It added that the high costs Russia paid in Bakhmut or Pokrovsk would pale in comparison to those necessary to seize the fortress belt.
The tempo of Russian assaults has increased sharply in recent weeks, but Russian troops have made little concrete gains while ever more lives have been fed into the Kremlin's "meat grinder."
The conduct of warfare has been utterly transformed.
Brigades that once travelled in convoys of civilian cars now traverse the front in vehicles bristling with spikes designed to pre-detonate Russian drones, or caged in with wire grilles.
In the woods and fields, defences have been transformed into layers of deep obstacles: tank ditches, bollards, and barbed wire.
Beside physical deterrents are antennas to spot drones and electronic countermeasures to knock them out. Streets and highway sections are cloaked in anti-drone net tunnels.
"The war has changed since 2022," said Lt Col Shamil Krutkov, a commander in Ukraine's 93rd brigade.
He conceded that the defence of the fortress belt was viewed with scepticism over the years by many soldiers, but it bought time for Ukraine to adapt to a new kind of war dominated by drones, battlefield robots, and remote sensing.
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Ukrainian soldiers have changed too.
Where once infantry talked about close combat, now they are as likely to be drone operators fighting remotely on a frontline that has become a heavily surveilled "kill zone."
Krutkov noted that technology has turned everything upside down.
