The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington think tank that publishes daily battlefield assessments, found Russia net-lost about 91 square miles in the four weeks to 9 June 1. A net loss means Ukrainian gains and Russian withdrawals outweighed Russian advances over the period. The figure continues a stall ISW first flagged when it logged a roughly 100-square-mile net loss in the four weeks to 26 May .
The trend has held into June. ISW recorded no Russian advances at all on 7 June , and the front has not produced the kind of breakthrough Moscow's spring offensive promised. Ukraine tripled Russia's per-kilometre attrition cost to 179 losses per square kilometre this year , so Moscow now spends more men for less ground.
The forward-looking signal sits in where Russia probes next. Meduza, a Russian exile outlet, identified the Dobropillia sector in western Donetsk as Moscow's new pressure point, an axis that would bypass Kramatorsk from the west. Kramatorsk anchors Ukraine's fortified "fortress belt", the dense line of defended towns Russia has battered without breaking since 2024. A flanking push through Dobropillia would aim to turn that belt rather than assault it head-on, which is why a single sector flag matters more than the net-loss number suggests. Russia cannot move the line by force, so it is hunting for a way around it.
