Wholestory

Ukrainian forces cleared a forested area up to the western outskirts of Dvorichna and northeast of Zapadne, north of Kupiansk, geolocated on 2 September; the 2nd Khartiya Corps put its own tally at a further four square kilometres, 13.5 since 30 August. Inside the city it is harder. Russian troops have infiltrated northern Kupiansk on the right bank of the Oskil, working in through Holubivka, while on the left bank they press toward the Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi rail station to narrow Ukraine's bridgehead — moving through disused underground pipelines to stay off drone cameras, traffic Ukrainian strikes on that pipeline are now constraining. No Russian advance was confirmed through 6 September.

The Institute for the Study of War turned Russia's own rate of advance into a date. Russian forces gained 2.91 square kilometres a day across the theatre in August, and 2.36 a day in Donetsk Oblast, their priority. At that pace they would finish seizing the remaining 19 percent of the oblast on 2 October 2032 — more than a year after the Duma elections expected in September 2031. ISW would not commit even to that, saying it is not prepared to assess that Russian forces can take the rest of Donetsk on any timeline, with the Fortress Belt's urban fights still ahead and the rate slowing since 2025, so long as Western support holds near current levels. Russia has fought for Kostiantynivka for 11 months without taking it, and made no confirmed advance on Slovyansk between 2 and 6 September despite intensifying its assaults. On 5 September neither army advanced anywhere.

ISW assessed that Russia's separate pushes at Orikhiv and Hulyaipole are meant to become one — a joined drive on Zaporizhzhia City that would bypass Ukraine's south-facing defences. Around Hulyaipole the advance is real but slow: Russian forces have moved seven to eight kilometres, and as far as eleven, north and west of the town since the spring, taking Myrne and Luhivske, reaching the southeastern edge of Vozdvyzhivka and coming within 1.5 kilometres of Hulyaipilske, according to Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets. Not all of it has held. Geolocated footage published on 5 September puts Ukrainian forces in control of Lisne, Rivne, Dolynka and Kopani, ground Russia had advanced into or claimed. And the northward drive along the Haichur River is widening the front and thinning the force meant for Orikhiv, with one Russian division pulled away to meet Ukrainian counterattacks in its rear.

The Institute for the Study of War's monthly accounting for August recorded Ukrainian forces liberating more ground than Russia seized. Russian forces took about 90.35 square kilometres across the theatre — 2.91 a day, or 123.53 including infiltration — while Ukrainian counteroffensives in the Lyman and Oleksandrivka directions liberated at least 129.81 square kilometres, a figure ISW calls conservative because its method understates the still-unfolding Lyman advance. Russia's seizures were a fraction of the 505.55 square kilometres it took in August 2025, and cost more: Ukraine's General Staff reported 42,020 Russian casualties, a second straight month above 40,000, which ISW works out to 465 per square kilometre seized. Almost all Russia's gains were in the Fortress Belt, where it holds positions across 72 percent of Kostiantynivka but has still not taken the city, ten months into the attempt.

Russia moved its attack on Slovyansk into a new phase. The head of the city's military administration, Vadym Lyakh, said on 1 September that Russian forces are now seven to ten kilometres away and within artillery range, shelling the city with tube guns rather than only rockets, and ISW recorded the 123rd Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade redeploying from Siversk to reinforce the push. Before any direct assault, ISW and Ukrainian analysts say Russia must first take the fortified buffer villages of Rai-Oleksandrivka and Mykolaivka. Observer Kostyantyn Mashovets judges Russian forces could reach the immediate approaches of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk by the autumn, while doubting they can seize either city, or close an encirclement, before the year ends.

The intensified Russian push toward Lyman that was building in late August has instead run into a Ukrainian counteroffensive. Across 28 August to 2 September Ukrainian forces cleared Russian infiltrators from a string of villages northwest of Lyman — Novoselivka, Yarova, Pryshyb, Tetyanivka, Oleksandrivka and Svyatohirsk — advanced in northern Novoselivka, liberated strongholds near Katerynivka and Stavky, and worked to cut off the Russian salient jutting northwest of the town. Russian sources themselves conceded that Ukrainian forces hold central Lyman and that Russia has no significant presence there, and that its claims to nearby Ozerne and Dibrova, announced captured months ago, do not match the ground. East of Slovyansk, Ukrainian troops captured Russian soldiers while clearing Mykolaivka. ISW says its 129.81-square-kilometre figure for August understates these gains, whose full extent is still unclear; the Serebrianskyi forest's minefields are slowing the Russians further.

Geolocated footage published on 29 August shows Ukrainian forces advancing in Dorozhnye, southeast of Dobropillya, and footage from 28 and 29 August shows them holding or gaining ground west and south of Novyi Donbas against Russian claims to the contrary. It is the second consecutive assessment putting Ukraine forward on the axis Russia had designated for the southern arm of its Fortress Belt encirclement. Russia's defence ministry claimed Novoandriivka, northeast of Dobropillya, the same day. Neither side reported ground activity at Pokrovsk.

A Ukrainian brigade spokesman on the Sloviansk axis said Russian forces are accumulating personnel and equipment for an intensified push in the Lyman direction, and that foreign recruits — mainly from Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia — have risen to roughly 30 percent of Russian personnel there, poorly trained. Russian strikes are concentrating on Ukrainian logistics and the Oskil and Siverskyi Donets crossings, which ISW reads as shaping. Two days earlier Russian effort east of Sloviansk had shifted onto Mykolaivka and Raihorodok, the settlements ISW names as prerequisites for a ground assault.

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 — August 16 and 17 — the Institute for the Study of War could not confirm a single advance by either army anywhere on the 1,200-kilometre front, with Russian attacks failing across a dozen directions from Sumy to western Zaporizhzhia and no ground activity at all in Kherson for four days running. Six geolocated exceptions marked the edges of the freeze, and five ran Ukraine's way: Russia's one confirmed gain came near Vozdvyzhivka on August 14, when a repelled mechanised assault led ISW to assess it had likely taken Olenokostyantynivka and Zelene north-west of Hulyaipole, while Ukrainian troops cleared Russian infiltrators from western Kostiantynivka on August 15 and the town's eastern side on August 17. ISW added a rare caveat against itself — footage suggests Russia has consolidated in Kostiantynivka's south-east beyond its own maps. Behind the stillness both sides worked: Russia kept shaping the Fortress Belt, striking bridges over the Kazennyi Torets, the Novokramatorsk plant and Dobropillya drone stations, and reinforced the Lyman axis with the 673rd Separate Anti-Aircraft Missile Battalion, seen for the first time in the war; Ukraine's August 12 southern counteroffensive continued around Sichneve and toward Komar.

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 7 August assessment the Institute for the Study of War reported that Vladimir Putin has set 31 December 2026 as the deadline to seize the rest of Donetsk Oblast, with Russian forces concentrating on the Pokrovsk and Dobropillya directions to encircle the Fortress Belt from the southwest. ISW called the timeline "extremely unrealistic": Russia lost ground in both areas in June — 3.12 square kilometres near Pokrovsk, 2.23 near Dobropillya — then advanced 45.96 and 34.67 in July, faster, but far short of what a year-end capture would need. The push came wrapped in stagecraft. The Kremlin released audio of Putin questioning a Dobropillya-axis commander who assured him the timelines were realistic and claimed Pokrovsk taken. The voice identified itself as Colonel Shikhabidov — an officer multiple Russian sources say was killed in May 2025 — and Putin never used his name. ISW read it as one more sign that Russian units are feeding their president a fictional picture of the war.

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 kilometres in July 2026, an average of 1.22 a day. Even including infiltration areas, the 121.56 total is a fraction of the 455.74 seized in July 2025. More infiltration into Kostiantynivka has not produced the city's seizure or any operationally significant objective, ISW assessed, while the Kremlin continued to claim 18.49 square kilometres a day. The second tracker's July count carries its own internal divergence, recorded side by side rather than averaged: DeepState reported a net Russian gain of 36 square kilometres as its map showed on the day, then added that once 52 square kilometres of late-confirmed Ukrainian recaptures across May to July are booked to when they happened, the July net could be closer to 88. DeepState also called Russia's goal of taking all of Donetsk Oblast in 2026 unrealistic at that 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 22 July, against the direction Russian commanders had claimed. From geolocated footage published 11-21 July, ISW assesses control of the city is still contested: Russian forces infiltrating the northwest, centre, east and southwest, Ukrainian forces holding positions in the northwest, northeast and centre and more of the southern industrial area than ISW previously judged. Its point is definitional — infiltration is not control, so the city has not changed hands. By 26 July nothing had moved Russia's way, and DeepState, counting differently, agreed: Russia held the southern and eastern outskirts while the neighbourhoods stayed mostly grey zone and the north stayed Ukrainian. No Russian claim of capture appears in the 24, 25 or 26 July assessments.

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 — 24, 25, 26 and 27 July — the Institute for the Study of War concluded that neither side made a confirmed advance anywhere on the front. That is ISW's strictest standard: confirmation requires geolocated evidence. DeepState put a number on the same stall, assessing Russian-controlled area growing 9.76 square kilometres over the week, about 1.4 a day, against 2-3 a day in June and early July, 4-5 in March and 8-14 a day in late 2025. Across the four Donetsk sectors Russia has concentrated on, it recorded 6.92 square kilometres taken, down from 17.33 the week before. Ground moved the other way too: near Filia, 6.69 square kilometres fell out of the occupation zone into DeepState's grey zone and Ukrainian forces cleared 5.42 more into permanent control — not enough, DeepState stressed, to reduce the occupied area overall. The run ended on 28 July, when ISW geolocated a Russian advance 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." At its widest, in late summer 2024, the salient ran to roughly 250 square kilometres — about 97 square miles — before Russia retook its largest town, Sudzha, in March 2025. Two caveats travel with the figure. The arithmetic is self-referential — losing two and being left with two implies a June 30 holding of four, which the compiler never states — and at this scale the numbers sit inside the resolution of any map measurement. The checkable part is the date: the first loss of Russian-held territory in more than ten months. ISW's own account of Ukrainian operations inside Russia across July 28–29 describes long-range strikes on refineries at Ryazan and Perm and nothing on the ground.

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 ISW did not confirm, and in several cases ISW published the distance between claim and evidence. The Ministry of Defense claimed Torske, roughly three kilometres beyond the furthest Russian infiltration, and Khrystoforivka, about eight kilometres out, with likely AI-altered footage of the 36th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade raising flags. Also claimed and unconfirmed: Krasnyi Kut, Ozerne and Odradne. Twice the correction came from geolocation: the Southern Grouping said its 1008th Motorized Rifle Regiment was inside Druzhkivka, but ISW placed the footage on the southern outskirts of Oleksiievo-Druzhkivka in positions "likely limited and not consolidated"; and on Lyman, where the ministry claimed on July 27–28 to have cleared the town, ISW judged "most available evidence suggests that Ukrainian forces control the vast majority, if not all, of Lyman." The sharpest refutations were Russian: a source on the Northern Grouping denied the claimed capture of Nova Sich, and a milblogger described commanders repeatedly sending assault units forward believing they were close to Ukrainian positions when they were 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'.