Russia is still unable to break into Sloviansk and the fortified towns shielding it, months into an offensive to seize the rest of eastern Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) found. Its troops keep leaning on guided bombs and small groups of infiltrating infantry, while Ukrainian forces counterattack and hunt the drone crews harassing their supply lines. In the latest fighting the attacker moved and the front did not.

Russia's drive on Sloviansk holds nothing new

Russian forces kept up offensive operations toward Sloviansk on 1 and 2 August without a confirmed advance, as Ukrainian units counterattacked, ISW says. A Russian milblogger claimed Ukrainian troops hit back near Rai-Oleksandrivka, just east of the city. Russia's TASS state news agency claimed its forces had taken and were clearing Lyman to the north, but the assessment confirmed no such capture.

The northern approach is not new. Lyman is the gateway to the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk area, and its defense has repeatedly blunted the claw Russia needs to close around the two cities. The current push is part of a Fortress Belt offensive that opened in spring and has crawled forward at heavy cost since.

Russia is using guided bombs to shape Sloviansk before its infantry moves. Vadym Lyakh, head of the city's military administration, reported a FAB-250 glide-bomb strike on the morning of 2 August. The strike fit a long-running pattern: level the buildings from the air to open a path the ground troops have not been able to take.

Kostiantynivka holds as infantry infiltrates on foot

To the south, Russian forces attacked around Kostiantynivka on both days without a confirmed gain, ISW noted. Ukraine's General Staff logged continued fighting, and Russian bloggers claimed only small local moves to the north.

The tactic is the same one Russia has run for weeks. A Ukrainian special-forces officer reported that small groups hide in basements and ruins, waiting for reinforcements, and a Ukrainian non-commissioned officer reported that troops use dense summer foliage to conceal the approach. It echoes the assault Russia has pressed into the city for weeks, flattening it and pushing men in on foot.

Ukrainian forces are striking Russian drone control points in the near rear south of Kostiantynivka, likely in part to protect their supply roads. Ukraine's General Staff reported a strike on one such point near Berestok on 1 August. The drones reach deep: Ukrainian troops described Molniya drones flying up to 20 kilometers and aircraft-type drones up to 40 kilometers, complicating nighttime resupply through Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

"Neither Ukrainian nor Russian forces made confirmed advances on August 2," ISW wrote regarding the situation all across the front.

Russian forces on the Pokrovsk axis in eastern Ukraine are preparing to intensify their assaults toward the town of Dobropillia, Ukraine's National Guard 4th Rubizh Brigade reported. The brigade says the enemy keeps trying to break through the defense but fails to reach its goals, with Russian troops destroyed on the approaches and armored equipment lost during this week’s mechanized assault. This week Ukrainian forces broke up a large mechanized attack in the sector.

For years, Russia has continued feeding assault groups into Ukrainian fire despite marginal gains, and Ukraine's drones and defenses keep converting those attacks into losses rather than ground.

Russia readies its next push toward Dobropillia

In the brigade's area of responsibility, Russian troops are getting ready to intensify offensive operations, the report says. They are running aerial reconnaissance and trying to clear mines from routes to move assault groups forward. Those groups lean on quad bikes—four-wheeled all-terrain vehicles—and motorcycles. This kind of transport will likely become one of the main ways the enemy tries to break the defense, the brigade said.

Russia has spent this stretch of the war trying to break out toward Dobropillia, a gateway to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk in the free northern Donbas. Its main aim on this axis remains reaching the town, which sits north of the ruins of Pokrovsk.

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Russia bet 50 vehicles that the drones would miss. The drones did not miss.

Assault groups keep dying at the approaches

Despite constant assault actions, the enemy cannot achieve its goals, the brigade said. Rubizh forces detect Russian troops and destroy them on the approaches to Ukrainian positions. Russia concentrates its effort here but cannot realize its intentions.

To slip past Ukrainian drones, Russia has largely traded massed armored assaults for small groups on bikes and on foot, though most are killed before reaching Ukrainian lines. Ukrainian drones have also hit a Russian vehicle column elsewhere in Donetsk Oblast, striking more than 50 vehicles near Malynivka.

A mechanized assault broken up this week

This week, the brigade's soldiers joined a fight against a large mechanized Russian attack. The 1st Azov Corps of the National Guard and adjacent units broke it up, the brigade said on Facebook. In the fighting, Rubizh troops destroyed one armored combat vehicle and an MTU-72 bridge-layer—a tank chassis built to drop bridges across obstacles for advancing forces. They also helped strike other Russian equipment.

Ukraine's military logged 258 combat clashes along the front over the past day, with the largest number of engagements on the Pokrovsk axis.