ISW: Ukraine’s battlefield gains leave Putin without Victory Day boasts

Analysts said the war in Ukraine forced Putin to hold Russia’s Victory Day parade on a far smaller scale than in previous years because the Kremlin cannot reliably defend areas deep inside Russia, including Moscow, from Ukrainian drones. The parade lasted only 45 minutes, featured no tanks or other military equipment for the first time since 2007, and was attended by only 10 foreign leaders, compared with more than 20 in 2025. The parade also featured North Korean soldiers for the first time.

The parade was preceded by a series of successful Ukrainian strikes on areas deep inside Russia that the Kremlin largely failed to defend despite redeploying air defense systems. The shortened format shows that four years of war are taking an increasing toll on Russia, ISW wrote.

At the same time, Putin’s insistence on holding the parade despite the threat of Ukrainian drones reflects his refusal to acknowledge current battlefield realities and his desire to restore Russia’s imagined Soviet “greatness.”

Moscow’s demands for a ceasefire during the celebrations were “a deliberate attempt to project a sense of power and control in Russia, while seeking to avoid the embarrassment of potential Ukrainian strikes” during its “main patriotic holiday,” ISW wrote.

ISW analysts also noted that Putin avoided discussing the battlefield situation in Ukraine during the May 9 celebrations, saying only that Russia’s victory was “inevitable.”

Over the past year, Russian forces have failed to achieve any operationally significant advances. ISW described Russia’s most recent “successes” as the capture of Toretsk in August 2025 after a 14-month campaign, Siversk after a 41-month campaign and Pokrovsk in January 2026 after a two-year campaign. In all cases, the seizures caused high Russian casualties and equipment losses, and Russian forces failed to turn them into further operationally significant advances.

Russian forces have so far made minimal progress in their spring-summer 2026 offensive against Ukraine’s Fortress Belt. Russian troops first infiltrated Kostyantynivka, the southernmost city in the Fortress Belt, in October 2025 and have failed to make operationally significant gains over the past six months.

By contrast, Ukraine’s Defense Forces achieved their greatest battlefield gains in winter and spring 2026 since Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk Oblast in August 2024. Ukrainian troops retook more territory than Russian forces captured in April 2026, liberated large parts of Kupyansk, more than 400 square kilometers in southern Ukraine and several settlements in western Zaporizhzhya Oblast.

Ukrainian counterattacks in southern Ukraine have forced Russia to choose between defending against Ukrainian counterattacks and allocating manpower and resources to priority front-line sectors, ISW wrote.

Ukraine’s intensified mid-range strike campaign against Russian logistics, military equipment and manpower has degraded Russia’s ability to conduct offensives. Its long-range strike campaign against Russian military and oil infrastructure deep inside Russia has also significantly disrupted Russian front-line communications and drone operations, as well as Russia’s oil and gas revenues, ISW analyzed.

The parade on Red Square in Moscow on May 9 lasted only 45 minutes, making it the shortest in modern Russian history. For the first time since 2007, the parade featured no military equipment, with footage of weapons in action shown instead. Internet shutdowns accompanied the event in central Moscow.

A three-day ceasefire in the war has been in effect since May 9 under a U.S.-mediated agreement. Ukraine pledged not to attack Red Square during the parade — a condition ISW said Ukraine observed — while Russia and Ukraine had not yet carried out a reportedly agreed 1,000-for-1,000 prisoner exchange as of May 9.