Two Way Street

Ukrainian forces pulled their main body out of southeastern Kostiantynivka to the eastern bank of the Kryvyi Torets, holding the north and northwest while individual units still operate in the centre. Russian lead elements — small infantry groups, the main body not yet committed — reached the Central Market on Bakhmutska Street, took Illinivka to the southwest, and pushed north through Novodmytrivka to Stinky to work around the defenders. Russia has been trying to take the city for ten months and claimed it captured on 5 July. Fifty kilometres north, the same method is being prepared against Slovyansk: Smerch and Tornado-S launchers have joined the glide bombs, five bombs fell on the morning of 26 August damaging 13 residential buildings, and the intent is to rubble the city before infantry enter. ISW puts Rai-Oleksandrivka and Mykolaivka in the way first.

Geolocated footage published on 26 August shows Ukrainian advances in Vodyanske and Krasnopodillya south of Dobropillya, and no Russian positions in Matyasheve, west of Vodyanske or in Dobropillya itself — the axis Russia named as its next objective. In the north, Ukrainian forces advanced southwest of Dvorichna above Kupyansk. The sharpest evidence comes from the other side: a Kremlin-affiliated milblogger reported Ukrainian counterattacks near Katerynivka, Nove and Ridkodub southeast of Borova, said Ukrainian forces had seized the ground between Nove and Katerynivka, and assessed that Russian troops in the Shandryholove salient face encirclement.

Two more Russian claims of capture rest on footage ISW assesses to be AI-altered. Russian sources published video on 26 August of a flag-raising in northwestern Pysarivka, north of Sumy City; ISW judges parts of it likely synthetic and finds Ukrainian forces still in control. The defence ministry claimed Nizhenka, southwest of Oleksandrivka, with footage of a tank brigade raising a flag — about eleven kilometres from the nearest observed Russian position, which makes the claim not an exaggerated advance but an invented one. A milblogger separately claimed the recapture of Yalta, which Ukraine reported liberating on 12 August.

For the first time this summer the two open-source trackers agree that Russia is going backwards. Russia Matters' report card of August 18 records, for the four weeks from July 21, a net Russian loss of 12 square miles on DeepState's data — against a gain of 15 in the preceding four weeks — and a loss of 2 square miles on its own summation of ISW's map layers. A week earlier the two pointed opposite ways. They agree on the sign, not the size, and neither is a calendar-month figure.

After a fortnight in which the front barely moved, Russia opened a different approach to the Fortress Belt. ISW assessed on August 23 that Russian forces advanced east of Sloviansk, consolidating Zakitne and Kryva Luka on the southern bank of the Siverskyi Donets and reaching the south-eastern outskirts of Pyskunivka — bypassing the northern route through Lyman that Ukrainian defences and river lines have held since spring. A Ukrainian brigade near Pokrovsk reported Russian reserves massing for a resumed push on Dobropillya, which ISW reads as the encirclement's southern arm. ISW still calls rapid gains west of Mykolaivka extremely unlikely.

Ukraine disclosed on 12 August a counteroffensive it had run quietly since 29 January. Its Airborne Assault Forces said troops in the Oleksandrivka sector had liberated more than 745 square kilometres, cleared 300 more of infiltrators and retaken 26 settlements, driving Russian forces out of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast — by area Ukraine's largest recapture since autumn 2022. Three trackers counted it three ways. ISW assessed roughly 626.69 square kilometres, cautioning that its conservative mapping likely understates the advance. DeepState recorded a 241-square-kilometre expansion of Ukrainian-held ground against a 118-square-kilometre contraction of Russian-held ground, the difference absorbed by a shrinking grey zone, and confirmed 19 of the 26 villages. Ukraine's own figures do not reconcile either: commander-in-chief Mykhailo Drapatyi gave 450 and 490 square kilometres for the two phases, a sum of 940.

Three days after Ukraine announced its largest recapture of the war, a Russian milblogger published flag-raising videos dated 14 and 15 August showing troops retaking some thirty settlements — many of them the villages Ukraine had just claimed. ISW assessed much of the batch as likely generated or altered by artificial intelligence, or old footage presented as new, and reached the same verdict on a video from Oskil, a settlement it has never observed Russian forces come within 17 kilometres of. Staged proof is not new here — a captured Russian soldier said on 8 August that his command had ordered him to raise a flag for the camera — but synthetic video removes the need to send anyone. Much of the correction came from Russian sources: Kremlin-aligned bloggers publicly refuted the defence ministry's claims at Kostiantynivka, Dobropillya and Kudiivka.

For two consecutive days the Institute for the Study of War could not confirm a single advance by either army anywhere along the 1,200-kilometre front. Its assessments for August 16 and August 17 record Russian attacks continuing — and failing to gain ground — in the Sumy, northern Kharkiv, Velykyi Burluk, Kupyansk, Borova, Slovyansk, Dobropillya, Pokrovsk, Novopavlivka, Oleksandrivka, Hulyaipole and western Zaporizhzhia directions, while in Kherson Oblast neither side reported any ground activity at all for four days running. Six exceptions, all of them backed by geolocated footage, mark the edges of the freeze, and five of the six run Ukraine's way. Russia's single confirmed gain came on August 14, when footage of a repelled platoon-sized mechanised assault south-east of Vozdvyzhivka led ISW to assess that Russian troops had likely taken Olenokostyantynivka and Zelene, north-west of Hulyaipole; on August 17 Russian soldiers were filmed raising flags in Novosoloshyne, which the defence ministry claimed the same day. Against that, Ukrainian troops cleared Russian infiltrators out of western Kostiantynivka on August 15 and out of the eastern side of the same town on August 17 — ground where Russian sources had already announced an advance — and likely cleared Hulyaipilske to the south-west; footage from Ozerne, east of Sloviansk, showed Russians shelling a position Ukraine had just taken; and a Ukrainian position was filmed north-west of Bilytske, north of Pokrovsk, in another area Russia had claimed. ISW added an unusual caveat against itself: footage from central Kostiantynivka suggests Russian forces have consolidated in the town's south-east beyond what its own maps show, though by how much is unclear. Behind the stillness both sides kept working. Russia continued the shaping campaign against the Fortress Belt it opened at the start of the month, striking bridges over the Kazennyi Torets, the Novokramatorsk machine-building plant, ground lines of communication into Kramatorsk and Ukrainian drone control stations at Dobropillya, and attacking the heights on Sloviansk's eastern outskirts where it wants its own drone crews. It also reinforced the Lyman axis, where ISW recorded the 673rd Separate Anti-Aircraft Missile Battalion for the first time in the war and a Ukrainian brigade reported Rubikon drone crews arriving to win back parity in the air. And in the south the counteroffensive Ukraine announced on August 12 is not finished: Ukrainian forces have small Russian groups blocked deep inside Dnipropetrovsk Oblast around Sichneve, Voskresenka and Oleksandrohrad while Russia counterattacks out of Fedorivka to reach them, and are fighting for Komar, three to four kilometres short of the road between Velyka Novosilka and Hulyaipole.

The same assessments that recorded Ukraine's southern gains recorded Russia still inching toward the Fortress Belt. ISW confirmed a recent Russian advance in the Kostiantynivka–Druzhkivka tactical area — geolocated footage from August 11 showed a Russian soldier in civilian clothing, an act of perfidy under the Geneva Conventions, trying to throw an anti-tank mine into a Ukrainian-held building in western Kostiantynivka — and a Russian milblogger claimed the seizure of Petrivka, south-west of Druzhkivka. It was a modest but confirmed shift after a fortnight in which the approaches had barely moved. Elsewhere the picture was mixed and mostly static. Russian forces kept attacking around Dobropillya without a confirmed advance as Ukraine counterattacked near Toretske; near Lyman, Russia again struck a Siverskyi Donets crossing at Mayaky with glide bombs — the third month running — but still made no crossing; and in the Kupyansk direction Ukraine pushed into northern Zapadne even as a Ukrainian spokesman conceded Russia likely controls most of Pishchane to the south-east. At Chasiv Yar a Kremlin-aligned milblogger admitted the town's microdistricts remain contested grey zones and that taking Stinky to the north was a distant prospect, and acknowledged that Ukraine still holds Klynove — a village Russia's defence ministry had claimed captured back in December 2025.

Russia has given itself a hard target and until the end of the year to reach it. In its August 7 assessment the Institute for the Study of War reported that Vladimir Putin has set December 31, 2026 as the deadline to seize the remainder of Donetsk Oblast, and that Russian forces are concentrating on the Pokrovsk and Dobropillya directions to encircle the Fortress Belt — Kostiantynivka, Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk — from the south-west. ISW called the timeline "extremely unrealistic." Its own measurements show Russia lost ground in both areas in June — 3.12 square kilometres near Pokrovsk and 2.23 near Dobropillya — before advancing 45.96 square kilometres near Pokrovsk and 34.67 near Dobropillya in July, a faster rate than June but far short of what a year-end capture of the whole oblast would require, and it judged the seizure of the Fortress Belt or the rest of the Donbas unlikely "any time soon, if at all." The push came wrapped in stagecraft. The Kremlin released audio of Putin questioning the commander of the 76th Guards VDV Division on the Dobropillya axis, who assured him the timelines were realistic and claimed his troops had taken Pokrovsk and several nearby settlements. The voice identified itself as Colonel Shikhabidov — an officer multiple Russian sources say was killed in May 2025, and whom Russian reporting no longer lists as the division's commander — and Putin never used the man's name. ISW read the error as one more sign that Russian units are feeding their president a fictional picture of the war, echoing the July 3 meeting at which commanders and Putin alike declared Kostiantynivka captured while it stayed in Ukrainian hands.

For all the emphasis on the Pokrovsk and Dobropillya axes, the ground barely moved. Across August 6 to 8 ISW recorded no confirmed Russian advances in the Pokrovsk, Dobropillya or Kostiantynivka–Druzhkivka directions, with Ukrainian forces counterattacking in each — holding and pushing out from Osykove north-west of Kostiantynivka, retaking part of Muravka north-east of Novopavlivka, and advancing again north-east of Oleksandrivka around Zirka. North of Sloviansk, where Russia has been trying to cross the Seversky Donets and infiltrate toward Lyman, Ukrainian troops continued to hold western Lyman, Yampil and Zarichne, and Russian milbloggers themselves conceded that a string of settlements south-east of Borova now sit outside the Russian forward edge. DeepState logged Russia's only confirmed capture of the week to August 6 as Sukhetske, a village near Dobropillya, and recorded no Ukrainian gains in the same window — a reminder that a stalled Russian offensive is not the same thing as a Ukrainian advance. Behind the slowdown, Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces commander, Robert "Magyar" Brovdi, reported that the daily rate at which his units were detecting and eliminating Russian troops fell 16.3 percent between July and early August, from 374 to 313 a day, which he attributed to heavy Russian losses in breakthrough attempts and strained Russian logistics in the south.

The gap between what Russia announces and what it holds acquired a first-hand witness. A Ukrainian brigade fighting in the Hulyaipole direction reported on August 8 that it had captured a Russian soldier who had been ordered by his own command to raise a flag over Zirnytsya for a video staging a Russian advance. Russia's defence ministry had announced the settlement's capture on August 5, and geolocated footage that day did show a serviceman raising a flag just east of it — but ISW assesses Ukrainian forces still control Zirnytsya. It was not the only announcement outrunning the evidence: the ministry also claimed the seizure of Ivanivka, north-east of Kharkiv City, and Anyskyne in the Velykyi Burluk direction on August 7 and 8, neither confirmed by geolocated footage. Testimony from a captured participant that flag-raisings are being ordered as propaganda turns a pattern ISW had been inferring across the summer into something a soldier ordered to carry it out has now described.

The Institute for the Study of War calculated that Russian forces advanced in 37.85 square kilometers of territory in July 2026—an average of 1.22 sq km per day. Even including infiltration areas, the total of 121.56 sq km remains a fraction of the 455.74 sq km seized in July 2025. Despite an increase in infiltration missions into Kostiantynivka, ISW assessed these have not resulted in the city's seizure or any operationally significant objectives. Meanwhile, the Kremlin continues to claim advances of 18.49 sq km per day, masking a rate of advance that remains near footpace. The second open-source tracker's July count carries its own internal divergence, and the two figures are recorded here side by side rather than averaged. DeepState reported a net Russian gain of 36 square kilometers as shown on its map for the month; but it added that, after backdating delayed Ukrainian gains — 52 square kilometers removed from the occupation zone across May to July — the true July net Russian gain could be closer to 88 square kilometers. The 36 is what the map showed on the day; the 88 is the same month re-stated once late-confirmed Ukrainian recaptures are booked to when they actually happened. DeepState also stressed that Russia's stated goal of taking all of Donetsk Oblast in 2026 is unrealistic at the present pace.

The Institute for the Study of War assessed that Russia has begun a 2026 battlefield air interdiction (BAI) campaign against Ukraine's Fortress Belt — the chain of Donetsk cities anchored by Slovyansk and Kramatorsk — using glide bombs to sever the logistics that sustain the defence rather than assaulting the cities head-on. Geolocated footage from August 2 showed a rocket-artillery strike heavily damaging the Cherivkovsky Bridge over the Kazennyi Torets River in eastern Slovyansk, a crossing that feeds the H-20 highway to Kramatorsk. ISW reads the effort as a repeat of the interdiction that preceded the 2025 fights for Pokrovsk and Hulyaipole — a shaping operation that took months to set conditions — and judges that Russian forces are nonetheless unlikely to advance quickly to or through Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. In the same window Russian infiltrators near Kostiantynivka began moving north toward Oleksiievo-Druzhkivka, and Russia attempted to infiltrate Lyman, north-east of Slovyansk, though ISW saw no evidence its forces had entered the town.

ISW documented a further run of Russian seizure claims that geolocated evidence does not support, and assessed that Russia's Northern Grouping of Forces and high command are likely misrepresenting gains to the Kremlin in a sector largely stagnant for nearly two years. Russian sources circulated footage of a drone dropping a flag onto a building in Velyka Pysarivka — a building Ukrainian forces then destroyed — as purported proof of capture. The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed to have seized Bilyi Kolodyaz, north-east of Kharkiv, and Ustinivka, north-east of Velykyi Burluk; Ukrainian corps operating in both areas said the settlements remain contested, and ISW confirmed neither. The pattern of staged flag-raisings, some using reportedly AI-altered footage, extends this front's standing thread: on ground that barely moves, the manufacture of the appearance of movement has itself become part of the war.

Russia's pace of advance slowed sharply in the four weeks to August 4. DeepState recorded a net Russian gain of 13 square miles over July 7 to August 4, against 31 square miles the previous four weeks. Russia Matters' analysis of ISW map data put the net gain higher, at 24 square miles, and The Economist estimated 13 square miles over its own 30 days — the three figures differ because each tracker defines and sums control differently, but all point to a decelerating front. As of August 4 the two main trackers still agreed on the total: DeepState counted 45,168 square miles of Ukraine under Russian control and ISW 45,676, roughly 19 and 20 percent of the country including Crimea and the Donbas taken before 2022. Russia Matters cautioned, echoing ISW, that comparisons across periods are complicated because infiltration areas are held far more weakly than seized ground, which flatters raw gain figures.

Ukrainian forces have run a series of successful tactical counterattacks in the Oleksandrivka direction, south-west of Novopavlivka, since mid-July. Citing Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets, ISW reported on August 3 that Ukrainian forces had liberated Myrne and Rybne, seized Voskresenka and Novohryhorivka, and reached the Mokri Yaly River near Filiya, forcing Russian infiltration groups to withdraw. ISW's August 5 assessment carried the movement forward, recording confirmed Ukrainian advances in the Kostiantynivka–Druzhkivka tactical area and in the Slovyansk and Oleksandrivka directions on August 4 and 5, while finding no evidence for the Russian-claimed attacks in the Kupyansk direction. The gains are village-scale and do not reverse the overall balance — the front remains net-positive for Russia — but they are the most substantial Ukrainian forward movement of the cycle, and they land just as the pace of Russian advance is itself slowing.

Ukrainian forces made confirmed advances in western Zaporizhia Oblast, with geolocated footage from July 29 confirming new positions southeast of Novoandriivka (west of Orikhiv). Concurrently in Donetsk Oblast, Al Jazeera reported that Russian forces were 'effectively cutting off' Kostiantynivka, the southernmost of Ukraine's four fortress cities, though ISW maintained on August 1 that Russia had not yet seized the city.

The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces suffered 42,860 casualties in July 2026, marking a new monthly high for the war. Measured against the 37.85 sq km seized in the same period, this equates to an unprecedented 1,132 casualties per square kilometer captured. This underscores the increasing human cost of Russia's optimization for positional warfare.

The Institute for the Study of War restated its control assessment for Kostyantynivka on July 22, and the revision ran against the direction Russian commanders have claimed. Working from geolocated footage published July 11–21 — some of it filmed as early as July 7 — ISW assesses that control of the city remains contested: Russian forces are infiltrating the northwest, centre, east and southwest, but Ukrainian forces still hold positions in the northwest, northeast and centre, and exercise more control of the southern industrial area than ISW had previously assessed. ISW states this indicates Russian forces still do not control all of Kostyantynivka, as senior Russian commanders have recently claimed. Corroborating geolocations point the same way: footage published July 18 places Ukrainian forces in Molocharka northeast of the city, footage published July 19–20 shows Ukrainian forces striking Russian positions in western Illinivka and central Dovha Balka after likely infiltration missions, and footage published July 22 shows Russian forces striking Ukrainian positions in northern Lyman — a Russian strike on a position being itself evidence that the position is Ukrainian-held. The clarification closes an open question carried in this sub-topic since the mid-June capture claims: infiltration is not control, and by ISW's definition Kostyantynivka has not changed hands. Three days later the picture had not moved in Russia's favour. In its July 26 assessment ISW wrote that "Russian forces continue infiltration missions in Kostyantynivka while Ukrainian forces maintain positions within the city", and geolocated footage published July 23 to 25 shows Ukrainian forces striking Russian positions in the north-west, centre, south and west of the city and north of Illinivka — strikes ISW reads as following infiltration, not a change of control. A second and methodologically independent tracker now says the same thing: DeepState assessed that Russian forces failed to expand permanent control in the urban area over the past week, holding the southern and eastern outskirts while the neighbourhoods themselves remain mostly grey zone and the northern part of the city stays under Ukrainian control. Neither the July 24, 25 nor 26 assessment records any Russian claim of having captured the city.

Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets reported on 22 July that Russian forces had reached the Rodynske–Novooleksandrivka line south of Dobropillya, likely seizing Novooleksandrivka, with elements of the 2nd, 41st and 51st Combined Arms Armies pushing toward the town — including three separate rifle regiments ISW had never before observed in the field. The aim, he assessed, was to take Dobropillya quickly and open a path to Druzhkivka and the Fortress Belt. ISW relayed the account as likely rather than geolocated, so no map polygon moved on it. The axis did not open: ISW recorded no confirmed Russian advance there on 23, 24, 25 or 26 July, and by 29 July a Kremlin-affiliated blogger was reporting Ukrainian counterattacks near Svitle and Vodyanske.

For four consecutive daily assessments — July 24, 25, 26 and 27 — the Institute for the Study of War concluded that neither side made a confirmed advance anywhere on the front. The phrasing is near-identical each day ("Neither Ukrainian nor Russian forces made confirmed advances on July 24"; "Neither Russian nor Ukrainian forces made confirmed advances on July 27"), and it is ISW's strictest standard: confirmation requires geolocated evidence. The independent OSINT project DeepState puts a number on the same stall. It assessed Russian-controlled area growing by 9.76 square kilometres over the past week — about 1.4 sq km a day, against 2–3 sq km a day in June and early July, 4–5 in March, and 8–14 a day in the final months of 2025. Across the four Donetsk sectors where Russia has concentrated its effort — Dobropillia, Kostiantynivka, Kramatorsk and Slovyansk — DeepState recorded 6.92 sq km taken, down from 17.33 the week before, a slowdown of more than half. Movement ran the other way too, though modestly: near Filia on the Donetsk–Dnipropetrovsk border, 6.69 sq km dropped out of the occupation zone into DeepState's contested "grey zone", and Ukrainian forces cleared a further 5.42 sq km between Filia and Ivanivka into permanent control. DeepState is explicit that this was not enough to reduce the overall occupied area: the week was still net-positive for Russia, only barely. The run ended on the fifth day, July 28, when ISW assessed from geolocated footage that Russian forces had advanced in western Kostiantynivka.

Ukraine's holding of Russian ground — the last remnant of the Kursk incursion of August 2024 — has shrunk to two square miles. Russia Matters, compiling ISW's map data, reports that over the four weeks to July 28 Ukraine lost two square miles in Russia's Kursk and Belgorod oblasts, "it's first loss of Russian territory since Sept. 9, 2025", leaving Ukraine in control of two square miles of Russian territory as of that date. At its widest, in the late summer of 2024, the salient ran to roughly 250 square kilometres — about 97 square miles — and Russia retook Sudzha, its largest town, in March 2025. Two caveats travel with the figure. The arithmetic is self-referential: losing two square miles and being left with two implies a holding of four on June 30, which the compiler never states, and at this scale the numbers sit inside the resolution of any map-polygon measurement. The dated and checkable part is the date itself — the first loss of Russian territory in more than ten months — and no second publication carries it. ISW's own account of Ukrainian operations inside Russia across July 28 and 29 describes long-range strikes on refineries at Ryazan and Perm and nothing on the ground at all.

After four days in which ISW recorded no confirmed advance by either side anywhere on the front, geolocated footage put Russian forces forward in western Kostiantynivka on 28 July. ISW's assessment that day: the situation in the city is deteriorating, Russian forces have not seized it despite their claims, and fighting will likely continue for several weeks as they try to consolidate what infiltration has gained. It named the mechanism — glide bombs enabling infantry advances — and the four cities taken the same way: Avdiivka, Vuhledar, Kurakhove, Toretsk. DeepState put the stake more sharply: if Novodmytrivka falls, the Ukrainian grouping defending Chasiv Yar faces encirclement. Ukrainian soldiers told Hromadske the rear was not at risk for several more weeks, while conceding Molocharka was essentially lost.

Between July 27 and 29 Russian sources claimed at least eight settlements that ISW did not confirm, and in several cases ISW published the distance between the claim and the nearest evidence for it. The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed Torske, south-west of Druzhkivka; ISW noted it lies roughly three kilometres beyond the furthest extent of Russian infiltrations in the area. It claimed Khrystoforivka, south-west of Oleksandrivka, roughly eight kilometres out, a claim accompanied by likely AI-altered footage purporting to show the 36th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade raising flags there. Also claimed and unconfirmed: Krasnyi Kut south-west of Druzhkivka, Ozerne north-east of Sloviansk, and Odradne east of Velykyi Burluk. Twice the correction came from geolocation rather than distance. The Russian Southern Grouping of Forces said its 1008th Motorized Rifle Regiment was operating inside Druzhkivka; ISW's geolocation of the accompanying footage placed the infiltrators on the southern outskirts of Oleksiievo-Druzhkivka instead, in positions it assesses are "likely limited and not consolidated at this time." And on Lyman the ministry claimed on both July 27 and July 28 to have pushed the main Ukrainian grouping out and to be clearing and consolidating the town, with the commander of the Russian 37th Motorized Rifle Regiment saying on July 29 that his unit was clearing it against little resistance. ISW's reading: "most available evidence suggests that Ukrainian forces control the vast majority, if not all, of Lyman." The sharpest refutations this window were Russian. When the ministry claimed Nova Sich, north-east of Sumy City, on July 29, a source reporting on the Russian Northern Grouping of Forces said the same day that Russian forces control neither Nova Sich nor Ivolzhanske, Korchakivka or Mala Korchakivka. And a Russian milblogger described the mechanism from inside: commanders have repeatedly sent assault units forward on the assumption that their soldiers were close to Ukrainian positions when they were in fact still as much as four kilometres away.

Over the same three days in which ISW recorded no confirmed advance by either side, Russian sources publicly claimed to have taken at least five settlements. The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed Shevchenko, northwest of Pokrovsk, on July 26, and Zakharivka and Ivashkyne in the Kharkiv direction on July 24; Russian milbloggers claimed Bilytske, northeast of Pokrovsk, and advances southwest of Osykove, at Kivsharivka near Kupyansk, northeast of Borova and into eastern Dolynka. ISW confirmed none of them, and in each case recorded in the same section that Russian forces had not advanced there. The Bilytske claim is the one ISW went out of its way to address: the milbloggers made it, ISW wrote, "after Russian sources posted likely artificial intelligence (AI) altered footage purporting to show Russian forces operating in the settlement." The ledger is not one-sided. The only claimed movement in the Ukrainian direction — the military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets reporting advances south of Maliivka and Zlahoda, toward Zaporizke and Uspenivka, and toward the Hulyaipole–Velyka Novosilka road on the Oleksandrivka axis — is equally unconfirmed, and falls under the same July 25 finding of no confirmed advances by either side.

Russian forces complete the capture of the strategic port city of Mariupol after a brutal months-long siege, securing a vital land bridge between mainland Russia and the Crimean Peninsula.

After nearly a year of intense and bloody urban combat, Russian forces, spearheaded by the Wagner mercenary group, claim full control of the eastern city of Bakhmut. The battle becomes one of the deadliest of the war.

Russia launches a surprise offensive across the international border into the Kharkiv region, targeting towns like Vovchansk. The move opens a new front and forces Ukraine to divert critical reserves from the Donbas.

As the full-scale invasion enters its fourth year, the frontline remains largely static. Russia continues a strategy of grueling attrition, making incremental but costly gains in the Donbas region while Ukraine focuses on defensive operations and long-range strikes.

Russian forces successfully regain control over the border town of Sudzha in the Kursk region following prolonged counter-offensives against Ukrainian salient positions.

Ukraine completes construction of a 100km deep defense line stretching from the Kyiv Reservoir to Sumy, marking a significant strategic shift toward long-term fortification.

Ukrainian Defense Forces liberate six settlements in the Dnipropetrovsk region, reclaiming 126 square kilometers of territory in localized counter-attacks.

Nine European nations back the development of 'Freyja', a continent-wide anti-ballistic missile shield designed as an alternative to the Patriot system, aiming for deployment within a year to protect Ukraine and Eastern Europe.

Recent troop deployments highlight Russia's continued grinding offensive towards Pokrovsk (Central Grouping) and a stalled front near Vovchansk (Northern Grouping). Ukrainian forces are concentrating on defending these established lines while prioritizing the replenishment of exhausted frontline units over building strategic reserves.

Ukraine successfully tests the FP-9 domestic ballistic missile, significantly enhancing its sovereign deep-strike capabilities against Russian rear operational hubs.

Russia maintains control over approximately 19-20% of Ukrainian territory. However, Russian ground offensives, particularly in the Pokrovsk sector, have largely stalled, advancing only tens of meters per day. Russia faces a domestic fuel crisis due to systematic Ukrainian strikes on oil refineries.

NATO confirmed for the first time that North Korean troops had been deployed to Russia and were operating in the Kursk region, marking a significant internationalization of the war. The US estimated roughly 10,000 DPRK soldiers, who had begun arriving around October 25; North Korea officially acknowledged the deployment only in April 2025.

Ukrainian forces launched a surprise cross-border incursion into Russia's Kursk Oblast — the first large-scale seizure of sovereign Russian territory since World War II — quickly taking the town of Sudzha and prompting a regional state of emergency and mass evacuations. Ukraine later claimed control of roughly 250 square kilometers before Russia retook most of the salient by March 2025.

After months of intense fighting, Ukrainian forces withdraw from the eastern city of Avdiivka to avoid encirclement, marking Russia's most significant territorial gain in months.

The frontlines largely freeze, with both sides engaging in a war of attrition. International analysts assess that the conflict has reached a stalemate phase.

Ukraine launches its highly anticipated summer counteroffensive, aiming to breach Russian defensive lines in the south and east. Progress is slower than expected due to dense minefields and fortified positions.

The Russian-occupied Kakhovka Dam on the Dnipro River was breached and destroyed, unleashing catastrophic downstream flooding toward Kherson, forcing mass evacuations on both banks and causing severe environmental damage that reshaped the lower-Dnipro frontline. Ukraine and NATO accused Russia of deliberately destroying the dam, which was under Russian control; Russia blamed Ukrainian shelling. Neither account was independently verified at the time.

Russian forces withdraw from the city of Kherson, the only regional capital they had captured since the February invasion. Ukrainian troops enter the city to jubilation from residents.

A large explosion struck the Kerch Strait (Crimean) Bridge — Russia's principal road-and-rail link to occupied Crimea — collapsing part of the roadway and killing three people. Ukraine's SBU publicly claimed responsibility only in July 2023. The strike forced Russia to reroute logistics and previewed a sustained campaign against the Crimea land bridge.

President Putin signed treaties declaring the annexation of four occupied Ukrainian regions — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — following staged referendums that Kyiv and Western governments condemned as illegitimate. Russia did not fully control any of the four regions, and their borders were left deliberately vague. Final constitutional laws followed on October 5.

Ukrainian forces launch a surprise counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region, rapidly recapturing thousands of square kilometers of territory and forcing Russian troops into a chaotic retreat.

The Russian guided-missile cruiser Moskva, flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, sank on April 14, 2022 after being struck by Ukrainian Neptune anti-ship missiles — the largest warship sunk in combat since World War II and a symbolic blow to Russian naval dominance in the Black Sea. Russia attributed the loss to a fire and ammunition detonation.

After failing to capture Kyiv, Russian forces withdraw from the region to refocus their offensive in the east and south of Ukraine. Evidence of atrocities in towns like Bucha emerges.

Russia launches a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, advancing on multiple fronts including towards the capital, Kyiv. President Putin announces a 'special military operation'.