Latest news with #ISW
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Russian forces advance in northern Ukraine, within range of major city of Sumy
Russian forces have continued to advance in the northern Ukrainian region of Sumy, bringing the regional capital within range of their drones and artillery, according to Ukrainian officials and analysts. A spokesman for the Ukrainian military in the area, Ivan Shevtsov, said that in addition to trying to advance towards Sumy city, Russian forces were constantly shelling the area and more evacuations of civilians were taking place. 'At the moment, the territory that the enemy has already occupied is about 15 kilometers along the front line and about 6-7 kilometers deep,' Shevtsov said. He added that the Russians were trying to advance towards the town of Yunakivka, within a few kilometers of their current positions. The Sumy military administration said that Russian troops had carried out almost 150 shelling attacks on 47 settlements in the region in the 24 hours to Tuesday morning. For its part, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed Tuesday that its forces had captured the village of Andriivka as they broadened the front, according to the official TASS news agency. Shevtsov said that with further advances the Russians would be able to launch more coordinated attacks on Sumy city. Its current population is unknown, but before the war began it was home to about a quarter of a million people. The unofficial Ukrainian group DeepState, which monitors the frontlines, reported that Russian forces had occupied another settlement in northern Sumy, putting them about 20 kilometers from Sumy city. It said: 'The situation in the north of the Sumy region continues to deteriorate due to constant pressure from the enemy and large numbers of infantry.' 'The threat of the enemy's advance is that it will reach a distance of 20-25 kilometers, which will allow FPV drones to fly to the city of Sumy,' DeepState said. It added that Ukrainian forces were unable to combat the Russians' use of fiber-optic drones, which are capable of evading jamming. 'A separate issue is the lack of personnel to hold back the enemy, which is severely lacking,' DeepState said. The Russians have reinforced their units in the area over recent weeks, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), since President Vladimir Putin visited the adjacent Russian region of Kursk in mid-May and ordered the creation of a buffer zone within Sumy. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned last month that Russia had amassed more than 50,000 troops near the Sumy region. Ukrainian forces, meanwhile, are stretched across multiple points on the front lines, from the northern border to the Black Sea. ISW said Monday that Russian forces had recently intensified ground assaults and brought in several experienced brigades, including airborne troops. Shevstov, the Ukrainian military spokesman, said Russian forces aimed 'not just to enter and create a so-called buffer zone 20-30 kilometers deep, but to completely capture the Sumy region.' Sumy city was targeted Tuesday by a rocket attack, which killed three people and injured about 20, according to the local military administration. Zelensky described it as 'a savage strike…directly targeting the city and its ordinary streets with rocket artillery.' On Monday, Zelensky described northern Sumy as one of the 'hottest' parts of the front line. Capturing Sumy's regional capital is probably beyond the Russians – the terrain is thickly forested. But through their attacks, the Russian military can prevent the Ukrainians from redeploying units to Donetsk and elsewhere on the front line. ISW noted Monday that 'Russian forces have not seized a Ukrainian city with a pre-war population greater than 100,000 since July 2022.'
NDTV
a day ago
- Politics
- NDTV
Russia's Ukraine Advance Accelerated In Spring, Data Study Finds
Russia's military advance in Ukraine picked up speed in the spring after slowing down over the winter, according to AFP's analysis of data from US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW). The Russian army took 507 square kilometres in May 2025, against 379 square kilometres in April and 240 square kilometres in March. In May 2025, the Russian advance was focused again on the eastern Donetsk region, which accounted for nearly 400 square kilometres. Ukrainian troops did not recapture any territory in May. Over the past 12 months Russian troops have advanced in Ukraine, which has not managed to retake lost territory. From June 2024 to May 2025, Russia gained a total of 5,107 square kilometres (less than one percent of Ukrainian territory before the war), while Ukrainian forces only regained 85 square kilometres. At the end of May Russia controlled either wholly or partially nearly 19 percent of Ukrainian territory before the war, including Crimea and Donbass. In the spring of 2024, Russia's advance also gathered speed, with Moscow's troops taking 449 square kilometres in May, after 111 square kilometres in April, and 50 square kilometres in March.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
How much does a Russian drone attack on Ukraine cost? The question is more complicated than it sounds
Beginning overnight on Saturday, May 24, Russia rained down nearly a thousand drones and missiles on villages and cities across Ukraine in three nights of large-scale aerial attacks, as civilians spent hours sheltering underground. Russia's bombardment killed more than a dozen people and injured dozens more, in one of the largest coordinated attacks since the start of the war. Such deadly storms of drones and missiles are not cheap to carry out, but the costs of these weapons are sensitive military information that Russia keeps classified. Experts and media outlets have estimated that attacks like the one this past weekend cost Russia hundreds of thousands of dollars in weaponry. The estimated figures vary significantly, however, and that's before adding in other costs beyond their price tag, like the price of a flight that launches a missile, or storage costs before weapons are used. "The cost of these large strikes is quite difficult to estimate in the open-source because Russia goes to great lengths to obfuscate the cost of the missiles and drones," said Angelica Evans, a Russia analyst with the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). "Particularly with the onset of western sanctions and Russia's many sanctions evasion schemes, it's difficult to know how much all of the various components in the projectiles really cost, let alone the cost of production itself." According to Ukraine's Air Force, the weekend attack used Shahed drones, decoy drones, three types of cruise missiles, and Iskander-M and KN-23 ballistic missiles. Most of the 995 weapons — 903 of them — were Shahed kamikaze drones or decoy drones meant to mimic the behavior of Shaheds and overwhelm air defense systems. Russia also launched 69 cruise missiles: 64 of the Kh-101 variety, 4 Kh-59/69 missiles, and one Kh-22 missile. The remaining 23 weapons were Iskander-M ballistic missiles or similar North Korean KN-23 ballistic missiles. Some experts have tried to come up with price tags for different weapons systems using open-source information, including examining the components of downed weaponry, comparing missiles to similar weapons in the West, and analyzing hacked procurement contract data. While these methods can give a better sense of how much Russia is paying to carry out its aerial attacks, they result in a range rather than a hard figure. Take the Shahed, for example. One commonly cited figure is $50,000 per Shahed drone produced in Russia. Others have said the scaling of production in the past year within Russia has lowered the cost, potentially as low as $20,000. Hacked documents between Russia and Iran, meanwhile, show that Russia negotiated prices for Iranian-made Shaheds earlier in the war in the range of $193,000 to $290,000 per unit, depending on the number ordered. To save money on drones, Russia is increasingly producing them at home. Satellite imagery has detected the expansion of the facilities where Shahed drones are manufactured in Russia. The cost of a Shahed used by Russia therefore heavily depends on when it was acquired and whether you're calculating its replacement cost or its original purchase or production price. Nor do these estimates account for modifications made to the drones by Russians in the field or at the unit level. Another consideration is whether to include the cost of paying the soldiers who deploy the weapon. "Recent reporting estimates Russia can produce roughly 100 Shaheds per day." The uncertainty is multiplied hundreds of times over for each drone in a major attack. But the use of decoy drones provides another complication in calculating the cost of the recent Russian attack: How many of the 903 drones were Shaheds, and how many were the much cheaper decoy drones? Ukraine's Defense Intelligence Service believes the most expensive part of the decoy drones is their engine, which can be bought online for around $350–$500. A complete decoy is likely to cost in the low thousands range. Yurii Ihnat, a Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson, has stated that almost half of the deployed drones may be decoys. And these are only considerations for pricing a drone. Missiles have a heftier price tag — from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars per missile — and can also come with a wider price range. Most ballpark estimates would put a dollar price tag in the high six figures for the recent three-day aerial attack, but the usefulness of such a metric is limited by how much variability there is. A more helpful metric, said Evans of ISW, would be looking at how many weapons are being launched compared to how many weapons Russia can produce. Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged to continue scaling up production of weapons, and drones in particular, calling them a major factor in combat successes. "We have seen recent reporting that Russia has been increasing its ability to produce Shahed drones and decoy variants for many months, and recent reporting estimates Russia can produce roughly 100 Shaheds per day," Evans said. This suggests that the drones used in the past weekend's attack could be replenished in just over a week. "Russian missile production capabilities are much more limited, particularly of Iskander ballistic missiles, and the Russians may be trying to stockpile cruise missiles so they can conduct rarer but more intense strike series like we saw over the weekend," Evans added. Hi, this is Andrea. Thanks for reading my article. At the Kyiv Independent, we work hard to inform the world about what's happening in Ukraine. To fund our reporting, we rely on our community of over 19,000 members from around the world, most of whom give just $5 a month. We're aiming to reach 20,000 soon — join our community and help us reach this goal. Read also: How Russia's Shahed drones are getting more deadly — and what Ukraine is doing about it We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ukraine scrambles to set up ‘drone wall' as it braces for Russian summer offensive
Russia dramatically intensified missile and drone attacks across Ukraine this month in an effort to sap Ukrainians' morale – but it is also stepping up ground attacks in many areas along the long frontline, according to Ukrainian officials and analysts. Some of those attacks have succeeded, with Ukrainian units in Donetsk and the north falling back from some positions, while some rural areas in the south have also been lost. But Ukraine's own enhanced use of drones, deployed in several layers on the battlefield, has helped Kyiv inflict heavy losses on the opposing forces with minimal casualties among its own troops. They may become even more critical in the months to come. The Ukrainians are trying to expand their own drone industry to create defensive corridors along key sections of the front line, often dubbed the 'drone wall.' Meanwhile, ignoring US President Donald Trump's efforts to secure a ceasefire, the Kremlin is pursuing a two-pronged strategy aimed at forcing Ukraine to admit defeat – destroying its cities from the sky and whittling away its defensive lines on the ground. Russia has sharply expanded its own drone and missile production in the past year, allowing for mass attacks using several hundred projectiles at once. The Russian strategy seeks to overwhelm Ukraine's air defenses with scores of low-cost drones so that simultaneous missile strikes can succeed. On the ground, Russian forces are probing Ukrainian defenses along many parts of the frontline simultaneously, from Zaporizhzhia in the south to Sumy in the north, advancing into abandoned villages and across open countryside in small numbers. The Russians are not rolling through Ukrainian defenses but gnawing away at them, using cars and motorbikes and scattered infantry platoons. Russian forces have advanced an average of roughly 14 square kilometers (5.4 square miles) per day so far this year, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in Washington. This rate implies they'd need nearly four more years to complete the occupation of the four regions illegally annexed by Moscow: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Those are the Kremlin's oft-stated goals, but it is also trying to instil a sense among Kyiv's allies of Russian superiority over Ukrainian forces. Much of the fighting is in Donetsk, with the Russians still determined to seize the entire region – unless it is handed over in peace negotiations, which is a non-starter for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed Tuesday that a village south of the key town of Kostiantynivka had been taken. ISW assesses that Russian forces seized roughly 65 square kms of territory - but remain incapable of intensifying offensive operations in several different directions simultaneously. 'The main Russian effort into the summer will once again be against the key towns of Kostyantynivka and Pokrovsk' in Donetsk, according to Jack Watling, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London. Hundreds of miles to the north, Russian units have edged a few kilometers into the Sumy region. Zelensky told journalists Tuesday that the Russians are 'now amassing troops in the Sumy direction. More than 50,000. We understand that. But we are making progress there.' Zelensky said the Russians wanted 'to build this buffer zone, as they call it, 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) deep into Ukraine,' but lacked the capability. The Russians are supporting these operations with missile and air-launched guided-bomb attacks. The attacks into Sumy follow a Kremlin directive on May 21 that the military create buffer zones inside northern Ukraine – in Sumy and Kharkiv regions. That came when President Vladimir Putin visited Russia's Kursk region across the border, part of which had been seized by a Ukrainian incursion launched from Sumy last summer. Capturing Sumy's regional capital is probably beyond the Russians – the terrain is thickly forested. But through their attacks, the Russian military can prevent the Ukrainians from redeploying units to Donetsk. Further east there's also been an uptick in fighting around Vovchansk in Kharkiv region in recent days. Across the 1,000-kilometer (621-mile) frontline, according to analysts, the Ukrainian military has to decide which areas are under greatest threat, where to withdraw, how to redeploy – even as many brigades are seriously under-strength more than three years after the Russian invasion. The manpower balance is still very much in Russia's favor, despite its heavy losses. Putin recently claimed that 60,000 volunteers are being recruited every month. Observers believe this is likely exaggerated but signing-up bonuses that dwarf civilian wages in Russia make military service an attractive option. Ukraine's military chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said earlier this month that Kyiv faced 'a combined enemy grouping of up to 640,000 personnel,' higher than at the outset of the invasion. Zelensky said in January that Ukraine had 880,000 soldiers, 'but 880,000 are defending the entire territory. Russian forces are concentrated in certain directions.' Russian recruitment 'has exceeded Kremlin targets for every month of 2025,' according to the RUSI analyst Watling. 'Having shuffled commanders and built-up reserves of equipment, Russia is now set to increase the tempo and scale of attacks.' But for every square kilometer of Ukrainian land that Russia captures, Moscow is probably losing about 100 men, according to Western assessments. Above and behind the frontlines as well as in the air campaign being waged by Moscow, the development and deployment of drones will continue to be critical. The recent Russian advances in Donetsk, while incremental, were enabled by the tactic of isolating the battlefield – cutting Ukrainian units from supplies through drone strikes on supply vehicles up to 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from the front lines. Ukrainian defenses are heavily reliant on layers of drones. The Ukrainians are developing a concept sometimes dubbed the 'drone wall,' designed to 'provide a continuous defensive corridor of drones along Ukraine's most vulnerable frontiers to inflict significant casualties on Russian forces,' according to Mick Ryan, author of the blog Futura Doctrina. Konrad Muzyka, a defense analyst at Rochan Consulting, says that 'Ukrainian forces are increasingly lethal with drone-artillery coordination. Russian assaults — motorcycle-based and armored — were defeated across several fronts with minimal Ukrainian losses' in April. But Ryan points out that an effective drone wall will require integration 'and probably AI-assisted decision-making and analysis,' as well as integration with electronic warfare. And it's a two-way street. Ukrainian drones are 'guided by small radar, and Russia is now systematically working to locate and target these radar stations,' Watling writes. Zelensky said Tuesday that Russia plans to ramp up production of Shahed attack drones to between 300 and 350 per day. Asked whether there may come a time when Russia fires 1,000 drones in one day, he replied: 'I cannot say that this will not happen.' Sending drones in their hundreds saturates air defenses, as they accumulate over a target area. Russia has also developed drones that can evade Ukrainian jamming and can fly higher and faster than earlier models. Ukrainian analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko said last week that one Shahed had been observed at a record altitude of 4,900 meters. According to Zelensky, Ukraine is now deploying F-16 and Mirage fighter jets to supplement air defenses. 'We are also moving towards drone-to-drone interceptors,' he said Tuesday. Ukraine's former military chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, says Ukraine must wage a 'high-tech war of survival' in which drones play a critical role, to 'make the economic burden of the war unbearable for Russia.' Speaking to a Kyiv forum last week, Zaluzhnyi – now Ukraine's ambassador to London - said that his country had failed to exploit innovations 'where yesterday we were ahead of the enemy. The enemy has already outpaced us.' Analysts cite Russia's growing use of short-range fiber-optic drones that can't be jammed as one example of the technological race. Ukraine is yet to scale up the use of such drones, which rely on millimeters-thick, but miles-long, optical fibers. Zelensky denied Ukraine was losing the drone war. 'We will have the same number of drones as the Russians, 300-500 per day - we are very close to it,' he said. The issue was not production, Zelensky said – it was financial. As Ukraine seeks to produce more of its own weapons – often in association with Western manufacturers, Zelensky added: 'I would like to see us receive $30 billion to launch Ukrainian production at full capacity.' But that is a long-term goal. Watling, from RUSI, envisages a tough few months for Ukraine that 'will place a premium on the efficiency of Ukrainian drone and artillery operations, the ability of Ukrainian commanders to preserve their troops, and the continuity of supplies flowing from Ukraine's international partners.' The continuation of US supplies is unsure as Trump blows hot and cold about whether Washington should continue helping Ukraine defend itself. Putin is 'desperately seeking to prevent the future supply of Western military aid to Ukraine,' according to ISW, 'as well-resourced Ukrainian forces have consistently demonstrated their ability to inflict unsustainable losses on Russian forces.' Innovation and tactical agility will be as influential as brute force as the war enters its fourth summer. CNN's Kosta Gak and Victoria Butenko contributed reporting.
Miami Herald
27-05-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Putin Ally Shares Map Of ‘Buffer Zone' Covering All Of Ukraine
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has warned that Russia would end up occupying almost all of Ukraine if it continued to receive Western weapons, posting a map to illustrate his claim. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said that at the current rate of Moscow's advances in its full-scale invasion, it would take roughly a century to capture the territory Vladimir Putin's ally had proposed. Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry for comment. Now deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, Medvedev had served as the country's head of state between 2008 and 2012 and posted fiery messages on social media threatening the West for its support of Ukraine. He and other Russian officials have repeatedly called for the establishment of buffer zones in northern Ukraine to place Russian cities out of the range of Ukraine's Western-provided long-range strike system. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said Medvedev's latest statement is part of a Kremlin strategy to justify Russia's aggression against Ukraine and the long-term occupation of Ukrainian territory. In a post on Telegram, Medvedev referred to Moscow's disparaging term for the government in Kyiv by writing if "military aid to the Banderite regime continues, the buffer zone could look like this." Derived from the name of Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera, the term is pejoratively used by the Kremlin against the government in Kyiv, to falsely paint it as having Nazi sympathies and as part of Moscow's rhetoric over its war aims to "denazify" the country it invaded. The text was next to an image which showed the whole of Ukraine under Moscow's occupation apart from a relatively small area of the Volyn and Lviv oblasts along Poland's border. Medvedev and Russian officials have called for Kyiv to concede occupied and unoccupied territory in the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, which Moscow claims to have annexed but does not fully control. The ISW cast doubt on the likelihood of it ever being able to capture this territory. However, the Washington, D.C. think tank said that given Russian forces have advanced an average of 5.5 square miles a day since in 2025, it would take nearly four years to capture the rest of the regions it has declared annexed. It would also take around 91 years to seize the entirety of the 226,819 square miles contained in Medvedev's proposed "buffer zone," it added. This time frame assumes Russia can maintain its current rate of advance and does not take into account geographic and defensive barriers. Russian forces have not seized a major urban area since the capture of Bakhmut in May, 2023. Meanwhile, the estimated 1,500 daily Russian casualties which current and former Western officials have told The Washington Post Moscow is facing, meant that Medvedev's proposal would result in 50 million casualties—over a third of the current Russian population, the ISW added. Deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev on Telegram: "If military aid to the Banderite regime continues, the buffer zone could look like this." Institute for the Study of War: "Russian forces would need roughly a century to seize Medvedev's proposed 'buffer zone' at their current rate of advance at the cost of nearly 50 million casualties at current loss rates." Putin said last week that a decision has been made to establish a security buffer zone along the Russia-Ukraine border. But the ISW noted how Russian forces have not shown they have not been able to conduct the rapid, multidirectional offensive operations needed to swiftly seize territory, suggesting that Medvedev's post was an idle threat. However, Kremlin rhetoric is likely to remain belligerent as the West wrangles over how to continue its military assistance to Kyiv. Related Articles Russia Sees $1 Billion Wiped off Stock Market After Trump's Putin CommentsUkrainian MiG-29 Fighter Jets Bomb Russian Special Services BaseChina Denies Ukraine's Russia Weapons ClaimRussian Bots Roast 'Clown' Donald Trump After Putin Comments 2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
