Russian infiltration teams are inside Kostiantynivka. The southeastern edges of the city are contested ground. DeepState, a Ukrainian battlefield mapping project, shows Russian positions roughly one kilometre from the southern outskirts, with chunks of the city marked as a grey zone — held by neither side.

Kostiantynivka is one of four cities — alongside Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, and Druzhkivka — forming what analysts call Ukraine’s “fortress belt,” the main defensive line in Donetsk. If it falls, Russia gains a gateway to the remainder of the region.

Army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi confirmed on Saturday that Russian troops are using infiltration tactics to gain a foothold on the city’s outskirts. “We are repelling the Russian occupiers’ persistent attempts to gain a foothold in the outskirts of Kostiantynivka using infiltration tactics. Counter-sabotage measures are going on in the city,” he said on Telegram. Since Monday, Russian forces have launched 83 assaults in this sector using small infantry groups. Syrskyi said Russian offensive activity had risen noticeably in April.

Russia’s defence ministry claimed on Wednesday that its forces had seized Novodmytrivka, just north of Kostiantynivka. General Valery Gerasimov said in April that troops were advancing from both the north and south. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported on May 1 that geolocated footage shows Russian positions inside southeastern Kostiantynivka after assessed infiltration missions. Russian and Ukrainian positions are interspersed, making the front line difficult to determine.

The Long Grind

The battle has been building since Russian forces captured Toretsk in August 2025. By late October, the first infiltration teams entered Kostiantynivka from the southeast. By December, Russian units had reached the Bakhmut–Pokrovsk highway in the east and were advancing toward the railway station. In January, Russia struck a dam near Osykove, flooding the road connecting neighbouring settlements to Kostiantynivka and further complicating Ukrainian logistics.

Ukrainian forces repelled assaults through March, but the pressure has not relented. Roughly 2,500 civilians remain in Kostiantynivka, according to recent estimates — down from 4,800 in November. Russia’s broader Donetsk campaign has been defined by incremental gains rather than dramatic breakthroughs. Pokrovsk, with a pre-war population exceeding 60,000, was Moscow’s most significant gain in the past year, and even there Kyiv retains some positions.

The Manpower Emergency

The same week fighting intensified on Kostiantynivka’s outskirts, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced what he called the most fundamental reform of military service since the full-scale invasion began. Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said the government has been working on a broader transformation of recruitment and service conditions since January.

“The fifth year of full-scale war presents unique challenges, first and foremost in managing personnel and motivating our soldiers,” Zelenskyy said on May 1.

Infantry troops will see monthly salaries rise to between 250,000 and 400,000 hryvnias ($5,700 to $9,000), up from a current maximum of roughly 170,000. Non-combat personnel will see salaries increase from 20,000 to 30,000 hryvnias. The reforms are set to begin in June.

More significantly, Zelenskyy announced a “phased discharge” system for troops mobilised early in the war — effectively ending open-ended service contracts that have kept soldiers at the front for years. “This is the most fundamental moral issue,” he said.

The reform addresses a festering crisis. While hundreds of thousands volunteered in 2022, nearly all new recruits are now conscripts, according to Deutsche Welle. Cases of soldiers going absent without leave are widespread, and corruption allows some wealthy or well-connected individuals to evade service through bribes. Reports of heavy-handed conscription — including “busification,” where military-age men are rounded up in public and taken to enlistment centres — have drawn sharp public criticism. Syrskyi ordered mandatory rotations on April 30 after reports that some soldiers had remained in front-line positions for more than 100 days.

Drones Don’t Hold Ground

Western military aid continues to flow. Ukraine’s drone campaign against Russian oil infrastructure has been remarkably effective: Bloomberg reported, citing analytics firm OilX, that Russian refinery output has fallen to 4.69 million barrels per day — the lowest since December 2009. Zelenskyy said Ukrainian drone attacks have caused at least $7 billion in damage to Russia’s oil industry this year alone.

But drones and artillery do not hold ground. Infantry does. The twin pressures of Kostiantynivka’s slowly tightening encirclement and the army’s struggle to staff its front lines are two faces of the same problem: Ukraine is running low on people willing to fight.

US-brokered peace talks have stalled over Russia’s demand that Kyiv withdraw from Donetsk and Luhansk — territory Ukrainian officials say they will not cede. Until that impasse breaks, the war grinds forward, one kilometre at a time.

Sources