Ukraine arrived at this week's key Nato summit in Turkey determined to persuade US President Donald Trump that the momentum in the war has shifted in Kyiv's favour, despite Russian forces continuing to make slow but steady territorial gains in the Donbas.

Trump struck an optimistic tone ahead of the summit in Ankara, saying that an end to the conflict was closer than many believed following separate conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy over the weekend.

"I think we're getting much closer than people realize. And President Putin wants it to end. I will tell you that very strongly," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office before boarding Air Force One.

Trump said he would discuss Ukraine during meetings with Nato leaders and is due to meet Zelenskiy on the sidelines of the summit on July 8 as Washington makes what US officials described as a renewed effort to broker an end to Europe's largest war since the Second World War.

"And President Zelenskiy actually wants it to end now. And we're going to be going to Nato, and we're going to be talking about it, and I think we're going to get it," Trump said. "I think we're going to get it ended. It's been a terrible situation."

The remarks came after what Trump described as a "good call" with Putin on the US Independence Day holiday, where Putin sent the US president a letter addressed to “Dear Donald” and reminded the president of the Russo-US alliance during WWII where they jointly defeated the Nazis. According to the Kremlin, the conversation lasted 85 minutes and focused on possible pathways towards peace.

Trump’s presence at the summit is a first step to the White House reengagement in the peace talk efforts after it was completely distracted by Operation Epic Fury following an unprovoked attack on Iran on February 28 that has ended in disaster.

Battlefield realities

In the run up to the summit, Ukraine has escalated its drone attacks on Russian oil refineries to great effect, causing a country-wide fuel crisis that has affected over half of Russia’s 89 regions. That has sparked talk of a “turning point” in the war, which is seen to be swinging in Kyiv’s advantage. Zelenskiy arrived at the conference clearly in the most confident mood he has been in for well over a year.

Yet the allies' optimism contrasted sharply with developments on the battlefield. Hours after his comments, Russia launched another large-scale missile and drone barrage against Kyiv and the surrounding region, killing at least 28 people, and the key town of Kostiantynivka, one of three cities that are the backbone of the so-called Fortress Belt in Donbas, has reportedly fallen to the Armed Forces of Russia (AFR).

While Ukraine has scored increasingly impressive successes far behind Russian lines through its expanding medium- and long-range drone campaign, the AFR continues to edge forward in the Donbas through a strategy of slow, attritional advances.

Reports from the front suggest Russian troops have effectively secured most of Kostiantynivka, and are threatening the remaining cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. If those fall then Ukraine has few defensive positions up to the Dnipro river that cuts the country in half and the way would be open for renewed attacks on Kyiv or the coastal port of Odesa.

Although Ukrainian forces continue to hold isolated positions inside Kostiantynivka and fighting remains ongoing, military analysts believe Russia is steadily establishing control before pushing northwards to the two remaining strongholds.

The information battle surrounding the city has become almost as intense as the fighting itself. Russian officials, including Putin, have claimed Kostiantynivka has already fallen, while Ukrainian military sources insist pockets of resistance remain. The confusion is reminiscent of the battle of Pokrovsk that fell into Russian hands at the end of last year.

And the cost to Russia in terms of human life has been horrendous. Bakhmut fell to Russia at the cost of some 150,000 dead, whereas the current battle is estimated to have cost twice as many lives – Russia is now losing over 30,000 men a month, more than it can replace with its voluntary recruitment programme. Ukraine is reportedly losing a fifth as many men, but it is also suffering from an acute manpower shortage. As a result both presidents are reportedly in a mood to strike a deal if differences can be overcome.

Despite the effectiveness of Ukraine’s drone campaign, as IntelliNews reported, Russia still has the advantage in drones vs missiles and manpower. With Putin’s disregard for the lost of life, that allows the Kremlin to continue with his war of attrition despite the growing unease with the cost of the war between the doves and the hawks in the top echelons of the Kremlin, who both want to bring the conflict to an end, albeit by different means.

Independent battlefield mapping by the normally reliable Deep State milbloggers suggests reality lies somewhere between the two, with Russian forces controlling most of the city but continuing clearing operations on its outskirts and drones making the streets a kill zone. Putin is currently remaining in the middle between the two Kremlin camps, according to analysts, also making the Nato summit a key event as the amount of support Zelenskiy can garner will also go into his calculations.

If fully captured, Kostiantynivka would become the largest Donbas city seized by Russia since the fall of Mariupol in 2022, according to Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Russian advances are also bringing Sloviansk and Kramatorsk increasingly within reach. Open-source mapping indicates Russian forces have moved to within roughly 11km of Sloviansk after advances near the Siversky Donets River and the strategic heights around Kryva Luka and Pyskunivka.

Zelenskiy optimistic

Despite those battlefield setbacks, Zelenskiy has arrived at the Nato summit with growing confidence that Ukraine is imposing mounting economic costs on Moscow through a campaign that has increasingly shifted the war deep inside Russia.

According to Ukrainian officials, systematic drone attacks against Russia's refining industry have now struck virtually every one of Russia’s 30 major refineries in the country. On July 6 Ukrainian drones reached the Omsk refinery, Russia's largest oil processing plant and the only major facility previously untouched by the campaign. Processing around 23mn tonnes of crude annually, or approximately 460,000 barrels per day, Omsk lies some 2,500km from the Ukrainian border, making it one of Kyiv's deepest strikes of the war.

Governor Vitaly Khotsenko confirmed that "enemy UAVs attacked the ONPZ", adding that Russian air defences had intercepted most of the drones and no casualties had been reported. Neither regional authorities nor owner Gazprom Neft disclosed the extent of the damage.

The attack carries symbolic as well as strategic significance. With Omsk in flames, Ukrainian drones have now reached every one of Russia's ten largest refineries and almost all of its roughly 30 major refining facilities since the campaign began.

The sustained attacks appear to be contributing to growing fuel shortages across Russia. Local authorities in dozens of regions have reported supply disruptions, while restrictions on fuel sales have been introduced in most of the country. The Kremlin has been forced to import petrol from Belarus and Kazakhstan to make up the shortfall and crude exports to India have also hit an all-time high, where it can be refined and reimported to Russia. Internet searches for instructions on making petrol have reportedly surged in Russia as shortages have spread and the online re-sale of petrol on Russia’s various e-commerce sites has been banned to prevent speculation.

Kyiv has simultaneously intensified attacks on occupied Crimea's energy infrastructure, in an effort to turn it into an “island.” Overnight drone strikes on July 6 triggered what Ukrainian officials described as the largest blackout on the peninsula since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

Electricity supplies were disrupted across Sevastopol, Simferopol and much of Crimea's southern coast after strikes reportedly hit the Tavricheskaya power station and Simferopol combined heat and power plant, alongside earlier attacks on substations across the peninsula.

Zelenskiy appears intent on using these successes to persuade Trump that continued Western support can fundamentally alter the trajectory of the war.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Zelenskiy suggested the US president was beginning to view the conflict differently following Ukraine's recent military successes. He has already made some progress in turning Trump's head. When he originally floated the idea of trading US powerful weapon in a $50bn mega drones-for-weapons deal he was rebuffed by the Trump administration, but since the Iran war debacle, the US has now trading technology and training with Kyiv as it wakes up to the nature of the nature of modern asymmetrical warfare.

Raising more money

Part of the hype surrounding the run up to the summit has been threat escalation to create the conditions to raise more money for Ukraine. Finnish President Alexander Stubb said ahead of the Nato summit that Ukraine was now in its “strongest military position” for several years, while Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte and senior EU officials argued that additional pressure on Moscow could force Putin towards more meaningful negotiations.

Rutte has revived talk of raising an additional €80bn of funding to supply Kyiv with arms, an idea that was earlier dismissed by the increasingly dysfunctional European economy. However, with headlines warning of a looming attack on Poland and the Baltic states by Russian forces the topic of boosting funding for Ukraine will inevitably be on the agenda again.

Russia continues to reject suggestions that its overall position has weakened. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow believed Washington's approach to ending the war remained unchanged despite Trump's latest comments. And Putin appears to enjoy cordial relations with the Trump administration that has made it clear from the start wants to do business with Russia. Zelenskiy himself reported, citing Ukraine’s intelligence services, that there is a so-called Dmitriev package of deals worth $12 trillion – three times the entire value of the Russian economy – on the table, discussed between the Russian and US president at the Alaska summit last August.

The stakes are high. European support is not finite and they are being called on by the White House to increase their defence spending to 5% of GDP following the last Nato summit in the Hague, which few can afford. France has made commitments to increase spending to 2.5%, while Spain has opted out of the new agreement and will keep spending to 2.1%. Germany has just massively boosted spending commitments and intends to raise a whopping €800bn in borrowing to pay for a modernisation of its military. But currently only Poland and the Baltic States are the only Nato members which are close to hitting the 5% target.

At the same time, since the end of US military support for Ukraine following the take-and-pay system Trump introduced, where Europe has to pay for all the weapons Ukraine buys, the EU has not been able to offset the reduction in US supply of munitions. Ukraine needs more Patriot interceptor missiles from Washington’s large stockpile above all else, as it has almost run out of air defence ammunition and currently its skies are open to incoming Russian missiles that are pounding military, economic and residential targets alike with impunity. 

The challenge facing Zelenskiy in Ankara will be convincing Trump that the strategic balance should be judged not solely by the number of villages changing hands in Donbas, but by the longer-term erosion of Russia's military and economic capacity.

Nato member defence spending plans
Country	2025 defence spending (% GDP)	2026 estimate / plan	Announced path to 5% *
US	3.20%	3.17%	Already above 3.5% not expected; no formal 5% commitment for itself
Poland	4.70%	4.68%	Expected to exceed 5% before 2030; already among NATO's highest spenders
Lithuania	5.00%	5.33%	Already exceeds 5% target
Estonia	5.00%	5.10%	Already exceeds 5% target
Latvia	4.90%	4.92%	Expected to reach 5% within 1–2 years
Greece	3.60%	3.65%	Supports 5% by 2035
Finland	2.5–2.7%	Rising	Committed to 5% by 2035
Sweden	2.60%	Rising	Committed to 5% by 2035
Norway	3.30%	Rising	Committed to 5% by 2035
Germany	2.40%	2.69%	Government aims to reach 5% by around 2030, well ahead of NATO deadline
UK	2.40%	2.56%	3.5% core defence and 5% total by 2035
France	2.10%	2.22%	Supports 5% by 2035; no faster timetable announced
Italy	2.00%	Just above 2%	Committed to 5% by 2035; detailed roadmap pending
Canada	2.00%	Above 2%	Committed to 5% by 2035
Netherlands	2.10%	Rising	Committed to 5% by 2035
Denmark	2.40%	Rising	Committed to 5% by 2035
Czech Republic	2.00%	Above 2%	Committed to 5% by 2035
Romania	2.30%	Rising	Committed to 5% by 2035
Spain	2.10%	Around 2%	Exempted from the Hague 5% commitment; has not adopted a 5% target
source: IntelliNews

* The 2035 target refers to total defence and security spending (5%), comprising 3.5% of GDP on core military expenditure and 1.5% on defence-related investment such as cyber security, military mobility, critical infrastructure and civil preparedness.