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Ukraine has a six-month window to seize the battlefield initiative from Russia and strengthen its position in peace talks, a senior Ukrainian commander reportedly told Reuters, predicting an imminent “turning point” after more than four years of war.
Brig. Gen. Andriy Biletsky, commander of Ukraine’s Third Army Corps, said Russia’s army was exhausted and unable to make major breakthroughs, even as Moscow continues to control almost one-fifth of Ukrainian territory.
Russian forces have made grinding gains since launching their full-scale invasion in February 2022, but those advances have slowed this year. Ukrainian troops are increasing battlefield pressure in an effort to push Russian forces back.
“I believe the next six to nine months are a turning point,” Biletsky said from an undisclosed underground location in the northeastern Kharkiv region.
“More precisely, I think the next six are the most critical,” he added.
Biletsky said Ukraine could gain the initiative along the frontline if its military builds and maintains momentum over several months.
He said that could push Russia to abandon its aims in the remaining part of the eastern Donetsk region that it does not yet occupy.
The issue of control over Donetsk has been a key obstacle in U.S.-backed peace talks that have stalled. Russia wants the entire region, while Ukraine refuses to withdraw from the territory Moscow’s troops have been unable to conquer.
“We need to define those directions where we can improve our positions, take some strategic points, and then speak with the Russians from a position of strength—not weakness—about a truly stable truce,” said Biletsky, a right-wing political leader who founded the Azov Battalion and now commands tens of thousands of troops.
“From a military point of view, this is realistic,” he said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Reuters reported. Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed victory in Ukraine and said this month he believes the war is nearing an end.
Russia’s advances have been complicated by a decision by billionaire Elon Musk to deny Moscow’s forces access to his Starlink satellite-based internet service.
Kyiv has stepped up medium-range drone attacks on Russian air defenses and logistics, helping more long-range strikes get through to oil and military facilities inside Russia.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said last week that Ukraine had retaken nearly 600 square kilometers of territory in 2026. Reuters said it could not independently verify the figure.
John Helin of the Finland-based Black Bird conflict-analysis group said fatigue was a problem for Russian forces, while Ukraine’s war effort continued to be hampered by a manpower shortage.
“It does seem like, four or five months into this year, it’s much more likely that the Russians will get exhausted before the Ukrainian problems come to a breaking point,” Helin told Reuters.
The U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War said Monday that Kyiv’s forces were now “actively challenging the positional character of the war” and could soon be capable of staging limited mechanized assaults.
Russian troops are pressing toward eastern Ukraine’s “Fortress Belt,” a group of heavily fortified cities that anchors Ukrainian defenses.
Fighting is raging inside the strategic city of Kostiantynivka, the southern end of the belt. Capturing the area would position Russia to threaten the rest of the Donbas.
Biletsky said his forces, which control more than one-tenth of the total front line, were firmly holding the flank around Sloviansk, the northern bastion of the belt, and forcing Russia to attack the city head-on.
He said such costly assaults had helped drain Russian forces and caused heavy losses among field commanders, describing it as a professional degradation of Moscow’s military.
“The lack of personnel no longer allows them to advance the way they did, for example, a year ago,” Biletsky said.
Biletsky said it was too early to conclude Kyiv’s recent battlefield success, but Ukraine could build on it by continuing mid-range attacks and advancing carefully.
He said Moscow was “radically losing” in battlefield communications because of Musk’s crackdown on Russian use of Starlink.
Biletsky described both sides as being at parity in evolving technology. He said Ukraine was ahead in unmanned ground vehicles and heavy bomber drones, while Russia was leading in fiber-optic drones, which cannot be jammed.
His corps has led efforts to transform training and integrate new technology, including unmanned ground vehicles, as part of its battlefield strategy.
Biletsky said his units are deploying stealthy kamikaze drones and robots armed with machine guns or rocket launchers to replace significant portions of infantrymen, to reach 30% by 2027.
He said the next “revolution” would allow commanders to conduct more “creative” combined assault operations while conserving troops.
“It will happen this year, and I think we’ll show how our corps is a vivid example of it,” he said.
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