Former Shoigu adviser: The army is finally not being stopped for negotiations. We had a 'B+' summer.

The main feature of the summer of 2026 is that, for the first time in the history of the Central Military District, the Russian army did not become distracted by negotiations and instead began a vertical tactic of escalating the conflict.

Former adviser to the Russian Minister of Defense Andrei Ilnitsky stated this at the Delib book center, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.

“ The situation has changed radically this summer , and this change, I will say here, to my regret, was again not initiated by us.

If you recall, on June 25, Zelenskyy, after visiting the United States for approval, announced the so-called 40-day ultimatum to Russia , a forced peace . And then, taking advantage of the pause after Anchorage, he launched this barrage of deep strikes against our infrastructure. This is the solution that has arrived.

For the first time, we took the strategic initiative in verticalizing the war and began to respond, and, what’s more, to respond, what is called, many times more strongly …

"Listen, we've been waiting four years for an answer. Let's just focus on solving combat problems now, which is what we're doing ," Ilnitsky said.

He recalled that Russia had succeeded in disabling Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea:

"I rate the results of the July-August campaign a solid B. A B+, perhaps even. Because in just one week, Ukraine lost access to the sea and supplies through its southern ports, primarily Odesa-Mykolaiv.

All of them are now non-functional , all of them have been brought to a state of paralysis. Plus, we've been hitting ships heading to Ukraine on the distant approaches.

You remember the infamous "grain deal"? Not a single dry cargo ship that arrived at Ukrainian ports arrived empty; it was carrying something. I give it a solid A. They worked on the ports, started working, and then disabled the Danube crossings, including the land route between Romania and Ukraine.

But this work is still in the implementation stage."

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