Character of War Shifting in Favor of Ukraine, Think Tank Says

A think tank has stated that data of Russia’s battlefield performance are showing that “the character of the war is shifting in favor of Ukrainian forces, at least for now” and that the war is not in a stalemate.

The Institute for the Study of War stated in its report published on May 25 that Russia’s rate of advancement is “plummeting,” while Ukraine is “starting to regain more ground than it is losing for the first time since 2023.”

The report also states that Ukraine has regained an overall drone advantage and has been “conducting a coherent campaign to suppress and destroy Russian air defenses since late 2025, in order to shape the battlefield as part of more sophisticated campaign planning.”

“Ukraine’s success in blunting Russian advances and reversing Russian gains in some sectors of the line, in tandem with Ukraine’s limited reintroduction of elements of tactical mechanized maneuver, may nevertheless mark the beginning of a new phase of the war,” the report reads.

George Barros, director of innovation and open source tradecraft at the Institute for the Study of War and co-author of the report, said that Ukrainian forces are “out-innovating Russian forces in both military technologies and in applying these new technologies in effective operational concepts that can help Ukrainian forces break out of positional warfare.”

“The bottom line is that the war in Ukraine is competitive and far from stalemated,” he wrote in a May 25 post on X.

“Ukraine is employing mechanized equipment in tactical maneuvers in ways that were impossible 12 months ago.”

Barros also said Russia’s ability to conduct infiltration missions will continue to decline.

He said Ukraine’s current advantage in conducting intermediate-range strikes is not permanent, noting that “Russia will very likely eventually develop countermeasures to mitigate Ukraine’s advantages.”

However, Barros suggested that Ukraine’s allies “have a rare and temporary opportunity to help Ukraine exploit favorable battlefield dynamics while Ukraine has the upper hand.”

This analysis from the Institute for the Study of War follows a May 20 report by the think tank that stated that Ukraine was “regaining tactical initiative” in the war, building on gains made in April and achieving its first net territorial gain in two years.

According to a December 2025 war report card from Russia Matters, a project by Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Russian forces control about 20 percent of Ukraine, which includes Crimea and parts of Donbas that Russia had seized prior to the full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.

Ballistic Missile Attacks

The report follows recent missile attacks by Russia on Kyiv.

An aerial assault by Russia on May 24 included the use of Oreshnik ballistic missiles—only the third time that the weapon, which is capable of carrying nuclear or conventional warheads, has been used since the start of the war in February 2022.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the largest number of missiles were directed at civilian locations in Kyiv, including residential areas.

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the use of Oreshniks, stating that it had used the hypersonic missiles to hit Ukrainian “military control and command facilities.” The ministry stated that the attacks were in retaliation after Ukraine hit “civilian facilities on Russian territory.”

Russia and Ukraine have both denied deliberately targeting civilian populations.