Russian forces have widened their foothold at Hraniv on the border north of Kharkiv, a Ukrainian military spokesman said. Viktor Trehubov of the Joint Forces Grouping said they spread sideways rather than deeper toward the nearby town of Kozacha Lopan.

Russia's main offensive grinds on in Donetsk Oblast, but it keeps pressing along the northern border too. Brigadier General Denys Prokopenko warned in September that Russia wants buffer zones in Sumy and Chernihiv oblasts, a push meant to keep Ukrainian reserves there instead of in the east. Such pushes gain little: in Sumy Oblast, the Russian advance reached about 3–4 km deep, more than 35 km short of the city.

The wedge grew at its flanks

Trehubov described the Hraniv gain as a separate wedge toward Kozacha Lopan, right by the border. "But they managed to widen it," he said on Suspilne Studio on 31 October. He said Russian troops did not deepen the wedge or move further into Kozacha Lopan, and called the widening "a certain problem."

The Ukrainian volunteer monitoring project DeepState marked a Russian advance near Hraniv on 30 October. On its map, the Russian-held area around the village grew from about 2 to 11 square kilometers, according to EP's calculation based on DeepState's data. The gray zone around it, where control is unclear, more than doubled to some 19 square kilometers. The new ground runs southeast of Hraniv along the border, in line with Trehubov's account of a wider, not deeper, wedge.

The wedge dates back to late June, when a spokesman for Ukraine's 14th Army Corps, Colonel Vitalii Sarantsev, said Russian troops had crossed the border near Hraniv and were trying to storm Kozacha Lopan. He said Russia was trying to open new wedges along the Sumy and Kharkiv borders to tie down Ukrainian forces and widen a so-called controlled zone. On 1 July, the 425th Skelia Assault Regiment said it had pushed Russian troops out of Kozacha Lopan, 2 km from the border, and cleared Hraniv. Ukraine's General Staff reported 13 Russian attacks northeast of Kharkiv over the past day, none of them listed near Hraniv.

The northern pushes have been on Ukraine's radar for months. Buffer zones in Kharkiv, Sumy, and Chernihiv oblasts remain on Russia's list, Pavlo Palisa, deputy head of the Presidential Office, said in April, though he saw no Russian forces to carry them out. Military analyst Yevhen Dykyi described the aim as a zone of constant tension along the border, like the one in parts of Chernihiv and Sumy oblasts, which forces Ukraine to spread its forces more thinly.

Other movements along the front

In Donetsk Oblast, DeepState mapped a Russian advance near Mykolaivka, just west of Chasiv Yar, on 31 October, turning a patch of its gray zone there red. Just after midnight on 29 October, it marked Russian gains near Maiske, northwest of Chasiv Yar.

Ukrainian forces advanced northeast of Borova in Kharkiv Oblast, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported on 31 October, citing geolocated footage. DeepState has not mapped that change. Russian milbloggers claimed gains in and around Kupiansk, but ISW could not confirm them.

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Near Kupiansk, Trehubov said Ukrainian troops cleared a gas pipeline under the Oskil River that Russian infiltration groups had used to reach the city.

Losses force a Russian rotation near Huliaipole

Near Huliaipole, Ukrainian forces killed and wounded about 900 Russian troops last week, the 7th Corps of Ukraine's Air Assault Forces said. That is almost 150 more than the week before and the highest count in two months, the corps added. It said that, according to available information, Russia's 5th Combined Arms Army is replacing its 57th Motorized Rifle Brigade with the 60th while the 57th refills its ranks.

The corps also said Russia sends recruited mercenaries from Africa and Asia into assaults there. Ukrainian troops captured a citizen of Indonesia fighting in Russia's 39th Motorized Rifle Brigade, it added.

Since 21 October, DeepState's updates have added about 40 square kilometers to the Russian-held area on its map, by EP's count. Besides Hraniv and Chasiv Yar, it mapped Russian advances near Dobropillia, east of Sloviansk, near Kostiantynivka, and near Huliaipole and Orikhiv in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Still, Ukraine has liberated more land than Russia captured since the start of fall, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in October.