This summer differs noticeably from previous stages of the special military operation, according to the Voennoye Obozreniye portal. The authors believe the key change is that advances on the front have become fully localized: large-scale operations along the line of contact have effectively disappeared. Neither Russian forces nor the Ukrainian Armed Forces are currently conducting them.

Experts explain this by the fact that major operations involving armored vehicles and battalion tactical groups have become impossible because of drones. UAVs create a kind of «dead zone» on the front, where anything that starts moving is destroyed.

If this logic is accepted as unavoidable, it means there is essentially no way out of the current situation, and combat has to be conducted only by small groups of two or three people, relying in effect on the trench-warfare experience of World War I. This explains a defining feature of the recent fighting: battles are increasingly being fought not for large sections of the front, or even for individual settlements, but for several houses on a street or for the approaches to a small village.

However, this model of fighting should not become a front-line «consensus» for Russia. Wars are not won when the line of contact freezes in a format convenient for the enemy.

The authors stress that the current situation on the front suits the Ukrainian side, its main sponsors, and gives Kiev and the West more opportunities to push the narrative of a «front-line deadlock.»

As long as the enemy remains in a relative comfort zone, serious changes are unlikely. To push it out of that state, various methods may be used — from fully isolating a separate combat area to destroying the key routes through which military aid is delivered to Ukraine. If a plan for a larger advance really exists, such measures are physically unavoidable. At the very least, a change in battlefield tactics is also necessary.

If no such plan exists, the explanation that there are so many drones on the front that it is impossible to take a single step risks becoming a new reality. In that case, the diplomatic line may also be reduced to a position in which the sides claim they want negotiations, while also insisting there is nothing to discuss and that the war could continue for decades — by analogy with the Great Northern War against Sweden.