The latest reports from the front lines in Ukraine read, at first glance, like a dramatic shift in momentum. Russia’s Ministry of Defense and a network of influential military bloggers have spent recent days insisting that Ukrainian troops are being surrounded on multiple fronts, trapped in pockets where their supplies are cut and their options are running out. The language is decisive, the maps look alarming, and the names of small villages suddenly carry heavy weight. But beneath the surface, a more complicated and far less certain picture is emerging. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank that tracks the conflict closely, says it has found no evidence to support these encirclment claims. Perhaps more tellingly, some Russian military bloggers themselves have begun to push back against the official narrative, urging caution and accusing their own side of exaggerating battlefield successes. Analysts who follow these patterns closely believe the escalation in encirclement rhetoric may be less about what is happening on the ground and more about what Moscow wants the world to believe: that Ukrainian defenses are cracking, that resistance is collapsing, and that a decisive Russian victory is just around the corner.
The first wave of claims centered on the northeastern part of the Kharkiv region, an area that has seen intense and fluid fighting for months. On September 23, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced the capture of two settlements, Krasny Yar and Potikhonovo, and within hours Russian military bloggers began spinning a larger story. The advance, they argued, threatened to surround Ukrainian troops in the nearby village of Riznykove, and they went even further in the case of Rublene, where they claimed the encirclement of Ukrainian Armed Forces units was already complete. One blogger offered a particularly precise and dramatic assessment, asserting that roughly 1,500 Ukrainian servicemen were trapped in a pocket of about 460 square kilometers between the Velykoburlutsk and Vovchansk sectors. It is the kind of claim that, if true, would represent a major operational victory. But the Institute for the Study of War looked at the available evidence and found nothing to support it. Analysts pointed out that Russian and Ukrainian positions in northern Kharkiv Oblast are largely intermingled, with no clean lines dividing who controls what. A representative from a Ukrainian brigade operating in the area also poured cold water on the idea of a defined front line, saying that the situation is far too chaotic for anyone to declare a neat encirclement. In fact, Ukrainian troops in the Vovchansk direction reported that Russian forces were continuing to shell settlements that Russian sources themselves had already claimed to have encircled, which would be a strange thing to do if those areas were truly under Russian control. The simplest explanation, according to the ISW, is that Russian forces do not actually control those settlements at all, and the encirclement narrative is running far ahead of reality.
A second set of claims emerged around the town of Dobropillia, further south in the Donetsk region, where Russian sources described a sweeping advance that seemed to put Ukrainian forces in grave danger. A military blogger with close ties to the Kremlin reported that Russian troops had pushed forward near the village of Virivka and were now making incursions toward Bilozerske, Vodyane, and Novotroitske. The implication was clear: Ukrainian units in the area were being cut off, their logistical lifelines severed, and their positions rendered untenable. But when the ISW examined the details, the picture became murkier. The blogger in question never actually claimed that Russian troops had established a foothold in those settlements, and crucially, he provided no evidence of a physical encirclement of Ukrainian units. There was no mention of Ukrainian soldiers being trapped, no reports of resistance collapsing, and no confirmation that Russian forces had closed the ring. What seemed to be happening, at least according to the available information, was something far less definitive. Russian troops may have been probing forward, testing Ukrainian defenses, and trying to disrupt supply routes, but that is not the same as surrounding an entire force. The distinction matters, because encirclements are among the most difficult and consequential operations in warfare. They require coordination, control of terrain, and the ability to prevent reinforcements from breaking through. None of that had been demonstrated. The ISW concluded that there was no evidence of the encirclement of Ukrainian troops in the Dobropillia area either, and that the claims were better understood as part of a broader narrative rather than a reflection of operational reality.
Ukrainian military officials, for their part, offered a very different account of what was happening on the front lines. On September 23, the 1st Corps of the Ukrainian National Guard, better known as the Azov unit, stated that Ukrainian forces had successfully thwarted Russian attempts to physically cut off logistics routes in the area. According to their account, the enemy had hoped to use those routes to rapidly encircle the city of Druzhkivka and then launch a subsequent offensive toward Dobropillia. The fact that Ukrainian forces were able to keep the routes open, even under heavy pressure, meant that the Russian plan had not worked as intended. A representative of a Ukrainian brigade operating in the Vovchansk direction added another important detail: Russian troops were continuing to shell settlements that Russian sources themselves had included in their alleged encirclement zone. This is a telling inconsistency. If Russian forces truly had Ukrainian units surrounded, they would likely be attempting to tighten the noose, not lobbing artillery at villages they supposedly already controlled. The shelling suggests that the area remains contested, that Ukrainian troops are still present and fighting, and that the front line is far more fluid than the official Russian narrative suggests. Perhaps most strikingly, some Russian military bloggers have also started to distance themselves from the most extreme claims. One of them described the situation near Dobropillia as fire control over Ukrainian logistics routes rather than a continuous presence of Russian infantry, a subtle but significant admission that Russian forces could disrupt supplies without actually occupying the ground. Another blogger went further, stating that reports of encirclement in various sectors of the front exaggerate the Russian army’s successes. When even the voices that usually amplify the Kremlin’s message begin to express doubt, it is a strong signal that the official story is not holding up.
The Institute for the Study of War believes there is a clear reason why these encirclement claims have surged at this particular moment. Ukrainian forces have recently enjoyed successes in priority sectors of the front, advancing in places where Russian defenses have proven weaker than expected. In the information battlefield, where perceptions are just as important as terrain, those Ukrainian gains present a problem for Moscow. The Russian leadership needs to explain why the war is not going according to plan, and it needs to maintain the image of an army that is steadily grinding forward. Claims of Ukrainian troops being surrounded serve that purpose perfectly. They create the impression that even if Ukrainian forces are advancing somewhere, they are suffering catastrophic losses elsewhere. They shift the focus away from Ukrainian successes and onto alleged Ukrainian failures. They also help sustain the narrative, repeated endlessly in Russian media, that Ukrainian defenses are on the verge of collapse and that continued resistance is futile. The ISW suggests that this is a deliberate information campaign, designed to distract from Ukrainian advances and shape the story in a way that favors Moscow. At the same time, the think tank notes that neither Ukrainian nor Russian sources have provided evidence of the complete physical encirclement of Ukrainian units, despite the confident claims coming from certain Russian representatives. The absence of evidence is not proof that nothing is happening, but in a conflict where both sides routinely release footage, satellite imagery, and drone feeds, the silence is telling. If a major encirclement had actually occurred, there would almost certainly be visual confirmation by now. Instead, what the world is seeing is a war of words, with each side trying to define reality for domestic and international audiences.
Beyond the encirclement claims, the broader information war continues to churn out new and bizarre stories. Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation recently reported on a Russian artificial intelligence campaign on TikTok that uses fake images of Ukrainian veterans. The videos, according to the Center, are designed to undermine trust in the state and divide Ukrainian society by spreading manipulated content that appears to show real people in compromising or contradictory situations. It is a sophisticated approach that leverages the emotional weight of veterans to sow confusion and erode public confidence. In another example, a false story began circulating in Russia about a 49-year-old Israeli man named Yonatan Karlinski-Mashak, who also holds Ukrainian citizenship. According to the fabricated account, he was detained at the Ukrainian-Romanian border after a trip to Uman, then taken to a military facility near Odesa where he was allegedly undergoing the enlistment process for the Ukrainian military. The story appears designed to stoke fear among foreign nationals and Ukrainian citizens abroad, suggesting that anyone with Ukrainian ties could be forcibly conscripted. Neither of these stories has been substantiated, and both fit a familiar pattern of using emotional manipulation and false claims to shape public opinion. In the end, the encirclement narrative is part of a larger ecosystem of disinformation that has become as central to the conflict as artillery and drones. The reality on the ground is difficult enough to determine without the fog of war, but when official claims are contradicted by independent analysts, Ukrainian defenders, and even skeptical Russian bloggers, the wise course is to treat every announcement with caution. The war is being fought not only in trenches and villages, but in headlines and social media feeds, and the truth is often the first casualty.