The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) judged the roughly 1,000km front essentially static on 22 July, with Kostiantynivka still Russia's unmet main effort and net Russian gains a fraction of last year's 1. ISW is a Washington research group that publishes daily open-source battlefield assessments, and its maps are a primary independent reference for Western governments. Kostiantynivka is the fortified Donetsk city anchoring Ukraine's defensive line, the last major position before Kramatorsk.
Ukraine has found no trace of the Donetsk advances Valery Gerasimov, Russia's most senior general, claimed on 18 July . The gap between the claim and the geolocated reality is the point: Moscow is asserting captures on a line that independent trackers read as barely shifting.
ISW put the Kostiantynivka loss ratio at three Ukrainian dead to 53 Russian, so the fortress-belt defence keeps imposing a steep price on each Russian push even where the map holds. That arithmetic is why the decisive contests have moved off the battlefield: a static front that favours the defender removes the incentive for either side to gamble on manoeuvre.
