Russia’s claim of capturing Kostiantynivka is facing growing scrutiny as new reports suggest Ukraine’s elite forces turned the city into a deadly trap for Russian infiltrators. This video examines the battle, the role of the Skelia Regiment, Russia’s alleged propaganda claims, and why Kostiantynivka remains a key battleground in Donetsk. We also explore what this means for Russia’s wider offensive, the Fortress Belt, and the future of the war in eastern Ukraine.
⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Russia Claims Kostiantynivka Capture in Donetsk War
02:11 - Ukraine Skelia Regiment Traps Russian Infiltrators in Kostiantynivka
06:45 - Kupiansk Battle Parallel: Ukraine Eliminates 250 Russian Infiltrators
08:41 - Russian Army Pincer Fails with 8-to-1 Casualty Ratio
13:38 - Putin 500,000 Troop Mobilization Risk in Ukraine War
14:33 - Can Russia Capture Kostiantynivka and the Fortress Belt?
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
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SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/RmEHQ79L
⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Russia Claims Kostiantynivka Capture in Donetsk War
02:11 - Ukraine Skelia Regiment Traps Russian Infiltrators in Kostiantynivka
06:45 - Kupiansk Battle Parallel: Ukraine Eliminates 250 Russian Infiltrators
08:41 - Russian Army Pincer Fails with 8-to-1 Casualty Ratio
13:38 - Putin 500,000 Troop Mobilization Risk in Ukraine War
14:33 - Can Russia Capture Kostiantynivka and the Fortress Belt?
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/RmEHQ79L
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NewsTranscript
00:00Russia is once again up to its old tricks. False claims of capturing territory,
00:05acting as though it's winning a war when it's failing at every turn.
00:08It's all coming out. And in Konstantinivka, those tricks have come out in full force.
00:14Russia said it had captured this key city in the Donetsk region.
00:18Maybe it even genuinely believed that it had. But nothing of the sort happened.
00:23Russia has been forced into one of its most humiliating retreats of the war so far,
00:28as Ukraine has sprung a genius trap that is destroying infiltrators left and right.
00:33Groups as small as three soldiers going in, none coming out.
00:37And it's all due to the brilliance of Ukraine.
00:40We'll start with Russia's false claims.
00:42On July 3rd, Russia's defense ministry made the grand claim that its forces had captured the city of Konstantinivka.
00:50If true, this would be massive for Russia.
00:52Part of the Donetsk fortress belt that Russia needs to destroy if it is to claim the Donbass,
00:58this city would offer a launching pad for future assaults against larger and more fortified settlements,
01:03such as Kramatorsk and Slovyansk.
01:06The commander-in-chief of Russia's armed forces, Valery Gerasimov,
01:09has reportedly told Putin that the city has fought and that Russia is in full control.
01:15The propaganda is also out in full force.
01:17CNN reports that Russia's announcement came with videos and photographs,
01:21all showing Russian soldiers unfurling their country's flag in and around the town center.
01:27That sounds difficult to refute, right?
01:29But as is so often the case, Russia wasn't quite telling the truth.
01:33It might have thought that it was.
01:35Russia's military command structure is so broken that the onus is on delivering nothing but good news to Putin,
01:41even if that news doesn't reflect reality.
01:43Putin is probably sitting in one of his bunkers thinking that Konstantinivka is indeed in Russian hands.
01:49However, what was actually happening,
01:51unknown to the Russian infiltrators who had crawled out of their hidey holes to shoot videos with flags
01:55before they crawled back inside, was that Ukraine watched everything.
01:59As soon as Russia made its grand claim, Ukraine refuted it,
02:03and as July has gone on, we've seen why.
02:05Russia hadn't captured anything.
02:07Its soldiers had been lured into a lethal trap.
02:10The first sign that the trap had sprung shut came from Ukraine's 425th Assault Regiment.
02:16Known as Skelia, this regiment delivered a blunt and brutal message on Telegram on July 18th.
02:22Accompanied by a short video that backed up what it claimed, Skelia simply said,
02:26Skelia Regiment fighters conducted a sweep in Konstantinivka and raised the Ukrainian flag.
02:31The city is under the control of the armed forces of Ukraine.
02:35Simple.
02:36To the point.
02:36And just a hint at what had really happened to the Russian soldiers who claimed to have captured this key
02:41Donetsk city.
02:43More details have emerged since, and most can be surmised when you understand what Skelia does.
02:48This isn't any old regiment.
02:50Skelia is staffed by some of Ukraine's most elite ground units, and their task is simple.
02:55Search, destroy, and move on to the next infiltration unit.
02:59Skelia are the cleaners.
03:00They don't occupy the positions that they attack.
03:02Rather, they take out the infiltrators and are then backed by Ukrainian infantry, which reoccupies the territory that Skelia has
03:08cleared, thus liberated.
03:10As elite as Skelia is, not all of the soldiers in the regiment are special forces.
03:14Most aren't, in fact.
03:16Skelia is made up of a mixture of battle-hardened and well-trained assault troops, talented infantry, and even soldiers
03:22who are relatively new to the battlefield, but have shown some propensity for the assault work that Skelia engages in.
03:28Here's how it all works.
03:29Skelia soldiers don't blindly charge around, hoping to find Russian infiltrators.
03:34Instead, they follow an approach similar to the find, fix, and finish tactic that the U.S. employed during the
03:40Vietnam War.
03:41The weapons are different, but the concept is the same.
03:44First, Skelia finds.
03:46That's usually done using reconnaissance drones, which in this case flew over Konstantinivka to find the small groups of Russian
03:52infiltrators hiding away in the city.
03:54When a group is found, the fix is in.
03:56But this isn't illicit betting.
03:58The fix is sending drones to pin the infiltrators in position, making it so that any attempt to escape will
04:04be met with certain death.
04:05Some Russian troops still try to get away.
04:08They are swiftly dispatched by the drones.
04:11The others stay put, knowing that they're trapped and they can't get out.
04:14That's when Skelia moves in.
04:16Sometimes the finished portion of the strategy involves the use of powerful munitions to eliminate the Russian soldiers where they
04:22hide.
04:22In other cases, Skelia troops enter on foot, supported by drones, to eliminate those soldiers or force a surrender.
04:29But in all instances, the outcome is the same.
04:32A tiny infiltration unit that Russia tries to claim is large enough to control a huge portion of a city
04:38is taken out of the fight,
04:40and Ukraine moves in to fully retake territory that was barely held by Russia in the first place.
04:47This, in a nutshell, is the brilliant mousetrap that Ukraine tricks Russia's soldiers into triggering again and again.
04:53Those infiltrators have no real choice.
04:55They are told to sneak into Konstantinivka by their commanders,
04:59often with false promises that backup will be on the way once they've established their positions.
05:03But backup never comes.
05:05It's the crux of the falsehood that Russia tries to sell.
05:07It claims complete control of a city when all it's really doing is sneaking small units of troops in to
05:13take photos with flags before those soldiers go in to hide.
05:17That's when the trap is sprung.
05:19Skelia is usually watching.
05:20As soon as the Russian soldiers hide, they're dead meat.
05:24Mice caught in the trap.
05:25And when these infiltration groups are as small as two soldiers, the outcome is inevitable.
05:30A few soldiers go in.
05:31None come out alive.
05:33Thanks to the Skelia Regiment's work, as well as that of the infantry that backs the assault teams up,
05:38the situation in Konstantinivka is a far cry from what Russia claims it to be.
05:43The city isn't taken.
05:45It never was.
05:46But it's further away from being held by Russia than it has been for months.
05:50On July 20th, after a campaign that lasted about two weeks,
05:53the now former commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces, Oleksandr Siersky,
05:57revealed that there are just 145 Russian soldiers left in Konstantinivka.
06:03Russia is still trying to push into the city.
06:05Around 20 assaults are being launched every day on the Konstantinivka sector.
06:10But this is a city that had a pre-war population of 67,000.
06:14Does anybody really believe that 145 soldiers,
06:17or even the few hundred that Russia might have snuck into the city before, could control it?
06:21Russia seems to.
06:22But just like that, Ukraine has shown Russia that control doesn't come easy,
06:27especially when fighting against a regiment that has mastered a particular type of trap
06:31designed to tackle Russia's infiltration strategy.
06:34What really happened in Konstantinivka is that Russia managed to get a few infiltrators into the city,
06:40and those infiltrators have been destroyed.
06:42At this point, some of you may be overwhelmed by a strange feeling of deja vu,
06:47almost as though you've heard this story before.
06:49You have, only it wasn't Konstantinivka last time around.
06:53Russia tried to pull almost exactly the same trick,
06:56and its soldiers fell for the same trap,
06:58toward the end of 2025.
07:00It didn't work then, and it doesn't work now.
07:03Back in November 2025,
07:04Russia claimed that it had captured the city of Kupiansk,
07:07which is a key city in the Kharkiv region,
07:09that served as a railway hub for whoever controls it.
07:12Just as with Konstantinivka, Ukraine quickly refuted Russia's claims,
07:17with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
07:18even going as far as to travel to Kupiansk
07:21to take pictures as evidence that Russia was telling lies.
07:25However, this didn't mean that Russia had no soldiers in Kupiansk.
07:28Again, as we've just seen in Konstantinivka,
07:31soldiers had infiltrate.
07:33Around 250 of them, Pravda reported.
07:36They were eliminated using the same strategy that the Skelia Regiment used.
07:39By mid-December, Ukraine had 90% of Kupiansk under complete control.
07:44The parallels are undeniable.
07:46The Russian retreat was endlessly humiliating.
07:49Once again, we have learned that when Russia claims to have achieved something,
07:53the first reaction should always be disbelief.
07:56Russia really needs the Konstantinivka win,
07:59just as it needed Kupiansk.
08:01But it was all an illusion.
08:03Again, a false claim of capture by infiltration units so small,
08:06they could never hold onto territory for long once discovered.
08:10But here is where the real problem lies for Russia.
08:13Ukraine's Konstantinivka trap reveals far more about Russia's failures
08:16in that city and Donetsk as a whole than Russia once known.
08:20The real story of Konstantinivka is one of a crawling advance and immense losses,
08:25all to capture the least important city in the fortress building.
08:28But before we dig deeper,
08:30this is a reminder that you are watching The Military Show.
08:32If you haven't subscribed yet,
08:34now's the perfect time to hit that button.
08:37So here's what Russia is trying to do in Konstantinivka.
08:41Beyond the infiltration, which clearly hasn't worked,
08:43Russia is trying to pull off a pincer maneuver against the city.
08:46It has amassed around 11,000 troops
08:49in the Konstantinivka-Druzhkivka tactical area to achieve this.
08:53There is nothing wrong with Russia's strategy here.
08:56The pincer is as old as war,
08:57based on the simple idea of attacking a target from two sides,
09:01forcing the troops caught in the middle to split their focus.
09:04Russia's goal is to take Konstantinivka,
09:07which is at the southern tip of the Donetsk fortress belt,
09:09so that it can then push on to take the other three cities in that belt.
09:13Using the pincer also steadily raises the cost to Ukraine of defending the city,
09:17the Independent reports,
09:19as more troops need to be dedicated to Konstantinivka
09:21to ensure Russia is unable to make a breakthrough.
09:24It all makes sense,
09:25and when done well,
09:26the pincer would be enough to topple a city like Konstantinivka.
09:30You can probably guess what we're going to say next.
09:32Russia's pincer isn't going well.
09:35What Russia is actually achieving with its pincer move
09:37is a rate of advance that averages about 50 meters per day.
09:41Not kilometers, meters.
09:43You could probably travel that far
09:44by walking from one end of your house to the other,
09:47and this pitiful rate of advance
09:48is being compounded by Russia losing troops by the bucket load.
09:52As the New York Times points out,
09:54Russia is now losing soldiers
09:55at a rate of eight casualties to every one suffered by Ukraine.
10:00That rate has skyrocketed from the two or three to one
10:02that it's been for much of the war,
10:04showcasing how Konstantinivka,
10:06along with the rest of the fortress belt,
10:07is even more dangerous than cities like Pokrovsk,
10:10for which Russia has already spilled the blood
10:12of tens of thousands of its own soldiers to take.
10:15To put it bluntly,
10:17a pincer can only be closed
10:18when the troops forming it can actually move,
10:20and that isn't the case for the soldiers
10:22trying to surround Konstantinivka right now.
10:25Russia's rate of advance is glacial,
10:27and both the human and monetary cost
10:29of its attempt to advance on the city is astronomical.
10:32And we don't just need to look at what's happening
10:34in Konstantinivka right now to see that.
10:36Russia has been trying to capture this city for a year,
10:39and CNN has a handy timeline
10:41that shows us just how badly that's been going.
10:43Heading back to July 29th, 2025,
10:47that date is the first time that Deep State,
10:48which is a Ukrainian open-source intelligence analyst,
10:51reported that Russian soldiers
10:53had started trying to push into Konstantinivka.
10:56Back then, the city was still relatively busy,
10:58but there were signs of the impending fight
11:00that Ukraine expected in the fishing nets
11:03that lined the streets,
11:04which were intended to protect against drones.
11:06Still, Russia had reached the point
11:08where it could launch assaults,
11:09and Konstantinivka was on the verge of trouble.
11:12By November 2025,
11:13Russian forces had edged a little closer,
11:16though the majority of their advances were made
11:18by infiltrating the drone-infested kill zones
11:20on the city's outskirts.
11:22Airstrikes had begun.
11:24Russia had started sharing videos
11:25from infiltrators who had reached the city,
11:27but Ukraine still held the center.
11:30By January, Russia had advanced a little further,
11:33and we saw the beginnings of the Pinsa
11:34that is still trying to form take place.
11:37This month was as good as it was going to get for Russia,
11:39as the country was already starting to experience
11:41heavy losses of up to 35,000 dead or wounded per month.
11:45Still, most of the civilian population
11:47had left Konstantinivka by this time.
11:50Looking back, we can see that this is likely the period
11:52when Ukraine was setting the traps
11:54that would be sprung half a year later.
11:56By May, Russian infiltrators were entering the city,
11:59as were drones.
12:00Then came the early July claims of capture,
12:03and we know what has happened since then.
12:05What we see here is a story of an advance, yes,
12:08but one that is unbelievably slow
12:10against a city that is very small.
12:12CNN says that Konstantinivka
12:14covers just 66 square kilometers of territory.
12:17Taking it should be a cakewalk
12:19if Russia's forces are as strong as Putin claims them to be.
12:22However, it's taken Russia a year
12:24just to get to the point where it can send
12:26tiny units of infiltrators and some drones into the city,
12:29and Ukraine has already booted them out.
12:31The Pinsa has barely advanced,
12:33and regions assessed to be under true Russian control
12:36haven't grown.
12:36In fact, looking at the maps from July 2025
12:39and July 2026 that CNN shares,
12:42we can see that this area of actual control for Russia
12:45has actually shrunk,
12:47particularly northwest of Bakhmut.
12:49In other words,
12:50Russia is actually losing territory around Konstantinivka.
12:54According to a July 21st Interfax report,
12:57Ukrainian forces retook 43.37 square kilometers
13:01along the border between Donetsk and Dnipropotrovsk
13:03during the previous week,
13:05with Russia only managing to capture 17.33 square kilometers.
13:09This isn't the dominance that Putin wants to display.
13:12All of this tells a very different story
13:14to the one coming out of the Kremlin.
13:17Gerasimov claims Konstantinivka is captured.
13:19It isn't.
13:20Far from it.
13:21Infiltrators have been dispelled by the Scalia Regiment,
13:24and Ukraine is actually making gains against Russia,
13:27or at least turning Russian-controlled regions
13:29into dangerous gray zones.
13:31The pincer can't close because it's nowhere near fully formed,
13:34and now Russia is starting to get desperate.
13:37As Euromiden Press reveals,
13:38the head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation,
13:41Andrei Kovalenko,
13:42claims that Putin may be forced
13:44into mobilizing up to 500,000 Russians this coming fall,
13:48risking a massive backlash and perhaps an uprising
13:52by a war-weary Russian population.
13:54All so that Russia can plug the ever-widening gaps
13:57in its lines across Ukraine's east.
14:00Those mobilized troops would likely be thrown into battle
14:02within two weeks of being called up,
14:04Kovalenko adds,
14:05which demonstrates both Putin's desperation
14:07to get more meat onto the field,
14:09and his and his commander's inability
14:11to come up with any strategy other than
14:14throwing more people at the problem.
14:16If this mobilization happens,
14:17Konstantinivka may fall,
14:19but the cost of Putin back home would be tremendous.
14:21He has tried to avoid mobilization
14:24for most of the Ukraine war for a good reason.
14:26His people don't want it,
14:28especially after so many casualties already.
14:31Let's bring things back to Konstantinivka
14:33and the main story.
14:34To summarize,
14:35Russia claimed to have captured the city.
14:37It hadn't.
14:38Ukraine sprung a masterful trap,
14:40and the infiltrators that Russia said
14:42had captured Konstantinivka
14:43have been practically eliminated.
14:46Russia has spent a year trying to take this one city,
14:48and it's still nowhere near.
14:50Why does all of this matter?
14:52Well, Putin has no leverage for a start.
14:55That's what all of the false claims
14:56are really all about.
14:57Whether Putin believes his generals
14:59when they tell him
15:00that Russia has taken cities
15:01or he's part of the act,
15:03these types of false claims
15:04are all about making Russia
15:05look stronger than it really is.
15:07Putin needs that for two reasons.
15:09First, he has to show his own people
15:11that Russia is still the military power
15:12that it's always claimed to be.
15:14And the best way to do that
15:16is to feed the claims
15:17that Russia is taking Ukrainian cities.
15:19Second, Putin has an eye
15:21turned toward peace talks.
15:22He doesn't want to engage in them,
15:24but if he does,
15:24he'll do it while reports
15:25about Russia capturing territory
15:27and making headlines,
15:28even when those claims
15:29are disproven days later.
15:31Putin knows he's running out of time
15:33with his stalling tactics
15:34when it comes to peace negotiations.
15:36And he needs a win,
15:38any win that he can use
15:39to support his claim
15:40that Ukraine should cede
15:42the Donbass to Russia
15:43for peace to be granted.
15:44That claim isn't coming anytime soon.
15:47Konstantinivka was meant
15:48to be a big victory for Russia,
15:50a strategically important one,
15:52no less,
15:52which would be the first advance
15:54of any actual significance
15:55that Russia has achieved for months.
15:57The spring and summer offensive
15:58was supposed to be
15:59much further along by this point.
16:01When Russia planned it,
16:02the intention was for that offensive
16:04to destroy the entire fortress belt,
16:06but nothing of any operational significance
16:08has been achieved
16:09by that offensive so far,
16:11the Institute for the Study of War,
16:13or ISW,
16:14declared on July 1st.
16:15Russia made its Konstantinivka claim
16:17two days later,
16:19almost as though they were a response,
16:20and we saw how that ended up working.
16:23It's at the point now
16:24that Russia's rate of advance
16:25in Donetsk is so slow
16:26that the ISW isn't even confident
16:28in trying to predict
16:29when the region might fall
16:30under Russian control.
16:31It could take untold numbers of years,
16:35especially when Russia is having
16:36so much trouble
16:36with the weakest
16:37of the fortress belt cities,
16:39and the Ukrainian counterattacks
16:40that are leading to Russia
16:41losing ground it once held.
16:43As for Konstantinivka,
16:45the battle for the city goes on.
16:46At this point,
16:47it seems unlikely
16:48that Russia will be able
16:48to gain complete control
16:50of the city by the end of 2026.
16:52It's still having to lie
16:53about that control now,
16:55even as its troops
16:55are forced into a humiliating retreat.
16:58And as Ukraine gets stronger,
16:59as it combines its fortifications
17:01with counter-assaults
17:02and drone strikes
17:03targeting the Russian rear
17:04in Donetsk,
17:05it's hard to see how Russia
17:06can make any serious moves
17:08any time soon.
17:09It's also not as though
17:11Konstantinivka
17:12is the only Ukrainian settlement
17:13that is giving Russia
17:14some serious headaches.
17:15In the Zaporizhia region
17:17lies Malotokmachka.
17:19A tiny village,
17:20just a fraction of the size
17:21of Konstantinivka,
17:23Malotokmachka has become
17:24a 1,500-day nightmare
17:26for Russia.
17:27It may even be
17:28a bigger problem
17:29than Konstantinivka itself
17:30and you can find out why
17:32by watching our video.
17:33And if you enjoyed this video,
17:34we have plenty more coming up.
17:36Subscribe to the military show
17:38and enable notifications
17:39to make sure
17:40that you are among the first
17:41to see them.
17:41And thank you,
17:42as always,
17:43for watching.
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