Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, routinely announce significant military advances on the Ukrainian front; however, these claims are often disproven by actual battlefield data. A recent example highlighted the supposed “capture” of the city of Konstantinovka, located in the western part of the Donetsk region.
According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), based on the current pace of Russian advancement and the casualties incurred for each kilometer gained, Russia would need to sacrifice at least 6 million soldiers just to control the small remaining area of Donetsk province still under Ukrainian sovereignty.
On Friday, President Putin held a meeting with key Russian military commanders, including Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, commander of the Northern Group of Forces, Colonel General Evgeny Nikiforov, and commander of the Southern Group of Forces, Colonel General Sergey Medvedev.
During this meeting, several localities were reported as captured, with Konstantinovka being the most significant, marking a potential beginning of the breach of the Ukrainian defensive line in the “Fortress Belt” of Donetsk.
Why Putin Announced the Capture of Konstantinovka
The Fortress Belt is a densely populated stretch of approximately 50 kilometers containing three cities still under Kyiv’s control: Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, and Konstantinovka. Maintaining a defensible front line with a numerically and materially inferior army relies on control over this strip.
Firstly, this area is heavily urbanized, and Ukraine has demonstrated its ability to hold off Russian forces for extended periods in urban settings, leading to costly attritional battles for the attackers. It took Russia nine months to occupy Bakhmut (previously home to 71,000 residents) and 22 months to seize Pokrovsk (with a population of 60,000).
To the west of the Fortress Belt lies a predominantly rural area, with the largest town, Lozova, having only 53,000 residents, making it difficult to establish a continuous defensive line on an open plain.
Secondly, the Fortress Belt is protected by the Siverskyi Donets and Oskil rivers, forcing Russian forces to engage in frontal assaults against fortifications rather than executing flanking maneuvers. Additionally, there are few larger waterways behind the belt where effective defensive lines can be established.
