people how justified Putin's invasion is. And for about 4 years, Podolyaka, who has 2.7 million YouTube subscribers and about 2.8 million followers on Telegram, was exactly what Putin wanted. A man who beat the propaganda drum to a massive audience right up until last winter when he was still predicting the inevitable collapse of the Ukrainian military. But now, one of Russia's top military bloggers has turned against his paymaster, and the collapse of the spring offensive is the reason why. Still, vague comments about the superiority of Ukraine's technology and strategy may not seem like the biggest betrayal in the world. You could even argue that Podolyaka is trying to hedge his bets and get good with the country that he betrayed years before. However, you haven't heard the words that this military blogger reserved for what he sees as the fate of the spring offensive. "Unfortunately, I think that in the coming months, we will not be able to change this situation. We just can't, to our great misfortune," the propagandist declares. He adds that the main Russian effort should be coming against Ukraine right now, but it's difficult to see how that effort will succeed. Russia, Podolyaka says, will experience big losses as it tries to tackle the fortress belt. Ukraine's technological edge is too strong. It is starting to conduct attacks against the Russian rear in the occupied regions of Donbas, which has been made possible by Ukraine's new mid-range drones. Those drones are wiping out Russian air defenses as we speak, along with taking out key military nodes in the occupied regions. Podolyaka isn't the only one of Putin's former supporters to turn against the Russian president. Ilya Varlamov, who for years has been an advocate of Russia dominating his neighbors, has also stabbed a knife into Putin's back. "We all thought Putin was the unifier of Russian lands, and now we've come to this bloody assaults, the luring of contract soldiers by deception, and much more," Varlamov has declared. He calls Putin's invasion a dead-end war and says that it could go on for another decade. All to assuage the ego of a man who can't accept that he has failed to achieve any of his objectives. "Bottom line, Vladimir Putin is not a legitimate president. Vladimir Putin must resign and be brought to trial as a war criminal and thief. Long live freedom. Damn it, Varlamov," writes Varlamov. These are people who have spent years towing the Kremlin line on the propaganda front. Now they're telling literally millions of people that Russia is failing and that Putin is a weak leader. This is the bigger problem for Putin, and it's going to be fed by what's happening in Ukraine right now. As more weeks pass with minimal gains, more losses, and no dents put into the fortress belt, Putin's strategic ineptitude is finally going to come back to haunt him. He'll try to silence the voices. By the end of 2025, the Kremlin was already cracking down on Russia's military bloggers, and Putin has since started taking steps to close the internet in Russia so that only state-approved and controlled sources will be accessible. That won't change the casualty count in Ukraine. It'll do nothing about the failed spring offensive. As Putin cracks down inside Russia, the voices against him will get even louder. As for the fortress belt, it will do what it's been doing since at least 2014: stand against Putin's aggression. What the Kremlin thought would take months is going to take years at best, and it's already costing Russia far more than it should. Russia's deadliest day of 2026 so far has already been and gone, and it's only going to get worse from here.

It's supposed to be the grandest Russian military spectacle of them all. A showcase of immense power that is both the envy and the terror of the entire world. But it has been reduced to nothing. No weapons, weak begging for ceasefires. Putin's victory parade is going to be little more than a piddling self-aggrandizing march. A humiliation for the strongman who is scared that Ukraine will rain fire down on his parade. Putin just told on himself. Russia is losing the Ukraine war. And we got a major hint that Putin feels the same when Moscow made a declaration on April 29th. Putin chose that day to have one of his aides, Yuri Ushakov, announce that there will be a ceasefire on May 9th. Why a ceasefire? Russia wants to hold its annual Victory Day parade. What is supposed to be a commemoration of Russia overcoming the Nazis during World War II has been morphed into a grotesque attempt at power projection by Putin in recent years. Russia's leader wants to keep up the masquerade. He wants a ceasefire to ensure that nothing can happen to his little saber-rattling event, and he has even gone through US President Donald Trump to try to make it happen. Pravda revealed that Putin spoke to Trump in a 1.5-hour phone call that saw Russia's president whine about Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory. Putin then said he wanted a ceasefire for his parade in a transparent attempt to make the US think that he is looking for a halt to hostilities because he wants to bring an end to the war. That's not what Putin wants. He's scared of Ukraine. He's terrified that Ukraine will send missiles to strike his parade. So, he's trying to leverage his way into getting a ceasefire any way he can. There are plenty of reasons why Putin needs the war to stop. Before we dig into them, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sees right through Putin's attempts to manipulate and cajol. This is nothing but rank desperation from Russia's leader as he tries to preserve an event.

that he uses to prop up his strongman image. "They want the parade to pass calmly for a few hours, then resume attacks afterwards. We don't want any ceasefire to become a tactical deception by the Russian Federation," Zilinski said after news broke of Putin's demands.

Russia, for its part, claims that it doesn't need any agreement from Ukraine to implement its ceasefire. Putin's favorite mouthpiece, Dmitri Pescov, said as much on April 30th, stating, "This is a decision of the head of the Russian state and it will be implemented." But of course, everyone would expect the same kind of reaction from the Kev regime in the form of appropriate intentions. So far, there has been none.

Typical gamesmanship from Russia, masking humiliation with claims that Ukraine is in the wrong. All of this is being done not because Putin genuinely wants a ceasefire. Putin is scared. He knows that Ukraine has the ability to strike Moscow and it could use that ability during his Victory Day parade. On top of that, Russia has more sinister reasons for declaring its ceasefire for this parade.

But for now, those of you with long memories may already be thinking back to 2025. Ahead of last year's Victory Day parade, Putin made similar declarations about a ceasefire as he again sought desperately to protect his precious parade from attack. There are echoes of 2025 in Putin's 2026 demands. But this year, something is different about Victory Day.

Back in 2025, Putin indeed put on as grand a spectacle as he possibly could, even as Russia's military was being ravaged in Ukraine. The 80th anniversary of the Victory Day parade saw Putin invite dignitaries from around the world. Those who were willing to share a stage with Russia include China's President Xiinping, who was the headline figure among 27 world leaders who Russia said were joining it for the event. Such an important anniversary also saw Russia pull out all the stops it could to make the parade memorable. Russia managed to showcase about 150 military vehicles in 2025, including tanks. That was surprising. Tanks hadn't been present in the two previous years of the parade because they were too busy being blown to pieces in Ukraine. But Putin managed to use tanks that he was too scared to send into Ukraine in the 2025 parade, along with 11,000 soldiers who were probably happy to have a day's reprieve before they were inevitably sent to die in Ukrainian kill zones. Victory Day 2025 was far from the most impressive showcase of Russia's military might. But the presence of world leaders, soldiers, and some equipment at least created the illusion that Russia had some strength and clout on the global stage.

Then we get to the 2026 parade and everything has changed. Putin is still begging for a ceasefire just as he did in 2025. Only this time, Russia's leader doesn't have a cast of dignitaries by his side that he can use as a shield against a Ukrainian attack. Part of the reason why Xi and his ilk were in Russia for Victory Day 2025 was that Putin knew Ukraine wouldn't risk an attack that could lead to the sparking of a conflict with another country. But in 2026, there will likely be no major world leaders. Putin is on his own. And to make matters even worse for Russia's president, the ceasefire that he has proposed isn't protecting a relatively large parade like the one we saw in 2025. It's protecting practically nothing.

Russia is barely going to have anything to showcase for Victory Day 2026. Reuters reports that Victory Day 2026 will include absolutely no Russian weapons on the roads. We're not going to see tanks and armored cars rolling through the streets of Moscow. There will be no artillery units or air defense systems on proud display. Not even the intercontinental ballistic missiles that Russia has showcased in previous years will be making an appearance. The National Interest notes that Russia is also going to send no cadets from its military schools or similar institutions to march in the parade. And it still isn't clear how many actual Russian military personnel are going to be taking part. The only thing that anybody believes will happen is that a handful of Russian fighter jets will conduct a flyover. This is meant to be a showcase of Russia's military might, and Putin isn't going to be displaying anything that Russia has made.

There are no two ways around it. This is a humiliation for Putin on multiple levels. First, he's had to beg for a ceasefire, going so far as to speak to Trump in a desperate attempt to convince the US to apply pressure on Ukraine not to attack his pathetic parade. Second, think about what the Victory Day parade is supposed to signify in Russia. This is the single most important event in the Russian military calendar. A day to celebrate an era where Russia fought against an actual scourge and came out on top. Yes, Putin has twisted the parade to suit his purposes for years. It's become as much of a saber rattling event as anything else, but it still has symbolic importance and it's meant to be a spectacle. Now, what is it? A couple of jets flying over and a handful of soldiers mournfully marching as Putin or one of his body doubles watches on in silence. This is not the powerful Russia that Putin wants to present. It's an admission of failure. A signal from Putin that his long and painful invasion of Ukraine has cost Russia so much that it simply can't afford to put on the kind of parade that is supposed to happen for Victory Day.

What we're seeing here is big. Victory Day 2026 will be the first time in almost two decades that no military equipment goes rumbling through Moscow's Red Square. 18 years ago, that was normal. The parade was about celebrating victory over the Nazis, not saber wrapping. It's only since 2008 that Putin has ordered military equipment to be on display. Now, 18 years later, the equipment has been pulled, and there are plenty of reasons why. But before we dig deeper into what they are, with each further showcasing Putin's humiliation, this is a quick reminder that you're watching the military show. If you haven't subscribed yet, now is the perfect time to hit the button so you never miss our analysis of the Ukraine war.

So, Putin's pathetic parade, why has it been reduced to the utter nothingness that Russia is going to try to showcase on May 9th? Putin's mouthpieces have been trying to explain it all away. Russia's defense ministry has already claimed that the current operational situation is the reason why Russian military equipment won't be on display during Victory Day 2026. That roughly translates to "our equipment is getting slaughtered in Ukraine and we have nothing left to show off." However, Pescov has also put in another appearance and he has concocted an excuse so brazen that it beggars belief. "The Kev regime, which is losing ground on the battlefield every day, has now launched full-scale terrorist activity, and therefore all measures are being taken to minimize the danger," Pescov told reporters when quizzed about the parade. Really, Pescov? Are you going down the road of supposed terrorism with your excuses? Ukraine isn't the country that has been purposefully targeting civilians over a four-plus year campaign. That's been Russia's strategy since the beginning of Putin's invasion.

According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 15,578 Ukrainian civilians have been killed during Russia's invasion up to March 31st. That amounts to roughly 3,800 civilians per year that Russia is eliminating with its constant attacks. Another 43,352 Ukrainian civilians have been injured during the same period, which works out to be about 10,800 per year. And yet Putin, through his favorite mouthpiece, is trying to claim that it's Ukraine that is pulling off terrorist attacks. The reality is that it's Russia that has been terrorizing Ukraine for 4 years. That terrorization has been escalating in recent weeks. On March 24th, the Atlantic Council reported that Russia has purposefully bombed a UNESCO World Heritage site in Liv, which is as far west as any major Ukrainian city gets. Liv isn't on the front lines. It's not even close. Yet, Russia has targeted one of its most important sites for the sole reason of spreading the kind of terror that Pescov claims that Ukraine is looking to inflict on Russia during Victory Day.

Russia's lies are transparent. The hypocrisy is rank. What we see here with Pascov's comments is a weak attempt to insinuate that Ukraine would attack the Victory Day parade to kill civilians and not to take out Russian military equipment. That claim is being made with a sinister purpose. Russia is trying to engineer something here, and we'll reveal what that is soon. But even false claims that Ukraine is going to attack Russian civilians tells us more than Putin would want. Hidden behind Peskov's words is an admission that Putin doesn't want to put out into the world. Ukraine can hit Moscow, and there's nothing that Russia can do about it.

After 4 years of fighting, Ukraine's defense industry has stepped up and produced weapons that offer the perfect combination of distance and firepower to wreak havoc on the military equipment that Putin would normally have trundling down Moscow's streets for the Victory Day parade. Firepoints FP5 Flamingo and the more recent FP9 are both perfect examples. The FP9 is closer to the end of its testing phase every day, and it looks lethal. Larger than Russia's Iscanda ballistic missiles, the FP9 is a homegrown ballistic missile that has a range of 855 km or about 530 mi and a warhead that packs an 800 kg or 1,760 lb explosive punch. Could Russia be worried that Ukraine will use Victory Day 2026 to debut this deadly new weapon? Perhaps. But even if Ukraine doesn't have the FP9 ready for May 9th, it does have the Flamingo, a drone-missile hybrid. The Flamingo can fly up to 3,000 km or a little over 1,860 mi and has a 1,100 kg or 2,425 lb warhead. It's not as fast as the FP9 as it isn't a ballistic missile, but it is being mass-produced, can travel far enough to hit Moscow, and has been used to hit targets already, such as an Iscandanda missile production facility in the Russian city of Vkinsk.

So, Ukraine can hit Moscow during Victory Day 2026 if it wants. However, the removal of military equipment from that parade and Peskov's comments about Ukraine planning an attack tell us something else. It's not just that Ukraine can strike Moscow. It's that Russia clearly doesn't feel confident enough in its air defenses to stop such a strike. Russia has S300 and S400 air defense systems all over Moscow to guard the country's most important city. Those systems are especially prevalent wherever Putin happens to be. So, you'd have to imagine they'll be stationed close to every street that the Victory Day 2026 parade will roll through. And yet, Russia has pulled military equipment from that parade. This is Putin's confession. Ukraine can hit Moscow, and Russia isn't sure it can protect its parade.

The developing Ukrainian long-range capabilities are a massive problem, and they would be enough to cause what we're seeing in Putin's parade. But behind that problem is another major issue that also reveals just how badly the Ukraine war is going for Russia. It's not just that Russia wants to protect its equipment. Victory Day 2026 won't feature military equipment because Russia simply can't spare anything for its grand spectacle. Former speech writer for Putin and now one of many former Kremlin allies that have been labeled as foreign agents, Abbas Galamov has been among the most critical of Putin's decision. "Are they afraid of a mutiny, or has all the equipment burned up in Ukraine?" Galamov asked.

Indeed, battlefield pressures are mounting on Russia as it has burned through billions upon billions of its military stockpiles during its failing invasion. According to Ukraine, Russia has lost almost 12,000 tanks, around 24,000 armored vehicles, over 41,000 artillery systems, and many more thousands of pieces of equipment, including missiles, air defenses, ships, and aircraft. The total cost of all of this lost equipment stands somewhere around $142.3 billion. Ukraine says all of this equipment has to be replaced. The tanks and missiles that are supposed to roll through Moscow on May 9th can't do it because they're too busy being sent to Ukraine.

What we see here in what essentially amounts to a cancellation of the most important aspects of the Victory Day parade is yet another admission from Russia. It's not just scared that Ukraine is going to strike. Russia has been humiliated through the loss of so much of its equipment that it can't afford to make any of it vulnerable. Remember, parades don't just pop up out of thin air. They have to be prepared and staged. Whatever scant equipment that could have made its way to Moscow has to be gathered up beforehand, making it a prime target for Ukraine's drones and its new generation of ballistic missile. Columns have to park up and rehearse. Simply attempting something like that would showcase how weakened Russia's military has become on the equipment front. And if Ukraine managed to hit a rehearsal, Victory Day would be cancelled by Ukraine's hand. Putin is just trying to get ahead of that issue. He's weakly grasping at whatever small amount of control he still has over the Victory Day situation.

But let's assume for a moment that Russia had something to show off. It still might have avoided sending equipment onto Moscow's roads because the Victory Day parade is a lavish spectacle under Putin. The parade has been twisted into a day-long celebration of Putin and all his power, and such displays cost money. Russia isn't exactly doing well on the financial front. Over four years of war in Ukraine have tanked the Russian economy. The country's gross domestic product or GDP for the first quarter of 2026 fell 0.3% year-on-year on the back of a 2025 that had already seen stagnation. Industrial output is declining too, as Putin's military-first economic policy is crippling every non-war-related industry in Russia. Food prices are rising out of control, and the Russian people are dealing with a cost of living crisis that can be traced directly back to what the invasion of Ukraine has cost Russia. Putin can't afford a lavish parade right now, neither literally nor figuratively. If he splashes the cash on Victory Day, he's going to have a whole lot of people asking why they can't even afford the staples they need to survive.

Begging for a ceasefire isn't going to stop the humiliation that's coming. Even if the Victory parade goes off without a hitch, it will be a sad display of nothingness compared to what Putin has put on in the past. But here's where a more sinister factor might come into play that could catch everybody off guard. Russia may be hoping for something that is beyond the pale. And we see that in Pescov's comments about Ukraine supposedly terrorizing Russia. Think about this. There will be no military equipment in Moscow on May 9th. But what will be in the city are thousands of civilians who feel they have to line the streets to massage Putin's massive ego, even as he fails to put on the kind of parade that would make his people feel as though their country is strong. Russia knows it will have the people, even if it doesn't have the strength. And it may just be hoping that Ukraine will launch a strike that could kill civilians on Victory Day.

Russia might be laying a trap for Ukraine in the hope that it will launch missiles or drones at Moscow on May 9th. If that happens and civilians are injured, Putin would then be able to point to supposed evidence that it is Ukraine that is the aggressor nation. He would use this incident as leverage as he attempts to pressure Ukraine into giving Russia what it wants in peace negotiations. And he would try to use the incident to manipulate other countries, particularly the US, into taking his side. Russia may be laying out some bait, but we're willing to bet that Ukraine won't take a bite.

With no military assets to strike, Ukraine will likely leave the Victory Day parade alone to be the sad monument to Putin's incompetence that it's shaping up to be. And why would Ukraine attack a target that has no military value? It's too busy shredding through Russian equipment elsewhere. You've already seen how much of Russia's equipment has gone up in flames in the war against Ukraine. More recently, the general staff of Ukraine's armed forces announced that Ukraine has destroyed 1,300 of Russia's ground robotic systems up to the beginning of May. On May 2nd alone, Russia lost 76 artillery systems, 283 vehicles and fuel tankers, 2,200 drones, and 12 ground robots inside Ukraine. And on May 1st, news broke that Ukraine had pulled off a drone strike against Russia's Shaggo airfield that damaged four aircraft, including Su57 and Su34 fighter jets.

As far as Ukraine is concerned, Putin can have his embarrassingly small Victory Day parade. While Russia's president tries to maintain what has become a monument to his own ego, Ukraine will just carry on destroying Russia's equipment anywhere. It'll just do it in Ukraine and elsewhere in Russia rather than on the streets of Moscow on May 9th. And if it really wants to create some Victory Day havoc, Ukraine could unleash a genius new weapon that doesn't kill, but will bring chaos to Putin's parade. It's a weapon that is shockingly simple, already in use in the occupied territories, and has the potential to plunge Moscow back to the Stone Age. Find out what it is and why it's so important for Ukraine by watching our video. And if you enjoyed this video, make sure you subscribe to the Military Show so you don't miss what we have coming next. And thank you as always for watching.