In an exclusive interview with Reuters, a senior Ukrainian commander has said Ukraine has a six-month window to seize the battlefield initiative from Russia and strengthen its hand for peace talks, predicting an imminent "turning point" after more than four years of war.
Brigadier General Andriy Biletsky, who commands Ukraine's Third Army Corps, one of the country's most respected fighting forces, told Reuters he believes Russia's military is exhausted and no longer capable of the large-scale advances it mounted in previous years. If Ukraine can build and sustain momentum over the coming months, he argued, it can push Russia to abandon its ambitions over the remaining portion of the Donetsk region it has not yet occupied.
"I believe the next six to nine months are a turning point," Biletsky told Reuters at an undisclosed underground location in the northeastern Kharkiv region. "More precisely, I think the next six are the most critical."
The question of who controls Donetsk has been a central stumbling block in US-backed peace talks that have stalled, with Russia demanding the entire region and Ukraine refusing to withdraw from territory Moscow's forces have been unable to conquer. Biletsky, a right-wing political leader who founded the battle-hardened Azov Battalion and now commands tens of thousands of troops, framed the coming months in explicitly strategic terms. "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," he said. "From a military point of view, this is realistic."
Pressure mounts on Russian forces
Russian forces have made grinding gains since their full-scale invasion in February 2022, but their advances have slowed significantly this year. Ukraine has meanwhile stepped up medium-range drone attacks on Russian air defences and logistics, helping longer-range strikes reach oil and military facilities inside Russia. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said last week that Ukraine had retaken nearly 600 square kilometres of territory in 2026, though Reuters could not independently verify the figure. Moscow currently controls almost one-fifth of Ukrainian territory.
Russia's battlefield communications have also been complicated by a decision from billionaire Elon Musk to cut Moscow's forces off from his Starlink satellite internet service, a move Biletsky described as significant. "Moscow is radically losing in battlefield communications" as a result, he said.
John Helin of the Finland-based Black Bird conflict-analysis group echoed Biletsky's assessment of Russian fatigue, while noting that Ukraine's own war effort is constrained 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. On Monday, the US-based Institute for the Study of War said Ukrainian forces were now "actively challenging the positional character of the war" and could soon be capable of staging limited mechanised assaults.
The Fortress Belt
Russian troops are bearing down on eastern Ukraine's so-called Fortress Belt, a constellation of heavily fortified cities that anchor Ukrainian defences in the Donbas. Fighting is raging inside the strategic city of Kostiantynivka at the belt's southern end; its capture would position Russia to threaten the rest of the region. Biletsky said his forces are firmly holding the northern flank around Sloviansk, the belt's northern bastion, and compelling Russia to attack head-on at heavy cost. Those costly assaults have drained Russian forces and led to heavy losses among field commanders, he said, amounting to 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.
Technology and the next revolution
Biletsky described the two sides as broadly at parity in evolving military technology, with Ukraine leading in unmanned ground vehicles and heavy bomber drones, and Russia ahead in fibre-optic drones, which cannot be jammed. His corps has been at the forefront of efforts to transform training and integrate new technology, deploying kamikaze drones and robots armed with machineguns or rocket launchers to replace portions of infantry, with a target of 30% by 2027. The next step, he said, will allow commanders to stage 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.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed victory in Ukraine and said this month he believes the war is nearing an end. Russia's Defence Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
Source: Reuters
