Key Takeaways from the ISW:
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated the Kremlin’s rejection of a ceasefire and unchanged demands, including demilitarization and regime change in Ukraine.
- Russia is leveraging its “Rubikon” Center for Advanced Unmanned Technologies to improve its theater-wide drone capabilities, including in priority frontline areas in Donetsk Oblast.
- Russian forces have yet to reach parity with Ukraine’s innovative and deeply integrated drone program, however.
- Russian forces appear to be reprioritizing offensive operations in the Pokrovsk direction over the Kostyantynivka direction after several weeks of unsuccessful activity aimed at advancing toward Kostyantynivka.
- Russian Minister of Transport and former Kursk Oblast Governor Roman Starovoit reportedly recently committed suicide after Russian President Vladimir Putin removed Starovoit from his position, likely due in part to the Ministry of Transport’s role in Russian failures that enabled Ukraine’s Operation Spider Web in June 2025.
- Putin may have planned to punish Starovoit by arresting him on charges related to his time as the governor of Kursk Oblast in order to avoid acknowledging the Kremlin’s failure to prevent Operation Spider Web.
- Ukrainian forces continue to conduct long-range strikes against Russia’s defense industrial base (DIB).
- Ukrainian forces recently advanced near Novopavlivka. Russian forces recently advanced in northern Sumy Oblast and near Toretsk, Pokrovsk, and Novopavlivka.
Authors: Angelica Evans, Christina Harward, Anna Harvey, Jennie Olmsted, Olivia Gibson, and Frederick W. Kagan
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