It’s the fate of just one town over a year, but it provides valuable insight into Russia’s ill-fated war choices.
The slow and costly incursion into Kostiantynivka, key to Russia’s advance in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas and claimed by the Russian Ministry of Defense to have been captured on July 3, reveals the tenacity of Kremlin forces and their willingness to tolerate catastrophic casualties to achieve even the smallest goals.
On July 3, the Ministry of Defense posted a series of videos of Russian troops waving Russian flags at various points in the town center, reinforcing the claim that Russian forces had captured the town. The false claim, which is contradicted by recent videos, Ukrainian military testimony, and independent maps of the front lines, is one of several made by Russian leaders in the past few months, presumably in an attempt to suggest that progress on the battlefield was greater than it actually was, in order to convince domestic audiences and their White House counterparts that Russia’s military operations were not stalling.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy quickly saw through the lie and urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet in town to discuss peace if it was indeed under Russian control.
CNN has reported twice in the past year in or near Kostiantyniivka, using geolocated video and testimony to show the horrific toll and slow pace of the Russian military advance that led to false claims of capturing the town. The fate of this town reveals both the persistent and relentless nature of Moscow’s attacks and the relatively small nature of the victories Moscow claims, however false.
A deep state map by an independent Ukrainian analyst shows Russian forces trying to push in outside the town. Fishing nets have already been placed on the roads leading into the town to protect traffic from Russian attack drones. Cars are safe in the city, and the downtown market remains busy despite the occasional threat of drones.
A CNN team that visited in July last year found the streets crowded with civilians, although some were reluctant to be photographed for fear of future Russian occupation and sanctions for “cooperating” with Western media.
By the first winter months, maps show the so-called gray zone of disputed territory moving closer to the town center. Russian air strikes intensified. A video posted by Ukraine’s military shows an apartment complex in the southwestern part of the town going up in flames.
And a Russian drone photographed the damage from the airstrike just a few streets away.
But the Ukrainians remain confident in the town center, and the General Staff posted a video of an officer casually standing in Victory Square in November.
Russian footage posted at the time shows what appears to be an infantryman’s perspective, again from the courtyard of an apartment complex off Gromov Street in the town’s southwest corner.
As recorded by the deep state in the first week of 2026, it is in the last few days of the year that Russia appears to be making the most significant progress. The gray zone has reached the town, with two separate Russian protrusions approaching the main access road.
Two important factors inform the extent of Moscow’s progress. The range of attack drones, from small first-person drones that target individuals and vehicles to larger payload machines that attack buildings, is expanding each month, gradually moving the safe space around Kostiantynivka further away and complicating Ukraine’s defenses. More importantly, around this time Western officials began to echo Ukraine’s claims that Russia was suffering up to 35,000 battlefield casualties each month.
This staggering figure is the clear result of both Ukraine’s obligation to kill as many soldiers as possible with drones and Russia’s continued use of brutal “wave” attack tactics, exposing the likely human cost of Russia’s small advance around Kostaninivka.
However, as of the end of the month, Kiev forces remained in the center, near the battleground railway station, according to a video posted in January.
By February, white phosphorus, a deadly munition whose use in residential fighting is considered illegal under humanitarian law, was raining down on apartment complexes in the southwest, suggesting the suburbs were where the heaviest fighting was taking place.
Nevertheless, Ukrainians are still posting videos showing they are in the central-southern area of the city.
By this stage, it is clear that many of the civilians have left and the town is slowly reduced to rubble. A video posted in April shows the area where Ukrainian troops were casually stationed in November reduced to a skeleton of buildings and ruins, raising questions about the economic value of the region contested by Russia.
In May, CNN experienced first-hand the changes in Russian drone reach during a grueling five-hour round trip on foot along the main entrance road to Kostiantynivka. A year ago, it was covered in fishing nets and could be accessed safely. By May, the nets remained, but the roads were littered with the remains of cars struck by drones and autonomous robots used to deliver supplies to the front lines.
The five-kilometre walk from the next major city, Drushkivka, to the outskirts of Kostyantiniivka, which later became known as the “Trail of Life,” was mostly done on foot, during which Ukrainian troops had to constantly hunker down in the foliage and hope for Russian drones to pass overhead. Vehicles on the road were targeted, and the team passed the burnt-out car in which an officer of the unit had been killed a few days earlier.
The increased danger on the roads, even though Ukrainian troops remain stationed in town centres, reflects technological advances on both sides that have allowed Russian drones to fly over wider areas in recent months and constantly reconfigure the battlefield. The map currently shows a gray area deep within the town, indicating that Russian forces are actually in the southwest part of the town.
Two months later, the Russian military claimed the town as their own and posted a video providing clear evidence to that effect. But looking at the July 3rd map, it’s clear that they still have to control important parts of it.
A week after claiming the occupation, Ukraine’s 19th Corps posted a video on Telegram showing a drone targeting Russian troops in the rubble of the city, killing one “occupier.” The post reads, “The enemy portrays victory on screen, but in reality it will be destroyed by our forces. The city will rise. The defense continues.”
This is Kostiantynivka’s lesson. Russia may be gradually coming to terms with it at great cost. However, its area is only 66 square kilometers (25.5 square miles), compared to Russia’s 17 million square kilometers (6.6 million square miles).
It is unclear exactly how many Russian and Ukrainian lives were lost in the fighting. But photos of the city show it reduced to rubble.
The town is strategically important because capturing it would allow Moscow’s forces to inch closer to Kramatorsk and Slovyask, the last major population centers in the Donbas region coveted by Putin. However, the capture of both cities is likely to involve equally gruesome and protracted fighting, and there are even optimistic estimates that achieving this important Moscow war goal will be at least a year away.
A year of horrific violence in Kostyantinivka undermines the weaknesses at the heart of Putin’s war plans. How long can Putin maintain the trust of the Russian people in a conflict where even the slightest gains are falsely claimed and are actually out of reach?
