Last month, Francis Farrell wrote a superb piece for the Kyiv Independent based on interviews with infantrymen who had been stationed at the “zero line”, the front-of-the-front in the war between Russia and Ukraine. “It’s always been the toughest job, in the toughest conditions,” he said. “But in 2025, what we’ve seen is a new level of misery for the infantryman: whereas a week or two there might have been standard a year ago, it’s now a month or two if they’re lucky.”
The diplomatic wrangling between Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin is obviously central to what happens next – but, Farrell said: “The battlefield is still the most important factor. The strongest possible card Ukraine could have going into negotiations is a rock-solid defence. And the strongest card Russia could have is a frontline in a state of collapse.”
What is life like on the ‘zero line’ today?
One soldier Farrell spoke to, an ex-convict called Ruslan, spent almost five months in a tiny dugout under almost daily fire. “There is no way we could get anywhere without infantry,” Ruslan said. “Sometimes out there you can go crazy thinking ‘why are we sitting here?’ but we know we are essential. I wanted to become a hero, and I believe I did.”
The postings are longer because of the sapping of Ukrainian manpower. Meanwhile, the “human wave” that once characterised Russian assaults has now been largely replaced by “a constant stream of one to three people trying to infiltrate Ukrainian lines, cause chaos, and dig in”, Farrell said. As well as that threat, Ukrainians at the front must also contend with increasingly lethal attacks from Russian drones.
“It is now possible to hunt a single human being with high-precision strikes,” Farrell said. “These drones have scaled exponentially, especially over the last year.” Similarly, whereas once maybe one in 100 vehicles going in or out of a town near the frontline might have been hit, it’s now more like one in two. “And drone teams 2-5km from the zero line, or artillery teams 15-20km back who used to be really quite safe, are all to an extent coming under the same threat umbrella.”
What is the strategic picture at the front?
In this podcast, former Ukrainian defence minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk says that while a couple of months ago some analysts were “openly saying that Ukraine was losing the war”, now the consensus is that “the Russian summer offensive hasn’t got any substantial acquisitions and hasn’t changed the situations strategically”.
Farrell broadly agrees: “Russia’s gains haven’t been strategically significant, they haven’t come anywhere near some kind of operational breakthrough. It’s a war of attrition.”
The fiercest fighting continues to be in Donetsk oblast in the far east of Ukraine; Russia has made its advances there at a steep casualty rate – more than 1,000 a day, according to Ukrainian estimates. But with parts of the front stable and others seeing Russian incursions and Ukrainian counterattacks, there is also a sense that “winning” or “losing” has become almost irrelevant because the general position is so entrenched.
What has the impact been of Russian air attacks?
As the changing threat to Ukrainian infantry illustrates, if the frontlines remain largely frozen, the aerial war is much more dynamic. Justin Bronk of the Royal United Services Institute told Peter Beaumont that “it is one of the areas in the conflict where we have seen the most significant change in the past 18 months”, with “first person view” (FPV) drones in much greater use, and a sharp increase in Russian use of glide bombs – conventional ordnance fitted with pop-out wings and satellite guidance that can be launched behind the frontlines and hit targets at a greater range without as much risk to the carrying aircraft.
Russia launched more than 3,000 drones, 92 missiles and almost 1,400 glide bombs against Ukraine between 5 October and 12 October alone, targeting cities and critical infrastructure including energy plants. A barrage of attacks last week caused blackouts in eight regions.
“It looks like a massive campaign against energy and heating infrastructure ahead of winter,” Farrell said. “Ukrainians are used to this – it doesn’t come as a shock to them, and people are used to getting six hours or less of electricity a day.” But modifications to Russia’s arsenal, making drones and missiles better at evading air defences, may give Moscow the upper hand.
The issue is not so much about generation in the east, where petrol and diesel generators are the primary source of military power, he added. “It’s about total warfare – on the economy, and on society. What we’re seeing at the moment is just the beginning.”
What about Ukrainian attacks within Russia?
Meanwhile, Ukraine has been conducting long-range strikes against Russian oil refineries – with, for example, three strikes on the Saratov refinery within a month. In this excellent report, Reuters estimates that there have been at least 58 attacks on key Russian energy sites since the start of August, reaching as far as 1,200 miles into Russian territory. There were only three such strikes in June and July.
Analysts tend to view these attacks as a thorn in Putin’s side rather than a critical blow against Russian military power – but note that it is a source of pain to ordinary Russians, with refining capacity reduced by as much as 21% at the end of August.
“It’s hard to calculate the tangible impact on the Russian economy, which is still a behemoth,” Farrell said. “But it is definitely a blow to the social contract that Putin has with his people, where if they are loyal to him he is the provider of strength and stability.”
A key question is whether Ukraine can maintain the pace of these attacks at a level that could knock refineries out of service altogether – and, for now, any claim that this might be gamechanging appears fanciful. “You can compare it to when Russia first started hitting Ukrainian energy infrastructure,” Farrell said. “A pro-Russian observer might have thought that Ukraine would surrender. But Ukraine adapted, the infrastructure was repaired, Russia didn’t have the missiles it needed to continue the intensity of the campaign, and that was that.”
How significant could Trump’s meeting with Putin be?
Trump’s habit of constant recalibration in his attitude to Zelenskyy and Putin – at different points suggesting that he has lost patience with both and is ready to make a decisive shift in his position, only to back away – was repeated last week. After suggesting that he might provide Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, he played that prospect down on Friday. The Financial Times reported that he tossed aside Ukrainian maps of the front and told Zelenskyy that Putin had told him the conflict was a “special operation, not even a war”. That is not promising mood music for Kyiv ahead of his next meeting with Putin.
“This is the same circus,” Farrell said. “In August he seemed very close to imposing harsh consequences on Putin, and then Putin proposed the Alaska meeting and Russia was off the hook. Now it looks like that could happen again if Moscow plays its cards right.”
The Tomahawk missiles, which would significantly extend Ukraine’s ability to hit targets deep in Russian territory, would be very valuable. (Dan Sabbagh has more on their significance in this piece.) “But it’s really just part of the bigger picture,” Farrell said. “Selling them to Ukraine might be a sign that he has finally made a decision. But Ukrainians aren’t putting too much hope in the idea that this merry-go-round will finally be over.”
