In order to turn things around, Russia will have to take steps even more unpopular with its people than its mobilization efforts have already been, the report added.

At the same time, while Russia has far from achieved its strategic goals in its invasion of Ukraine, drones have rendered the front both more hazardous and unprecedentedly transparent, the overview went on.

Also noteworthy has been Ukraine's successes in longer-range strikes inside Russian territory, including when using its own Flamingo cruise missiles.

"This week marks four years since the moment when the Russian Federation launched a full-scale war against Ukraine with the aim of demilitarizing Ukraine, replacing the Ukrainian government, and turning Ukraine into a Russian-controlled puppet state in which all key decisions would be made in Moscow. In total, the war in Ukraine has lasted 12 years," the intelligence center wrote in its overview of the situation on the front line.

The center notes that instead of the three days Russia had expected the full-scale invasion to last, culminating in the fall of Kyiv, it is now in its fifth year, with Kyiv still free. Both the character of the war and the means used to fight it have changed a lot over those five years, the overview notes, not least with the advent of drone warfare as the dominant mode.

"Various types of drones now dominate the battlefield; the battlefield has become unprecedentedly 'transparent' and more dangerous than ever before. Breakthroughs are being replaced by infiltration, attempts are being made to cut off frontline sectors from logistical support and fragment them, and long-range precision strikes are used to weaken the opponent's will and ability to continue the war," the intelligence overview continued.

In the immediate term, the EDF reports overall combat intensity fell this week to an average of 170 clashes per day.

"The main effort of the Russian armed forces, as in previous weeks, was directed toward Kostyantynivka, Pokrovsk, and Huliaipole. Russian forces also attempted to advance toward Lyman and Sloviansk, and at the beginning and end of the week in the northern parts of Sumy and Kharkiv regions. Russian units achieved some success in the Sloviansk, Lyman, and Pokrovsk directions. It should be noted that the Pokrovsk axis became one of Russia's main effort directions as early as the second half of 2024, yet since that time, Russian units there have advanced only about 15 kilometers," the intelligence overview says. The center added that Ukrainian units continued active defensive operations and counterattacks, successfully pushing Russian units back in the Kupiansk, Novopavlivka, Oleksandrivka, and Huliaipole directions, as well as in the western Zaporizhzhia region. "According to various estimates, Ukrainian units liberated 200 to 400 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in February and continue repelling the aggressor," the intelligence center added.

The intelligence center reported that during the week the Russian Federation launched nearly 1,000 drones and 55 missiles at Ukraine in long-range precision strikes, fewer than the previous week. "Russian attacks targeted critical and civilian infrastructure in more than ten Ukrainian regions. In addition to energy infrastructure, Russia attempted to strike urban water supply facilities as well as transport and logistics infrastructure. The energy situation was difficult in Ukrainian border and frontline regions but improved in the country's western regions," the center noted.

The overview also stated that Ukrainian long-range precision strikes hit a ballistic missile factory in Votkinsk, Udmurtia; fuel and energy sector facilities in Pskov and Samara regions and in Tatarstan; and a chemical plant in Dorogobuzh, Smolensk oblast.

According to the intelligence center, the strike on the facility in Votkinsk — located more than 1,300 kilometers from Ukraine — using Ukraine's own FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles is significant. "The fact that a Ukrainian-produced cruise missile was able to evade Russian air defense and reach an enterprise deep inside Russia shows that the security risk for strategically important Russian facilities has now sharply increased, and in the fifth year of the full-scale war such strikes may become more frequent and increasingly affect Russia's ability to produce critically important weapons systems," the intelligence overview stated. The war thus has far from delivered strategic results for Moscow.

In purely military terms, the intelligence center said Russia's advances have been highly limited, and in some aspects Russia's situation at the start of the fifth year of the full-scale war is even worse than it was before 2022.

"So far, the Russian Federation has managed to occupy 20 percent of Ukraine's territory, while in 2025 less than one percent of Ukrainian territory was captured. Russia has lost 1.2–1.3 million troops in the war, and in 2025, as infantry use in assaults began to dominate under conditions of drone warfare, Russia lost an average of 90 men for every square kilometer captured," the intelligence center noted.

The overview recalled that whereas Russia enjoyed significant maritime and air superiority over Ukraine at the outset of the current war, this has not helped Russia turn the course of the war in its favor in the intervening four years. "In the course of the fighting, the Ukrainian armed forces have sunk or damaged nearly 30 Russian vessels and forced the Russian Black Sea Fleet to leave Sevastopol — its previous permanent base, whose retention was of vital importance to Russia," the intelligence center wrote. Russia had previously leased Sevastopol from Ukraine.

According to the intelligence center, Ukrainian air defenses have created a situation in which Russian tactical aircraft no longer cross the contact line, and Ukraine has also managed to destroy or damage 20 or more Russian long-range bomber aircraft and destroy 25 percent of Russia's airborne early warning aircraft.

The intelligence center added that in 2025 Russia's armed forces were recruiting 30,000 to 35,000 men each month, most of whom were used to replace frontline losses. "By the end of the fourth year of the full-scale war this recruitment model began to exhaust itself, and Russia has created the possibility of calling reservists into service and using them in military operations outside Russia's borders. In essence, this amounts to creating the conditions for concealed and gradual mobilization. Considering Russia's economic slowdown and other problems, the mobilization and deployment of reservists in the war in Ukraine could further increase internal tensions in Russia," was the intelligence center's assessment.

According to the intelligence center, the above demonstrates that by the end of the fourth year of the full-scale war, initiating the largest war in Europe since World War II has certainly not produced the strategic results Moscow expected or wanted. "Ukraine has not been subdued, and instead of stepping back and leaving Ukraine under Russia's control, the democratic countries have united their efforts and continue supporting Ukraine while strengthening their own security," the overview added.

The intelligence center continued to note that at the operational and tactical levels Ukraine, both on its own and together with countries of the coalition of the willing, has sought and found new solutions to offset Russia's advantages and to boost the combat power of the Ukrainian armed forces. "The resilience and determination of the Ukrainian people in defending their homes has been the foundation of the Ukrainian armed forces' fighting capability."

"As a result of all this, Russia has found itself in a war in which its progress has been assessed as among the slowest in military history, and to continue the war Moscow will have to move toward taking increasingly unpopular steps," the overview concluded.

A live map of the frontline in Ukraine updated in real time is here.

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