Russia’s 2026 plans have unraveled. While Moscow expected major breakthroughs in the Donbas, Ukraine has turned the tide, liberating hundreds of square kilometers and forcing Russian withdrawals across key sectors of the front. With precision strikes crippling logistics and morale, Ukraine is reclaiming the initiative after years of grinding warfare. In this video, we examine the latest battlefield developments, the collapse of Russia’s offensive momentum, and why Putin’s invasion is facing one of its most humiliating chapters yet.
00:00 - Ukraine Reclaims 600 Square Kilometers of Territory
04:54 - Russian Casualties Reach 145,000 Amid Ukraine Strikes
07:58 - Putin Military Strategy Fails as Troops Retreat
12:13 - Ukraine Funds 113 Million Drone Logistics Program
14:45 - US and EU Expand Military Aid for Ukraine
17:42 - Will the Morrigan Drone Defeat Russian Forces?
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SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/FzvykXN7
00:00 - Ukraine Reclaims 600 Square Kilometers of Territory
04:54 - Russian Casualties Reach 145,000 Amid Ukraine Strikes
07:58 - Putin Military Strategy Fails as Troops Retreat
12:13 - Ukraine Funds 113 Million Drone Logistics Program
14:45 - US and EU Expand Military Aid for Ukraine
17:42 - Will the Morrigan Drone Defeat Russian Forces?
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
#themilitaryshow
SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/FzvykXN7
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NewsTranscript
00:00Russia had big plans for 2026. Ukraine's defenses were supposed to collapse. The Donbass,
00:05which has been central to peace talks, would fall under the might of an overwhelming spring
00:10and summer offensive. But the plans have been shattered. It's not Russia that's gaining ground,
00:16it's Ukraine. Massive amounts of territory have been liberated by Ukraine in a victory so
00:23soul-crushing that Russia has been put to shame. A war-ending withdrawal is underway as Ukraine
00:29has stormed through Russian defenses to reclaim 600 square kilometers of territory. Putin's Ukraine
00:36invasion has always been shameful. But as Russia's soldiers cower and their defenses crumble,
00:42there's a whole new heaping of shame to add. Let's start with the headline number. On June 8th,
00:47Reuters reported on comments made by the commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces,
00:52Oleksandr Siersky. He says that the momentum in the Ukraine war has shifted in 2026. After four
00:58years of grinding, albeit glacially slow, advances by Russia, Ukraine is turning the tide.
01:042026 has been a banner year so far. In six months, Ukraine has liberated 600 square kilometers of
01:11territory from Russia. These claims are backed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy,
01:15who is sharing the same figures and they are indicative of a 2026 campaign that isn't going the
01:20way that Putin expected. This year was supposed to finally deliver the Donbass to Russia. Now,
01:26the hallmark of 2026 is the sight of Russian troops cowering, dying or running away from the territory
01:32Ukraine is reclaiming. This is shameful for Russia, but we'll get to that. First, the 600 square
01:37kilometers figure wasn't the only number that Siersky and Ukraine's military shared. May has
01:42been a banner month for Ukraine and an absolute failure for Russia. According to Siersky, the ratio
01:48of liberated to lost territory in May was around 100 square kilometers in Ukraine's favor. What this means is
01:54that Ukraine liberated more territory than Russia managed to gain in May. This has happened at the
01:59end of a spring offensive that was supposed to set the stage for the collapse of the Donbass in the
02:03summer. Despite constant enemy pressure, the armed forces of Ukraine continue to hold the line,
02:08eliminate the occupying forces, and carry out effective strikes against the enemy deep within
02:13its operational and strategic rear. These are the key results of our military's activities in May,
02:18which we reviewed during our monthly summary meeting, Siersky declared. With that mention of strikes in the
02:24rear giving us a clue as to how Ukraine is pulling all this off. There are some caveats to this
02:28number.
02:29Though Siersky was quick to point out the 100 square kilometer figure, he was more reticent when it
02:34came to where Ukraine is making its gains. The Ukrainian military's commander-in-chief did point out that
02:39Russia has intensified its assault tempo, especially in the east and south of Ukraine. Fighting is constant
02:45on the Pokrovsk, Plyupola and Oleksandrivka fronts, so it's not that Russia isn't trying. It's just that
02:51Putin's forces are failing, constantly. Ukraine has a strategy of picking apart Russian defenses whenever
02:57the opportunity arises across the 1,200 kilometer front, and it's working. Though Siersky didn't say it
03:04outright, we can assume that many of Ukraine's gains are coming in the south and southeast of its
03:10territory. Earlier in 2026, Ukraine began a series of counter-offensives on the Oleksandrivka axis,
03:16which served as a sort of junction between the Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts.
03:22Those counter-offensives had led to Ukraine reclaiming around 400 square kilometers of its
03:26territory by early March. So it stands to reason that Ukraine is still picking apart select Russian
03:31fortifications on the Oleksandrivka axis to add to its gains, perhaps while taking advantage of other
03:37areas of weakness in the process. So what we're seeing here is twofold. Russia is trying, and failing,
03:44to make substantial gains in the east and south with its higher attack tempo across the front line.
03:49Ukraine takes a different approach. It's creating weaknesses in the Russian lines,
03:53and those mid-range strikes we mentioned are playing a huge role. Once the weakness is found,
03:58lightning-fast and precise counter-attacks are launched to push back Russian forces. This is
04:03intelligent de-Russification, and it's forcing Putin's forces to withdraw in shame.
04:07To make matters worse for Russia's failing forces may also mark the second month in a row that Russia
04:13has experienced a net territorial loss in Ukraine. That's according to the Institute for the Study of
04:18War , which says that looking at territory changes while ignoring Russian infiltration
04:23attempts into the grey zones of Ukraine painted a sorry picture for Russia in April. Ukraine was in
04:28black for the month, for the tune of a net territory gain of 116.01 square kilometers. The only thing
04:35that Russia could hang its hat on was sneaking tiny units, often containing as few as one or two
04:40soldiers, into grey zone areas where those soldiers waited and hoped that Ukraine's drones wouldn't
04:45find them. That's not control, it's cowardice masquerading as occupation. Let's come back to May.
04:51The fact that Ukraine is around 100 square kilometers to the good isn't the only figure that will have
04:56Russia hanging its collective head in shame. No matter where you look, the numbers don't stack
05:01up to anything like the Donbass destroying campaign that Putin had in mind. The New York
05:06Post reports that Ukraine struck a staggering 88,000 Russian targets in May, giving the country a
05:12strike tempo of 2,838 attacks per day across the occupied territories and inside Russia itself.
05:19More than 30,000 of Russia's soldiers were eliminated as a result of these strikes,
05:24plus the attacks on Russia, which consisted of yet more strikes against the country's energy
05:28infrastructure, as well as visits by Ukraine's drones to Moscow, inflicted $1 billion worth of
05:34damage to Russia's military-industrial complex. More numbers come from United24 Media, which says
05:41that Ukrainian deep-strike assets hit 111 targets inside Russia across the country's energy, fuel,
05:47and military-industrial sectors. Ukraine is crippling the Russian war machine from the inside,
05:52and Siersky says that this is happening because Ukraine now has a unified plan that makes the
05:57country's long-range strikes more effective than ever before. Even Ukraine's navy got in on the act.
06:03May saw a country that barely has a warship to its name, though it makes up for that with plenty
06:08of
06:08maritime and aerial drones, carry out 1,500 operations designed to protect Ukrainian shipping.
06:14The result was that 633 of Ukraine's vessels managed to reach ports in the Danube River and Greater Odessa,
06:21meaning Russia couldn't even put a dent in Ukraine's commercial shipping. As for Russia,
06:26it didn't have much to crow about in May, which is a reflection of how all of 2026 has been
06:31for
06:31Putin's patsies so far. For all of its increases in assault tempo, Russia's advance has essentially
06:37ground to a standstill. Any advances the Russian army makes in one region of the front are being
06:43countered elsewhere, leading to Ukraine seizing the initiative. On May 29th, Al Jazeera reported that
06:49Russia's territorial losses in 2026 so far are triple those we saw in 2025, and the country's
06:55casualty rate was already 145,000 this year. Of those casualties, 86,000 were deaths versus 59,000
07:05injuries, which means that Russia isn't just losing ground, it's losing people permanently.
07:10The momentum of the war has shifted in Ukraine's favor. And Zelensky himself has outlined what the
07:16situation looks like right now. It cannot be said that Russia is losing this war, but it can be said
07:22that it's losing the initiative every day, day by day, Ukraine's president said in a June 9th interview.
07:28Translation, Russia's great advance has petered out into a whole load of nothing. Ukraine holds the
07:33cards and has the upper hand across the front. And while this shift doesn't mean that Ukraine is
07:37about to go on a rampage to expel Russia from its territory, it has the potential to be war-ending
07:42because it means that the narrative that Putin crafted has fallen to pieces. Russia's president
07:47wants the world to think that Ukraine is there for the taking. Ukraine has spent 2026 proving Putin wrong,
07:53and that is a great embarrassment designed to push Russia into a shameful withdrawal from the war.
07:59Let's talk about shame for a moment. Putin seems like a man who has none. He has happily ordered
08:04his military to commit war crimes in Ukraine, all in service of his desire to go down in history as
08:09one of the great Russian leaders. Pointing that out isn't enough to shame Putin. But what will make
08:14Russia's leader hang his head is being exposed as such an inept military tactician that what was supposed
08:20to be a quick and easy victory for the all-powerful Russian army has turned not only into an attritional
08:25slog but a war that Russia is starting to lose. 2026 was supposed to be the end of Ukraine but
08:31it's
08:32turned into the year that the Russian myth was exposed. That's what will leave Putin red in the face.
08:37But before we dig deeper into that this is a reminder that you are watching The Military Show.
08:41There's a lot more where this comes from so make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss any of our
08:45daily videos.
08:47To understand how Ukraine has finally made Putin feel shame for his war we have to understand Putin.
08:54Russia's leader is a man who values power above all else. He makes grand declarations and expects
09:00them to become reality. We see that in the Donbass right now. Putin believed the Russian military would
09:05take all of the Donbass by the fall of 2026 which would involve making massive advances in Ukraine's
09:10east and crippling the Donetsk fortress belt. Putin was so confident of this claim that he tried to use
09:15it as leverage in peace talks telling Ukraine that it should cede the Donbass before the rampaging
09:20Russian military crushed Ukraine's defenses. The reality on the ground is telling a very different
09:25story and that embarrasses Putin. Russian forces aren't rampaging they're running and hiding.
09:32We see that on the Kinburn spit right now. On June 9th the new voice of Ukraine reported
09:37that the Ukrainian partisan group Ateche says that Russian forces are actively abandoning their
09:42positions on the northern and western parts of the Kinburn spit following Ukrainian strikes that have
09:47disrupted supply flows and left those troops isolated. That's a pattern that is being repeated
09:52all over the front lines which is how Ukraine has managed to make 600 square kilometers of gains in
09:562026 and achieve a net positive of 100 square kilometers against Russia in May. The powerful Russian
10:03army is p***ing its collective pants. And for Putin this is a shameful situation because it exposes
10:09every claim that he makes about what Russia is doing in Ukraine. Russia is trying to counteract the
10:15reality seen in Ukraine with exaggerated claims to create the illusion of power. The chief of the
10:20general staff of the Russian armed forces, Valery Gerasimov, has shared a view of the Ukraine war that
10:25only seems to exist in his head. Since the beginning of the year a total of 80 settlements and more
10:30than
10:301,700 square kilometers of territory have come under our control, Gerasimov claimed. That alone would be
10:37embarrassing for Russia as it still leaves the country at around the 20 percent mark of Ukrainian
10:41territory taken. However, Ukrainian sources say that the real number is closer to 600 square kilometers
10:47taken, which is even worse for Russia. What we're seeing in Ukraine right now is a myth being exposed.
10:53Many myths in fact, starting with the story of Putin as the strong man leader of Russia. Putin wants his
10:59people to view him as a protector, even as Ukrainian drones penetrate air defenses in major regions,
11:04including Moscow and St. Petersburg. His great shames that his persuasive powers,
11:09both in Russia and on the world stage, don't mean much when oil is burning, fuel is scarce,
11:15Russian soldiers are dying in droves, and Ukraine is even blazing through the Russian defenses in the
11:19occupied territories. Strength has given way to unearned Russian bravado and exaggerated gains.
11:26That alone is a humiliation for Putin. Russia's leader has to know that every word that comes out of his
11:31mouth about the supposedly inevitable Russian victory is a lie. And at 73 years of age,
11:38Putin is being forced to consider the very real possibility that Ukraine has made it so that the
11:42war he started outlives him. And as he ages, Putin is watching his control over his own invasion slip.
11:50Ukraine's strikes in St. Petersburg happened during an economic conference dubbed the Russian Davos,
11:55which is attended by tens of thousands of people from all over the world.
11:58They would have seen the smoke rising into the skies as Ukraine delivered a symbol of
12:03Putin's failing grip over his own war. Russia can't defend itself against Ukraine, be that on the
12:08ground or in its own skies. So it's not just about the shame that comes with the tangible withdrawal
12:14of Russian troops from the territory Ukraine is liberating to be considered here. There's the symbolic
12:19shame at play. The shattering of any notion that Russia tries to create about it being the inevitable
12:24victor in the Ukraine war. What's happening on the ground doesn't support what comes out of
12:29the mouths of Putin and his lackeys. A series of crushing victories achieved by Ukraine show that
12:35the country is not only far from being out of the fight, but it has seized the momentum and forced
12:40Russia onto the back foot. What we've seen from Ukraine is very impressive. Here's what needs to
12:45happen next to ensure that Ukraine can keep it up. Help from Ukraine's supporters needs to continue and be
12:51reinforced. And there's been an unexpected development on that front that we're going to reveal in a
12:55moment. But in terms of what Ukraine can actively control, the country needs to keep up the strategy
13:00that has set the stage for the 600 square kilometers gained so far in 2026 mid-range strikes.
13:072026 has heralded the arrival of a new category of drones into the Ukrainian armed forces,
13:11as Ukraine finally has unmanned aerial vehicles that are cost effective and capable of ruining Russian
13:18logistics and command positions up to 200 kilometers beyond the front lines. Ukraine has been deploying
13:23these drones to disrupt Russian supply chains, tear through air defenses and cripple Russian troop
13:28movements in the rear, which has the knock-on effect of creating vulnerabilities on the front.
13:33The logic is clear. If Ukraine can stop Russia from reinforcing fortified positions with suppliers and
13:38soldiers, it creates weaknesses to be exploited. Bedraggled and beaten Russian forces are forced to
13:44withdraw because what they need to sustain their defense doesn't arrive. Ukraine strikes deep and
13:49then hits hard on the front. A 100 square kilometer net gain in May shows that the strategy is working.
13:54A new phase of the war has begun, as Ukraine strangles Russian logistics in the rear. The overland
14:01routes that Russia uses to transport troops and supplies are being battered. We see that in Crimea,
14:06where the so-called land bridge that connects the occupied peninsula to Ukraine's south has been
14:10devastated by swarms of mid-range drones. Russian forces are being forced to disperse, creating
14:16yet more opportunities for counter-attacks, and Ukraine is going all in on its new strategy.
14:21On May 27th, Ukraine announced the launch of its Logistics Lockdown Program, which actively rewards
14:28units that strike Russian supply lines with more drones and rewards built on the back of a points-based
14:32system. The Ministry of Defense has already dedicated $113 million to this program.
14:38Any extra influx of cash makes Ukraine even more effective. And that brings us to the
14:43second thing that needs to happen for Ukraine to sustain what it's achieved so far in 2026.
14:47As Ukraine begins to dominate on the ground, its allies, such as the European Union or EU,
14:52must do more to support Zelensky's forces. That's the opinion of the European Commissioner for
14:57Defense and Space, Andreas Kobilius, who says that the member states of the EU must be willing to spend
15:02over $80 billion on the defense of Ukraine in 2026 alone. With credit to the support of Ukraine,
15:08of course, there are also measures on the part of the member states to send the same funds as last
15:12year. That is about 70 billion euros, Kobilius said. This point is simple. The more military
15:17aid that flows into Ukraine, the better, as the money will bolster the entire nation in both its
15:22defensive and offensive strategy that has already led to so many gains. It's not like the EU isn't
15:27supporting Ukraine in 2026. On June 8, the news broke that the EU had dispersed around $3.2 billion
15:33to support Ukraine's financial stability and reform, so the support is coming. Kobilius is simply saying
15:39that the support can't waver now, after more than four years of fighting. The Ukraine war isn't about
15:44a local conflict anymore, it's about Europe's collective defense against the Russian menace,
15:49and Ukraine has become a vital player in that defense, as it has created the blueprint for defending
15:53against Russia and transformed itself into the world leader in military drone technology.
15:58So continued support from the EU is vital if Ukraine is to keep up the pressure and force
16:03yet more shame on Putin. But a moment ago we told you that there had been an unexpected development
16:08in the Ukraine war. In early June, the US Congress took a small step toward rewarding the brilliance
16:13that Ukraine has showcased throughout 2026 with more weapons and support. The Ukraine Support Act
16:18passed through the House of Representatives by a vote of 226 to 195. That act doesn't guarantee more
16:25weapons from the US, but it lays the groundwork for providing assistance to Ukraine in the form
16:30of expanded intelligence cooperation, more sanctions against Russia, and security assistance.
16:35The passing of this act is vital for Ukraine. It shows Putin that for all of the tumult that he's
16:40attempted to create between the US and Ukraine since President Donald Trump came to office,
16:44the US still supports Ukraine. That support is now in writing,
16:48a foundation for deeper levels of cooperation and more investment into the defense of Ukraine
16:52has just been laid in the US. But there is a caveat here. The act still has to pass through
16:57the US
16:57Senate and there is no guarantee that it will. Still, the signal is there. A bipartisan bill has
17:03moved through the House of Representatives that shows Putin that the support for Ukraine in the US
17:07is stronger than he thought. Months of manipulation have failed. The message that Putin didn't want to
17:13hear has been sent. And as Ukraine takes back more of what's theirs and seems to be setting up for
17:18a
17:18back half of 2026 where it will do more of the same, Putin's biggest shame yet may come at the
17:23negotiating table. Ukraine has leverage that Russia never expected it to have. It's Ukraine that can
17:29now negotiate from a place of strength. Putin thought he held all of the cards. In 2026, Ukraine has pulled
17:35out the UNO reverse over and over again. Ukraine isn't about to rest on its laurels. To ensure the
17:41mid-range strike campaign that has enabled its 2026 gains continues, Ukraine is building newer and
17:46stronger drones. One of those drones just made its debut. The Morrigan has taken flight and it's playing
17:52a crucial role in wrecking Russia's R-280 land bridge. Find out if this mysterious new drone could be the
17:57mid-strike game changer that Ukraine needs by watching our video. And if you enjoyed this video,
18:02hit subscribe and dive deeper into more videos that expose the realities of Putin's failed invasion.
18:08And thank you as always for watching.
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