Since launching its illegal invasion against Ukraine, Russia has developed a category of narratives aimed at covering the war according to its preferences. However, Russia’s Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) campaign has recently abandoned even the slightest pretence of credibility. While the Ukrainian military is regaining a tactical military advantage and Russian successes on the battlefield are dwindling, Moscow’s disinformation machine is trying to meet the need to show off military victories to its public opinion and partners, even if they are widely exaggerated.
Fewer territories, more pathos
For the first time since 2023, Ukraine is recapturing more territory than it is losing. This was particularly evident in May 2026, when the Russian army managed to occupy only 14 square kilometres in Ukraine, according to open-source intelligence (OSINT) analysts. The number of Russian assaults on Ukrainian positions increased by 37.5%, but this activity did not lead to any significant advances.
In the absence of clear military successes, Kremlin-controlled media are promoting the narrative that Russian troops retain the strategic initiative on the battlefield. In their efforts to support this narrative, Russian FIMI reports the capture of numerous Ukrainian settlements as a success.
A striking example concerns Kupyansk, a strategically important city in Ukraine’s Kharkiv Oblast. In November 2025, the Russian Ministry of Defence announced the complete capture of Kupyansk. Ukraine officially denied these reports, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the city, providing a direct response to dismiss the Kremlin’s propaganda.
On 16 May 2026, the same pattern was repeated. General Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, made a series of false statements about the situation in the Kupyansk area, claiming that Russian troops were advancing further west of the city. However, Ukrainian forces are still holding the city’s defensive lines.
A similar situation took place concerning the small town of Mala Tokmachka in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Oblast. In 2025 alone, several FIMI reports appeared in Kremlin-controlled media (in April, October, and November) claiming that the town had been liberated three times! The same claims were repeated once more in 2026. However, the town still remains firmly under Ukrainian control.
Mala Tokmachka under the control of Ukrainian troops,”source: OSINT-project Deep State
Land corridor to Crimea
In the spring of 2026, Ukraine its campaign of medium-range strikes against military targets to strategically degrade Russian logistical lines in the occupied territories of Ukraine. This effort included the so-called “land corridor” to Crimea, which Russia has been using as the main supply route for its troops in southern Ukraine since 2022.
Following the strikes’ impact, fuel station on the Crimean peninsula are running out of fuel. All highways leading to Crimea, both through Ukraine and Russia, are closed, as are the railways connecting Russia with the occupied Ukrainian regions.
A queue of cars at a gas station in Yevpatoria, occupied Crimea, 3 June 2026, source: Reuters
Pro-Kremlin FIMI actors responded fast to the Ukrainian campaign, deploying denial tactics alongside fabricated narratives about Ukraine intentionally attacking civilians. Numerous state-affiliated media outlets disseminated near-identical reports alleging that Ukraine had launched a drone blockade of Crimea, only to suffer a defeat. At the same time, pro-Russian outlets reframed all Ukrainian attempts to seize control of this key corridor to Crimea as evidence that Kyiv has no intention of ending the war, but instead wants to escalate it with NATO support.
Russian FIMI continues to insist that the situation is under control and that public panic is unfounded. However, decisions by the Russian government indicate otherwise: Russia is increasing gasoline supplies from Belarus and is considering introducing a temporary ban on gasoline exports and a complete ban on diesel fuel exports. And on 1 June, Russia banned the export of aviation kerosene for the first time, predictably declaring that there is no shortage of this type of fuel in Russia.
Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian logistics on the roads of the occupied territories, source: Institute for the Study of War
However, state-controlled propaganda in Russia is showing signs of cracking, as political figures aligned with the Kremlin have acknowledged that Ukraine isn’t interested in attacking civilian targets but instead is conducting attacks against fuel tankers supplying the Russian military. Russian war correspondents have similarly confirmed that so-called “Bankova’s militants” – referring to the Bankova street where the Ukrainian Presidential Office resides – are conducting an operation to disrupt Russian military logistics.
Moscow and St. Petersburg under attack
In addition to medium-range strike operations, Ukrainian forces have extended the reach of their long-range strikes deep inside Russian territory. In 2025, Ukraine deployed six times more long-range drones than in 2024, rendering approximately 20% of Russia’s oil refining capacity non-operational and significantly reducing its ability to finance the war.
This trend intensified in June 2026 when Ukraine launched one of the largest drone attacks against Moscow since the start of the full-scale invasion. The operation targeted critical energy infrastructure, including the Moscow oil refinery, while also disrupting civilian air traffic. Russian authorities temporarily suspended operations at all four major Moscow airports, causing hundreds of flight cancellations and delays.
Pro-Russian FIMI reports have consistently framed Ukrainian strikes as deliberate attacks against civilians, while frequently linking them to the EU’s support to Ukraine. Kremlin-aligned media describe the strikes as evidence of Western escalation, presenting them as tantamount to neighbouring NATO countries opening a second front against Russia. Through this false narrative, Russia tries to belittle Ukraine’s military agency and portrays allied nations as direct belligerents in the war.
Threatening diplomats and winning on paper
Despite Russian claims of battlefield progress, Ukrainian forces are increasingly creating conditions that may, according to OSINT experts, enable a break from the entrenched positional warfare characteristic of the front line in Eastern Ukraine since 2023. Russian forces continue to sustain mounting casualties while achieving diminishing territorial gains.
Schematic evolution of the frontline in Ukraine (2014–2026), source: Al Jazeera
According to the Ukrainian General Staff, the number of Russians killed and wounded in Ukraine is approaching 1.4 million. That’s about 30,000 people per month. President Zelenskyy stated in an open letter to Putin on 4 June that 63% of Russian battlefield losses are killed, while only 37% are wounded.
Search for a victory narrative
Against the backdrop of total failure in Ukraine, the Kremlin is increasingly developing scenarios for ending the war without a declared victory. Allegedly leaked Russian government documents indicate that in February 2026, the Kremlin began working on a FIMI-friendly “image of victory” to justify the end of the war.
The primary focus is on developing narratives of Russia’s successful resistance to the aggressive West and the exaltation of the resilience of Russian businesses, which supposedly have managed to thrive under sanctions. Among the key achievements, the proposals highlight Russia’s acquisition of new citizens and new territories, as well as a land corridor to Crimea and the coast of the Sea of Azov, which are currently under the complete control of Ukrainian drones and missiles.
And while the Kremlin is figuring out how to create a convenient, winning FIMI campaign, Russia continues to spend considerable resources carrying out indiscriminate airstrikes on civilian infrastructure in Kyiv and issuing threats against foreign diplomatic personnel stationed in the Ukrainian capital to obscure its military’s failures on the battlefield.
The Kremlin’s prevailing narrative continues to portray Ukraine as on the verge of collapse. However, this narrative stands in contradiction to the reality on the battlefield. Following Russia’s FIMI framework, the war in Ukraine is now perceived not only through the prism of military engagements on the battlefield, but also as an information management exercise to be solved through the escalation of threats and the deployment of deception.
