Ukraine’s forces have stunned Russia with the liberation of Stepnohirsk in a lightning-fast counterattack that shattered Putin’s plans for Zaporizhzhia. After falsely claiming the settlement in late 2025, Russia has now been driven out completely as Ukrainian special forces overran fortified positions, cut supply lines, and exposed the collapse of Russia’s 2026 spring offensive. With dramatic battlefield footage, drone warfare, and urban combat, this operation could mark the first major step toward the total liberation of Zaporizhzhia.
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00:00It was a settlement that Russia claimed to have taken in late 2025.
00:04Russia was lying then. It has been defeated now. Ukraine just liberated Stepnohirsk,
00:10de-Russifying it overnight in a spectacular display of the sort of counter-attacking genius
00:15that we've seen from Ukraine's forces during most of 2026. But this isn't any old victory.
00:20Stepnohirsk is one of the most strategically important settlements in Ukraine for a simple
00:25reason. It's key to the total liberation of Zaporizhia. On May 18th, the Defense Intelligence
00:31of Ukraine, or HUR, broke the news that Ukrainian special forces had completed an operation
00:36that Russia never saw coming. Those forces hadn't just gained a little bit of ground in Stepnohirsk,
00:41they had completely overrun the settlement in a series of coordinated assault operations that
00:45pushed almost all of Putin's patsies out of their fortified positions. Russia's soldiers went running
00:50for any scrap of shelter that could protect them from Ukraine's forces. In the process,
00:54they abandoned key locations in Stepnohirsk to Ukrainian control.
00:58This was a capitulation of epic proportions, and much of it was caught on camera.
01:02Shared on Telegram by HUR, the footage tells the tale of Russia's Stepnohirsk failure.
01:07We see Ukrainian tanks rolling toward the settlement wrapped in cages that are designed
01:11to detonate incoming kamikaze drones before they can do their dangerous business.
01:15Rounds are rattled off. We see fire directed at Russian positions and coordinated by Ukraine's
01:21assault forces in tanks and armored vehicles. As the video goes on, we see Ukraine's armor rolling
01:25into Stepnohirsk itself. Troops on the ground engage in urban combat, searching for Russian
01:31infiltrators and then destroying them. Drones drop bombs. Tanks fire more rounds. Piece by piece,
01:36the settlement is retaken. This is a loss beyond measure for Russia.
01:41But behind this problem is another major issue, as losing Stepnohirsk means that all of Putin's
01:45plans for Zaporizhia have crumbled into dust. But before we get to that, HUR has plenty more
01:51to say about what its operatives did leading up to May 18th. HUR revealed that this lightning-fast
01:56operation was carried out in close coordination with other Ukrainian units, with the goal of
02:01stabilizing the situation in Stepnohirsk, while eliminating the Russian soldiers who had created
02:06defenses in key parts of the settlement. A combination of aerial reconnaissance and precision
02:11fire was used to achieve Ukraine's victory, as noted by Viktor Tokotyuk, who is the commander
02:16of the RTAN unit that perhaps played the largest role in Ukraine's Stepnohirsk success.
02:21The comment tells us that drones, as has so often been the case, played a key role.
02:25But rather than flying into targets and dropping bombs, though we're sure that also happened,
02:30those drones provided Ukraine with an aerial view of the settlement as its troops moved through
02:34and recaptured territory. Tokotyuk continues, stating,
02:37Every building was checked for surprises and remnants of enemy manpower. We do not rule
02:42out that the enemy will continue attempts to enter the city again, but we are ready for this.
02:46This wasn't some off-the-cuff operation. It was deliberate, well-planned, utterly lethal in its
02:52execution. The outcome of all of this was even worse than Russia expected. Not only were its troops
02:57almost entirely forced out of Stepnohirsk, but Ukraine also intelligently cut off almost every
03:02supply line that Russia has that it could use to support the few infiltrators that remain.
03:07A bridge into the settlement was destroyed. There is one road to the east of Stepnohirsk that
03:12appears to still remain, though using that road forces Russian equipment through a crossroads
03:16that puts them directly in the Ukrainian firing line. Putin now has a major problem on his hands.
03:22The few Russian soldiers who remain in Stepnohirsk have to be written off. There is no support coming
03:26for them. The best they can hope for is to take out one or two Ukrainian troops, though the reality
03:31is
03:31that they are more likely to surrender or be destroyed. However, Putin's larger problem is
03:36that Ukraine cutting off the supply lines into Stepnohirsk makes it incredibly difficult for
03:40Russia to launch any sort of full-scale assault into the town. Russia will have to continue to rely
03:46on infiltrators, and we just saw how well that worked out. Of course, Russia attempted to defend
03:51its positions in the face of the relentless Ukrainian assault, but that defense was weak, suggesting that
03:56Russia hasn't been supplying its Stepnohirsk infiltrators for quite a while. The best they could
04:00muster was an FPV drone waiting in ambush for Ukraine's tanks and armored vehicles. That drone
04:05didn't even get close. United24 media reports that it was detected and destroyed before it could hit
04:10any target. Hold on a second, one FPV drone? Did Russia really think that it would be able to defend
04:16Stepnohirsk with a single drone, or were its troops in the settlement so starved for supplies
04:20that this drone was all they could muster? It hardly matters now, as the settlement has been
04:24liberated and de-Russification can begin. What we see here is the sum total of a year's worth of
04:29failed Russian attempts to take Stepnohirsk, as revealed by the head of the office of the
04:33President of Ukraine, Kirill Budanov. For more than a year, the enemy has been unsuccessfully
04:38trying to occupy Stepnohirsk, throwing significant resources into it, but suffering enormous losses,
04:43Budanov declared, before giving credit where it was due to Ukraine's fighters. I thank the special
04:48forces of the HUR of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and all the units of the Defense Forces of
04:52Ukraine, who throughout this time have demonstrated professionalism and courage, held the lines,
04:57and destroyed the Russian occupiers, Budanov said. He then concluded with the message that
05:01will sting Putin more than anything else, Russia now has no chance of threatening Zaporizhia.
05:06We'll be coming back to why that matters, but for now, Pravda reports that all key locations in
05:11Stepnohirsk are under the control of Ukraine's military. Russia will be getting flashbacks,
05:15and not to other major victories, such as the liberation of Kupyansk toward the end of 2025.
05:20No, Russia will see what just happened in Stepnohirsk, and it will know that HUR's impressive
05:24operation is a direct follow-up to something else that Ukraine had done just a couple of days before.
05:29On May 15, United24 media reported that Ukraine's forces had shattered the Russian defenses in the
05:35Kharkiv region, leading to the liberation of the village of Odradna, along with 22 kilometers of
05:40territory. The strategy is clear. Ukraine's active defense is all about identifying Russian weak
05:45points and hitting them hard to complete the Russification. We saw it in the Kharkiv region
05:49on May 15, and now we've seen it in Stepnohirsk. Putin can't even console himself with the belief
05:54that what Ukraine has achieved is a one-off, or a two-off. It doesn't matter. What does matter is
05:59that Russia's leader will be crying into his vodka because what he just saw in Stepnohirsk is part of a
06:03pattern that shows how the grand spring offensive that Russia launched in early March has fallen utterly
06:08flat on its face. Ukraine is just building on the back of an April that was already wildly successful
06:14on the counter-attacking front. A May 2 report by the Institute for the Study of War, or ISW,
06:19revealed that Russia suffered its first net loss of territory against Ukraine since the August
06:242024 incursion into Russia's Kharkiv region. If we take that incursion out of the picture,
06:29the story gets even worse for Putin. Russia hasn't had a net loss since Ukraine's 2023 summer
06:34counter-offensive. Every single month since, barring August 2024, the Kremlin has been able to crow
06:40about territorial gains, no matter how meagre they might have been. There was no Kremlin crowing in
06:45April. And the way that May is shaping up as Ukraine liberates settlements and Putin's forces continue
06:50running into a brick wall of defenses in the Donbass, we may be on the verge of seeing another
06:54Russian net loss. If we do, Stepnohirsk will be the highlight, and it, along with all of the other
07:00gains that Ukraine has been making over the past few months, signals to Putin that the momentum on the
07:04battlefield is shifting in Ukraine's favor. The ISW says that data from the battlefield has been
07:09indicating that a turnaround was about to happen for a while. The Russian rate of advance across
07:13the battlefield has been steadily declining since November 2025, as continued Ukrainian ground
07:18attacks, Ukrainian mid-range strikes, the February 2026 block on Russia's use of Starlink terminals
07:23in Ukraine, and the Kremlin's throttling of Telegram have exacerbated existing problems within the
07:28Russian military, the ISW pointed out in its May 2 report. Russia hasn't been able to counter any of
07:34these problems. Now what CNN dubs Russia's winning streak in Ukraine is officially over. Ukrainian
07:40soldiers are starting to feel it too. The tide has turned, claims an officer named Kirillobondorenko
07:46when speaking to CNN. He notes that the Russian forces Ukraine now fights are exhausted and that
07:52their morale has been sapped. Well, that's what happens when Putin churns through every semi-talented
07:56soldier that Russia has. All that's left is the disorganized, poorly trained meat that doesn't want to be in
08:02Ukraine in the first place. Cannon fodder doesn't win wars, no matter how much of it Putin has at his
08:07disposal. Ukraine has just proven that one well-coordinated counter-attack can counter a
08:12year's worth of effort made by Russian forces. But Stepnohirsk is just the first step to the rest of
08:18Zaporizhia. Before we explain why, this is a quick reminder that you're watching the military show.
08:23If this is the kind of insight that you want to see, make sure that you're subscribed to the channel
08:26so
08:27you don't miss any of our videos. Now, on the surface, Stepnohirsk may not seem like much. It's
08:32a tiny rural settlement, the likes of which Russia's massive military should be able to overrun. It
08:36clearly hasn't managed that. But Ukraine's liberation and de-Russification of this settlement
08:40has ramifications that stretch far beyond a village. Stepnohirsk was vital to Putin's plans for Zaporizhia,
08:46and here's why. When it comes to the chaos that Russia has been trying to create across the front
08:51lines with its infiltration groups, Stepnohirsk represents an opportunity for Ukraine to stabilize and
08:56straighten the front line. Ukraine now has a focal point that it can use to organize deeper
09:00pushes into the occupied portions of Zaporizhia. And that focal point is also what Russia has just
09:05lost. Before Ukraine liberated Stepnohirsk, the village was being prepped as a potential staging
09:10ground for future Russian advances into Zaporizhia. That's why Russia spent over a year trying and
09:16failing to capture the settlement. It's a launch pad, a pushing-off point that is also perfectly
09:21positioned to lend whoever controls Stepnohirsk fire control over the surrounding logistics routes.
09:25Do you remember the crossroads that we mentioned earlier that now represent Russia's sole remaining
09:29route back into the village? Those are the sorts of routes that Ukraine can now pelt with artillery
09:34whenever Russian forces are forced into assaulting Stepnohirsk. The settlement is also important to
09:39Putin. He may not say so, but at the end of 2025 Russia's leader made it clear that a push
09:44deeper into Zaporizhia city was a priority for the Russian military. On December 29th, Reuters reported
09:49that Colonel-General Mikhail Toplinsky, who is one of Russia's leading commanders in the Dnieper military
09:54grouping, had told Putin that Russia's forces were just 15 kilometers outside of Zaporizhia city,
10:00which is the jewel in the crown of the region that lends the city its name. By that point,
10:04Reuters added, Russia already held about 75% of the Zaporizhia oblast, including the region's
10:09nuclear power plant. But the city has always been the main goal, and Putin confirmed that in December
10:15by telling his army to push on in its efforts to take Zaporizhia. Stepnohirsk was key to achieving that goal,
10:21as it was the type of staging ground that we mentioned earlier. Psychologically, this is a
10:25huge blow for Russia. A year of assaulting the settlement has gone down the drain, but strategically,
10:30the blow is even worse. With Stepnohirsk under its control, Ukraine can now focus on pushing
10:35deeper into the Zaporizhia region, with Huliopola likely to be Ukraine's next target.
10:39That isn't to say that Ukraine is on the verge of retaking Huliopola, we'll explain why soon,
10:44but what this means for Putin is that the launch pad that was supposed to propel Russia's forces towards
10:48Zaporizhia city can now be used by Ukraine to force Russia to divert troops away from operations in
10:53the east of the Zaporizhia oblast. That's a problem for Putin. It means that Stepnohirsk has become
10:59Ukraine's first step toward liberating a region that has been under constant Russian assault since the
11:03start of the invasion. Coming back to the psychological blow inflicted on Russia, Stepnohirsk is an
11:08interesting case. Toward the end of 2025, Russia was making a whole lot of false claims about capturing
11:13settlements in the build-up to a renewed round of peace talks with Ukraine. Guess which settlement
11:18Russia claimed that it had captured during that period? That's right, Stepnohirsk. Russia claimed to
11:23have taken the settlement toward the end of December, along with supposedly taking Huliopola and Kupiansk.
11:28We saw how those claims turned out in Kupiansk, and we just saw them get rubbished in Stepnohirsk,
11:33and now Russia's forces in Huliopola have to be worried. Those who might have believed Russia's
11:37claims will also be wondering what's going on. Stepnohirsk was supposed to have been long taken,
11:42giving Putin more leverage in peace talks. Now it's fully in Ukraine's hands.
11:46We talked about momentum earlier, and this liberation shows the world that Ukraine has
11:51the wind in its sails. If and when peace talks happen again, Ukraine can point to settlements
11:55like Stepnohirsk and say, look, Russia claimed it had taken this settlement, it was lying then,
11:59and it's been booted out now. So don't let Putin fall you into thinking that Russia is some all-conquering
12:04military. Who knows, Stepnohirsk and settlements like it may end up playing a larger part in peace
12:09talks than anybody could have anticipated. Still, anybody who had been paying attention to what
12:13was really happening in the settlement, even before Ukraine's de-Russification efforts,
12:17would have seen through Russia's lies. In February, which is two months after Russia claimed to have
12:22captured Stepnohirsk, the reality of what was happening in the village was brought to light.
12:26Russia hadn't captured anything. Stepnohirsk had been turned into such a lethal kill zone that Russian
12:32soldiers sent into the settlement were lasting an average of 12 minutes before they were hunted down and
12:36eliminated. Now that Ukraine controls Stepnohirsk, that type of kill zone can be created elsewhere.
12:42Bit by bit, Ukraine can push deeper into the grey zones where Russia claims victories that it hasn't
12:46achieved. That brings us back to what happens next and Ukraine's likely push in the direction of
12:51Hulyapola. Russia's offensive in that direction already wasn't going especially well. Remember,
12:56Russia has already claimed the capture of Hulyapola back in December 2025. But by April,
13:01the new voice of Ukraine was reporting that Russia had prioritized to push toward the settlement,
13:05which isn't the kind of thing you need to do when you've already captured something.
13:08Even then, Ukraine's counterattacks were wreaking havoc. The Ukrainian push in the
13:12Oleksandrovka direction had forced Russia to redeploy reserves intended for Hulyapola.
13:17And that's the point. Weak points in the Russian lines were being created, even in April.
13:21Now, this doesn't mean that the capture of Stepnohirsk means that Hulyapola is next.
13:25There are several dozen kilometers between the two settlements, so one doesn't lead into the other.
13:29Russia has also managed to create a stronger defensive line in the Hulyapola region
13:33than it has elsewhere in the Zaporizhia direction. However, what Ukraine can do now is start to
13:37counterattack against other small settlements. Russia has been sending infiltrators all over,
13:42just as it did in Stepnohirsk. A renewed Ukrainian push in the direction of Hulyapola likely won't
13:47reach that settlement just yet, but it will distract, it will force redeployments, and all of that means
13:52that Russia won't be able to push on as it intends towards Zaporizhia city. And here's the kicker.
13:57Russia already knows that its plans for Zaporizhia in 2026 are done.
14:02When Putin planned the 2026 spring offensive, Donetsk and Zaporizhia were the two major goals.
14:07Now it's just Donetsk. That's according to a May 19th report by the New Voice of Ukraine,
14:12which quoted the deputy head of the office of the president of Ukraine, Pavlo Palisa,
14:16as noting that Russia has so far, failed to meet any of their deadlines. Donetsk is supposed to fall by
14:22early September, Alisa revealed, but the glacial pace of Russia's progress in that direction means
14:27that deadline will come and go long before Donetsk falls. The byproduct of that failure is that Russia
14:32won't be able to strengthen its push into Zaporizhia. It will still try, but reserves will have to go
14:37toward Donetsk. And when Ukraine is de-Russifying places like Stepnohirsk, the odds climb higher that
14:42we'll end up seeing either a stalemate or even a Ukrainian advance deeper into Zaporizhia by the end of
14:472026. The broader picture here is that Ukraine has once again completed a successful counterattack.
14:53That was never in Putin's plan. A May 9th report from the ISW says that Russia's spring offensive
14:58has practically stalled out, as Russia has failed to make any significant operational breakthroughs
15:03for an entire year. What territory has been taken, especially in 2026, is limited and strategically
15:09insignificant, the ISW adds. Compounding that problem and soon to be an issue for Russia dozens of miles
15:15behind the new Stepnohirsk front now that Ukraine has control is Ukraine's mid-range strategy.
15:21Ukraine is combining the rocket strikes using systems like HIMARS that have helped it strike
15:25the Russian nearer in the past with a new generation of mid-range drones that are wrecking
15:29Russian logistics and command behind the front. Ukraine's mid-range drone strikes had already
15:34doubled in April compared to March as Ukraine increasingly hit targets up to 180 kilometers behind
15:39the front. That's another danger for Russia and its Zaporizhia ambitions. Ukraine may not be in a
15:45position to push for Huliopoli yet, but with Stepnohirsk as a new staging ground, it can unleash
15:50middle-range drones on the settlement and surrounding territories to disrupt Russia's push towards
15:54Zaporizhia for a distance. And each strike weakens Russia. Every time Russia is weakened,
15:59opportunities for more counterattacks present themselves. Russia has no answer. It never expected
16:04any of this to happen in the first place. An unbelievable overnight victory for Ukraine may end up
16:09being the first step toward the total liberation of Zaporizhia. And elsewhere in Ukraine's east and southeast,
16:14the liberation march goes on. It's a story fit for a Hollywood script, with intrigue, covert planning,
16:20and assaults carried out under the cover of Fog. Check out our video to see the full story unfold.
16:25And if you enjoyed this video, remember to subscribe to The Military Show so you never
16:29miss our coverage of Ukraine's latest victories against Russia. And thank you as always for watching.
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