Today, there is important news from the Pokrovsk direction in Donetsk Oblast.

Here, Russia’s offensive around Pokrovsk has finally collapsed into disorganized, scattered assaults, exposing the total breakdown of its campaign. Seizing the moment, Ukrainian forces struck back with momentum, liberating another key town and turning the tide of the battle.

Russia’s flanks crumble near Pokrovsk

The fighting around Pokrovsk has entered a new phase, where the intensity of Russian assaults on the flanks has clearly declined and their once grand offensive has fractured into scattered, uncoordinated attacks. What remains is little more than small groups probing Ukrainian defenses, seemingly just to avoid a complete halt that would openly expose the failure of the Russian campaign.

On the western flank near Udachne, Russian efforts have been reduced to chaotic infiltration attempts without any combined arms support. On the eastern flank near Myrnohrad, the story is much the same, with piecemeal assaults ending in abandonment of vehicles and panicked retreats under Ukrainian fire. The larger picture is unmistakable, as the Russian encirclement attempts around Pokrovsk have fallen apart.

Ukraine has seized the opportunity to strike back, and near Udachne, the lack of Russian coordination was turned against them. Ukrainian forces launched a deliberate push, clearing the settlement and raising the national flag over its center. What had been temporarily filled with scattered Russian infiltrators was retaken swiftly, with videos showing Ukrainian units inside the village. The half-hearted Russian attempts to regain ground have been nothing short of disastrous. Assaults sent down predictable roads ended with fields littered with bodies, creating roads of death that Ukrainians control tightly with drones and artillery.

A similar pattern unfolded near Myrnohrad on the eastern flank, where the Ukrainians knocked out a handful of Russian armored assaults, before moving in to finish off the remnants.

Footage from near Hrodivka shows Russian soldiers abandoning positions and fleeing under pressure from Ukrainian marines in hot pursuit, confirming that momentum has swung decisively on this flank as well.

Pipeline infiltration ends in failure

It is in this environment of failure that the Russian command has once again turned to bizarre symbolic operations to save face. The answer, incredibly, was to repeat one of their infamous pipe operations, stuffing troops into sewer systems in the hope of infiltrating Pokrovsk and producing some footage of progress.

The Russians have repeatedly tried these tactics in several sectors already, with varying degrees of success and failure. Now, the repetition has played out the same way, with Russian soldiers crawling through the filth only to be eliminated.

After the Russians released a video in which they allegedly try to break into Pokrovsk through the sewer, a Ukrainian officer said they were aware but were not worried. The Ukrainian defenders employed specialist who previously worked on the local pipe network, who stated that advancing through sewer pipes toward Pokrovsk is impossible due to their condition and construction, as they either lack the necessary diameter for a person to pass through or are filled with waste.

Offensive ends with high losses

Obviously, the Russian commanders were lacking this information when they sent their troops inside, and besides the initial footage at the very beginning where the pipes were still wide enough to crawl through, the most likely outcome was suffocation in the pipes at a later stage of the operation with them unable to turn around and withdraw.

Despite being a valid attempt to try to surprise the Ukrainian defense from behind, this effort proved entirely meaningless, and it is very unlikely to have succeeded because of the Ukrainian high alertness due to all recent infiltration attempts in and around Pokrovsk.

Overall, Russia committed significant resources and manpower to the Pokrovsk axis, throwing battalion after battalion against Ukrainian defenses. Yet every thrust on the western, eastern, and northern flanks has collapsed, leaving nothing but wrecked vehicles and soaring casualty lists. To distract from this, commanders have resorted to sewer infiltrations and other theatrics that fail to alter the battlefield balance.

With autumn rains fast approaching, Russia’s much-hyped summer offensive has ended without achieving its main goal of capturing Pokrovsk. Instead, Ukrainian countermeasures have not only preserved the town but have rolled back enemy gains, and Russian bodies littering the fields and underground sewer lines.

In our regular frontline report, we pair up with the military blogger Reporting from Ukraine to keep you informed about what is happening on the battlefield in the Russo-Ukrainian war.

Russian troops are falling back in Sumy Oblast in northern Ukraine.

That’s not surprising. The Kremlin has pulled no fewer than five marine and airborne brigades, regiments and divisions from Sumy and redirected them south to Donetsk Oblast, where a pair of Russian field armies are struggling to hold back a Ukrainian counterattack.

Both sides in Russia’s 43-month wider war on Ukraine have shifted troops from Sumy to Donetsk as the battle for the fortress city of Pokrovsk intensifies. But it’s evident the Russians have weakened their forces in Sumy more than the Ukrainians have.

In recent days, Ukrainian troops have ejected the Russians from the area around the villages of Kostiantynivka and Novokostiantynivka in Sumy just a few hundred meters from the border with Russia, analysis group Deep State reported Sunday.

“There are achievements in the Sumy region,” Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Sept. 12.

It seems the 810th Naval Infantry Brigade is the main Russian formation in the vicinity of Kostiantynivka and Novokostiantynivka. It’s the last large marine unit left in Sumy after the Kremlin concentrated five marine regiments and brigades east of Pokrovsk in recent weeks.

Pokrovsk is one of the last major Ukrainian strongholds between hundreds of thousands of Russian troops and the main Kramatorsk-Sloviansk urban center in western Donetsk. If Pokrovsk falls, all of Donetsk may fall.

Donetsk is the priority. And the Kremlin seems to be willing to risk its gains in Sumy to make further gains in Donetsk. In addition to moving the marines to the east at the expense of the north, Russian commanders have shifted existing field armies in the sector surrounding Pokrovsk.

East of Pokrovsk, three Russian field armies and corps—the 8th and 51st Combined Arms Armies and the 68th Army Corps—face around nine Ukrainian regiments and brigades plus a few separate battalions, some of them under the command of the new 1st Azov Corps.

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Russia saved armor all year for this moment—150,000 troops close in on Pokrovsk

Russian horde

Counting the newly arrived marines, there may be around 80,000 Russians and perhaps half as many Ukrainians along a stretch of the front line that’s no longer than 25 km.

Ukrainian forces may have an advantage in drones, however. Russian marine commanders are reluctant to deploy their armored vehicles toward Pokrovsk “due to the enormous amount of [Ukrainian] UAVs in the air, Ukrainian drone operator Kriegsforscher explained.

The Russians are still reeling from the 1st Azov Corps’ recent counterattack against a Russian motor rifle brigade that infiltrated under-manned Ukrainian lines northeast of Pokrovsk last month; even with all those reinforcements, they’ve yet to regain the momentum in the sector.

And that middle performance so far may be costing them in Sumy as the Ukrainians take advantage of new gaps in Russian lines.

This was a predictable outcome. In robbing Sumy to reinforce Donetsk, the Kremlin gambled the Ukrainians had finally exhausted their reserves and could no longer respond in kind in Donetsk—or exploit Russian weakness in Sumy.

The gamble hasn’t paid off—at least not yet. At least one observer expected this would happen. The Russians “actually thought Ukraine was out of infantry,” American analyst Andrew Perpetua mused.

While it’s true Ukrainian brigades are struggling with a shortage of trained infantry, there’s a big difference between Ukraine have too few trigger-pullers to comfortably perform every possible mission … and having so few that it’s impossible to respond to large-scale Russian moves like we’re seeing in Donetsk and Sumy.

According to Perpetua, Ukrainian commanders had made the deliberate decision to leave some trenches empty—potentially including some around Pokrovsk—in order to buy time for certain brigades, such as the 95th Air Assault Brigade, to rebuild.

“It was a sacrifice,” Perpetua said. “Sacrifice ground for time while refitting and then you can attack later.”

It’s possible these rebuilt brigades are the ones giving the Russians so much trouble now—counterattacking in Donetsk and Sumy, and pushing back the Russians in the latter oblast. The 95th Air Assault Brigade, it’s worth noting, is on the front line in Sumy.

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Russian marines rushed to save the Pokrovsk offensive—HIMARS had other ideas

Today, there are interesting updates from the Sumy direction.

Here, Ukrainians have completely annihilated the Russian Sumy offensive from the air, launching devastating strikes all across the board. With even redeployed air defense assets falling victim to Western-supplied bombs, Russian operations are falling apart at the seams as each sector is meticulously targeted without mercy.

Ukrainian forces dismantle Russian air defenses before launching full-scale aerial assault

Ukraine’s armed forces have decisively crushed the Russian offensive into Sumy by cutting off their supply and reinforcement routes through continuous targeting from the air.

This success was made possible by Ukraine’s systematic clearing of the skies, with Russian air defense assets stretched across the entire frontline being repeatedly hunted down. Buk and Tor systems, deployed to protect Russian command posts and depots, became prime targets. In one case, a Russian Tor system continuously hampered Ukrainian attempts at air strikes, resulting in the air defense system becoming the target instead. In another, a Russian Tor battery malfunctioned trying to intercept a Ukrainian air strike, with the missile veering off course and striking a nearby Russian ammunition storage instead. Additionally, Ukrainian operators used fiber-optic FPV drones to stalk and destroy Buk launchers. With these systems eliminated or suppressed, the preparation was done, and the Ukrainian strike aircraft were free to operate over the front.

Western bombs shatter Russian spearhead near Tyotkino and across Kursk

The first major blow landed near Tyotkino. Ukrainian fighters used AASM HAMMER bombs and J-dams to strike infantry groups and ammunition stores at Lokot, Tetkino, and Dronivka, while a bridge at Zabolotivka was demolished to sever supply routes.

Drone operators in Glushkovo were targeted with J-dam strikes, while troops sheltering in a grain elevator at Tyotkino were buried under rubble. Additional airstrikes leveled drone coordination centers in Korovyakivka and troop concentrations across Tyotkino, followed by hits on crossings at Zvannoye. Each wave of HAMMERs and J-dams bombs shattered Russian attempts to mass forces, leaving corpses and destroyed buildings across the Kursk villages, feeding the offensive.

Ukrainian aviation strikes deep behind the border, targeting drone hubs and infantry strongholds

Further southeast, on the Sumy side of the border, the blows continued and opened huge gaps in the Russian lines. Ukrainian aviation destroyed bases from where Russian drone operators were operating at Oleksiivka and Loknia, undermining Russian drone support capabilities, before destroying forces concentrations at Kindrativka and Oleksiivka, where Russian infantry had fortified inside of civilian buildings.

In Yunakivka, multiple bridges and troop concentrations were hit, leaving Russian soldiers buried in collapsed structures.

Major General killed as 155th Marine Brigade headquarters destroyed in Korenevo

Perhaps the most devastating blow came in the Kursk region north of the border, where the headquarters of the 155th Marine Brigade was obliterated at Korenevo while preparing for redeployment to Pokrovsk. High-ranking officers, including Major General Gudkov, were killed, gutting the command of one of Russia’s elite formations.

Additional strikes prevented the Russians from being able to fill in these gaps and leveled command centers at Kulbaki and troop concentrations in Sudzha. In each case, Ukrainian reconnaissance drones adjusted the targeting with lethal precision, ensuring no survivors and capturing the events on footage.

Belgorod strikes block Russian reinforcements from stabilizing the front

On the eastern flank, Ukrainian aircraft struck across Belgorod to prevent Russian reinforcements from stabilizing the situation and trying to hit the Ukrainian counterattacks from the side. HAMMER bombs flattened enemy garrisons in Kozynka, while J-dams destroyed drone control posts at Repyakhivka.

Bridges and positions at Guevo and Grafivka were pounded, and strikes at Kolotylivka killed entire groups of infantry. By hammering both the staging grounds and supply arteries in Belgorod and Kursk, Ukraine ensured that Russian columns advancing toward Sumy were bled dry before even reaching the border.

Russia pulls units as offensive collapses, Ukraine controls the skies

Overall, what the Russian high command once threatened as a march on Sumy city now lies in ruins, its spearheads shattered by Ukrainian airpower and its command structure gutted with the evident result of a collapsed Russian offensive.

Russia has begun pulling units from this sector to reinforce Pokrovsk, a clear sign that the offensive has failed. Ukrainian air superiority, established by dismantling Russian air defenses and exploiting gaps with precision bombs, was the decisive factor, and for the Russian command, dreams of reaching the capital of Sumy are gone. For Ukraine, the skies over the region now belong firmly to them, and their dominance has rewritten the course of the campaign.

In our regular frontline report, we pair up with the military blogger Reporting from Ukraine to keep you informed about what is happening on the battlefield in the Russo-Ukrainian war

The Ukrainian army stood up the 156th Infantry Brigade in the spring of 2024. Not long after, the unit converted into a mechanized brigade with additional armored vehicles.

The brigade recruited and trained its thousands of troops through the fall and winter and, this summer, deployed to the front line in Sumy Oblast in northern Ukraine.

Now the 156th Mechanized Brigade is one of the growing number of Ukrainian units rushing south to Donetsk Oblast to meet a mass of Russian troops and tanks poised to strike at the fortress city of Pokrovsk for what Ukrainian drone operator Kriegsforscher described as a “last, final battle.”

As recently as last month, the 156th Mechanized Brigade was helping to hold the line in Sumy alongside other brigades in the new 18th Army Corps. But with the defeat of its infantry-led incursion northeast of Pokrovsk in recent weeks, the Kremlin made a portentous decision.

Rather than give up on Pokrovsk, it doubled down—and surged reinforcements around the city for what’s shaping up to be a powerful, tank-led offensive.

The reinforcements had to come from somewhere. No fewer than five Russian marine and airborne brigades and regiments plus a tank regiment, an infantry regiment, and two motor rifle brigades have redeployed—or are in the process of redeploying—from Sumy to the sector around Pokrovsk.

These fresh forces, plus a motor rifle division redeploying from Kherson Oblast in the south, amount to the equivalent of an entire field army. They join the eight or so Russian field armies already laying siege to Pokrovsk and nearby towns.

Throughout 2025, Russian regiments have mostly attacked on foot or on motorcycle. Now it’s clear why. “Slowly but surely, it’s being proven that Russia was indeed holding back armor in the rear and reducing mechanized attacks to the bare minimum,” analyst Jompy noted.

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Russia lost a brigade near Dobropillya—more brigades are coming

Russian commanders were saving their armored vehicles for something. That something, it seems, is the biggest—and potentially last for a while—mechanized assault on Pokrovsk, the last major strongpoint between the Russians and main Ukrainian “fortress belt” threading through Kramatorsk and Sloviansk in western Donetsk.

Russia’s largest armored assault in months

The coming clash “will be bigger, bloodier” than the infantry battles that were common around Pokrovsk earlier this year, Finnish analyst Joni Askola warned. It will fall on newly arriving units such as the 156th Mechanized Brigade to hold off a much larger Russian force.

The 156th Mechanized Brigade hit the road to Donetsk last month, according to Unit Observer. It joins the national guard’s 1st Azov Corps and adjacent units that rushed toward Pokrovsk in early August to block, and then roll back, that Russian infantry incursion that briefly threatened one of the two remaining main supply lines into Pokrovsk.

Other Ukrainian units currently in Sumy could follow the 156th Mechanized Brigade to Donetsk as more Russian troops quit Sumy and head south for the coming push on Pokrovsk. The next round of Ukrainian reinforcements could include the 80th and 95th Air Assault Brigades.

Compared to those elite air assault formations, the 156th Mechanized Brigade is a workmanlike unit. It rides in T-64BV tanks, BMP-1TS with new 30-millimeter autocannon turrets, M-113 tracked armored personnel carriers, upgraded BTR-60D wheeled APCs, Kozak armored trucks and M-109 howitzers. Many of these vehicles sport add-on anti-drone armor.

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Russian marines rushed to save the Pokrovsk offensive—HIMARS had other ideas

Ukraine’s tank-killing strategy faces its biggest test

Expect the 156th Mechanized Brigade to dig in and prepare for tank attacks. The older Ukrainian brigades around Pokrovsk are skilled tank-killers, but the 156th Mechanized Brigade’s relatively green troopers should be able to pick up the standard tactics fairly quickly.

They took out those tanks with mines, artillery, anti-tank missiles and—perhaps most importantly—explosive first-person-view drones and grenade-dropping bomber drones. The Russians are betting that tank-led assaults can help them win the battle for Pokrovsk. The Ukrainians are betting they can blow up the tanks in the usual way.

Russia’s tank reserves running dangerously low

If the Russians can’t break through the reinforced Ukrainian defenses around Pokrovsk in the coming months, they might not get another chance anytime soon—at least not with tanks.

Russia’s Uralvagonzavod tank factory is building new T-90Ms—but it’s unclear how many. The factory’s output may have collapsed this year. Meanwhile, the Kremlin’s vehicle storage bases, once brimming with Cold War leftovers, are now mostly empty of usable vehicles.

Go deeper

Russia’s last tank yards go dark as every inch in Ukraine demands more sacrifice

US President Donald Trump’s misreading of Russia has cost Ukraine dearly. Russian forces exploited the first half-year of the new US presidency to advance on the front lines and kill civilians, taking advantage of a flawed understanding of Moscow’s mindset.

Sanctions will not alter the Kremlin’s goal

Trump has expressed willingness to impose sanctions on Russia, yet economic pressure alone will not deter Putin from his primary objective: defeating Ukraine.

The American leader’s challenge is immense: inflict enough damage on Moscow to change its behavior while keeping diplomatic channels open.

In practice, this is impossible, as Putin does not seek peace, and confusion in Trump’s thinking only exacerbates the problem.

Putin exploits time and allies

The past eight months of American governance have been wasted from the perspective of strategic defense for Ukraine and Europe, allowing Moscow to strengthen its position.

After attacks on the offices of the EU, the British Council, and Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers, it became clear that Putin acts with impunity.

A meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping reinforced his sense of support from international allies, and Moscow continues to receive money, weapons, hydrocarbons, and even special forces from North Korea.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials fear new attacks on Pokrovsk in Donetsk Oblast and advances north toward Kupiansk in Kharkiv Oblast. The Kremlin’s time gain gives Putin a strategic advantage that Washington has yet to offset. Clearly, this approach requires urgent change.

The Ukrainian army’s 425th Assault Regiment is about to deploy ex-Australian M-1 Abrams tanks, making it only the second Ukrainian unit to do so. But even after the 69-ton M-1s arrive, the regiment’s most important assets may be the creativity, courage and sheer aggression of its infantry.

Consider the 425th Assault Regiment trooper who recently posed as Russian, fell in with two Russian soldiers—and then gunned them down from a few feet away. One of the regiment’s drones observed the cold-blooded ambush from overhead.

Russian and Ukrainian infantry often wear similar uniforms—and identify themselves with colored armbands. Further complicating the identity crisis, Russian sabotage groups have been known to dress in captured or copied Ukrainian uniforms when they infiltrate Ukrainian lines.

In any event, the victims mistook that 425th Assault Regiment Trooper for an ally. The Ukrainian trooper may have encouraged this misconception by speaking the right language. Most Russians speak Russian, of course—but then, so do many Ukrainians.

Recall that, in May 2024, a squad from the Ukrainian 3rd Assault Brigade captured a Russian radio during a bitter skirmish over a Russian-held gully somewhere north of Kharkiv. “We will now try to fuck them over,” the Ukrainian infantry leader said in the official video depicting the fight. “Who is a Russian-speaker?”

A Russian-speaking Ukrainian soldier hopped on the captured radio. “We’re 1st Company,” he transmitted—part of the same battalion as the Russians in the gully. The Russians shifted their fire to avoid hitting their “allies.”

“Let’s go,” the 3rd Assault Brigade infantry leader ordered. “Yell in Russian!” By the time the Russians realized the soldiers approaching them weren’t actually fellows Russians, it was too late. They were all but surrounded.

Blending in

There are entire regiments and brigades in the Russian order of battle that are manned by Ukrainians from occupied oblasts—Ukrainians who are likelier to speak Russian. One of these units, the 132nd Motor Rifle Brigade, was at the vanguard of the Russian 51st Combined Arms Army’s effort to extend a salient northeast of the fortress city of Pokrovsk, in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast, last month.

These Ukrainians fighting for Russia “would better understand the area and potentially blend in,” noted Rob Lee, an analyst with the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. But that local knowledge didn’t save them when, early last month, the Ukrainian 1st Azov Corps and other units—including the 425th Assault Regiment—counterattacked.

A month later, the salient and the 132nd Motor Rifle Brigade have both been mostly eliminated. Now the 425th Assault Regiment is pushing back Russian forces around Myrnohrad, just east of Pokrovsk. Surprisingly, the one-man ambush may have taken place in Boykovka, 15 km north of Myrnohrad in a zone many observers assume is largely under Russian control.

The circumstances are hazy. Was the ambusher a member of Ukrainian sabotage group infiltrating Russian lines the way Ukrainians routinely infiltrate Ukrainian lines?

The increasing porousness of the front makes deadly cases of misidentification more likely. “There isn’t a coherent front line,” American analyst Andrew Perpetua explained. Instead, there’s a wide no-man’s land between areas of clear Russian and Ukrainian control. That no-man’s-land is largely depopulated except for scattered—and carefully concealed—underground fighting positions for a few harried infantry doing their best to hide from the ever-present drones.

It’s that porousness that allowed the ill-fated 132nd Motor Rifle Brigade march right past undermanned Ukrainian trenches and extend their brief-lived salient northeast of Pokrovsk last month. The same lack of contiguous defenses may explain why a very dangerous Ukrainian and his supporting drone were wandering around Boykovka looking for gullible Russians to kill.

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When a building is full of Russians, send in an FPV drone first!

Desperate to staunch the bloodletting around Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast, the Kremlin rushed in reinforcements. A lot of them.

But those reinforcements—the best of Russia’s available naval infantry and airborne forces—are already suffering heavy casualties in a sector they clearly do not understand. Attacking in armored vehicles along drone-patrolled roads just east of Pokrovsk on the evening of Aug. 28, the Russian 155th Naval Infantry Brigade was immediately spotted from the air by the Ukrainian state security service’s Ivan Franko Group.

The Ivan Franko Group attacked with its own explosive first-person-view drones—and also called in rockets from nearby High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems. The combined firepower “inflicted devastating losses on the enemy’s assault armored group, which ultimately could not reach the forward positions of the 79th [Air Assault] Brigade and was completely defeated,” the Ivan Franko Group reported.

The group counted five destroyed vehicles and two abandoned ones. “The enemy’s manpower losses as a result of the complex strike of FPV and HIMARS amounted to 50 to 100 men,” the group claimed. See the official video below.

It was a swift and bloody setback for Russia’s best effort to shift the battlefield momentum around Pokrovsk back in its own favor.

For more than a year now, a Russian force with at least eight corps and field armies, together overseeing dozens of regiments are brigades each with potentially thousands of troops, has been trying—and mostly failing—to capture a chain of Ukrainian cities stretching from Pokrovsk to Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine Donetsk Oblast.

The Russian 51st Combined Arms Army came close to closing a pincer around Pokrovsk and cutting off one of its two main supply routes in early August, when its 132nd Motor Rifle Brigade slipped thousands of troops past undermanned Ukrainian trenches northeast of Pokrovsk.

They marched 15 km toward the village of Dobropillya, which sits astride the T0515 road, Pokrovsk’s easternmost main supply route.

A brief-lived salient

But the Russians underestimated the strength of the Ukrainians’ reserves. Ukrainian commanders had made the deliberate decision to leave some trenches empty in order to buy time for certain brigades to rebuild. “It was a sacrifice,” American analyst Andrew Perpetua explained. “Sacrifice ground for time while refitting and then you can attack later.”

A dozen or so Ukrainian brigades, regiments and battalions, some fighting under the command of the national guard’s new 1st Azov Corps, assaulted the Dobropillya salient from both sides with drones, tanks, armed ground vehicles and infantry—and quickly destroyed the Russian 132nd Motor Rifle Brigade, likely inflicting thousand of casualties.

Rather than accepting defeat in the Dobropillya salient, the Kremlin scraped forces from Kherson Oblast in southern Ukraine as well as from the front stretching from Kursk Oblast in western Russia to Sumy Oblast in northern Ukraine—and sent them to Pokrovsk.

The reinforcements include no fewer than five Russian marine and airborne brigades, regiments and divisions including the ill-fated 155th Naval Infantry Brigade. The units that have been fighting around Pokrovsk learned the hard way, many months ago, that armored vehicles simply cannot survive on the roads threading toward the city. Their biggest successes have resulted from swift motorcycle assaults and hard-to-spot infiltrations by small groups of infantry.

The 155th Naval Infantry Brigade moved out in at least one tracked BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle and other armored vehicles along with a few bikes, winding through a village—Malynivka—the has been under bombardment by Ukrainian air force jets lobbing American-made Joint Direct Attack Munition precision bombs.

Their inexperience and recklessness doomed them—and wasted the Kremlin’s first attempt to preserve what little is left of the Russians’ Dobropillya salient. But the Ivan Franko Group, for one, isn’t surprised. “The enemy will continue to try to carry out meaty assaults on our positions,” the group mused.

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Robot counterattack! Ukraine rolls gun-‘bots into brutal Pokrovsk battle.

Ukrainian paratroopers destroyed a Russian armored convoy that was advancing toward Pokrovsk in Donetsk Oblast, using HIMARS missiles and FPV drones in a coordinated nighttime assault. The strike reportedly took place on 28 August and targeted a mechanized group that had been spotted 10 kilometers behind Russian lines.

HIMARS strike shatters Russian push from Prohres toward Pokrovsk

Militarnyi reports that drone operators from the Ivan Franko Group, part of the 79th Air Assault Brigade, detected the convoy moving from the settlement of Prohres toward Malynivka, a village east of Pokrovsk. The Russian column consisted of seven vehicles, including tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, and was carrying up to 100 soldiers—some of whom were advancing on motorcycles.

Once the target was confirmed, Ukrainian forces launched a HIMARS missile, striking the column during its movement. The initial hit disrupted the formation, after which drone operators joined the attack, targeting abandoned or disabled vehicles. A second missile strike completed the operation, according to the 79th Brigade.

Ukrainian paratroopers reported that the entire armored group was destroyed, and at least 50 Russian soldiers were killed. They believe the unit may have been part of a force recently redeployed from Russia’s Kursk Oblast, possibly including elements of the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade.

“The appearance of units near Pokrovsk from a different direction could explain the use of a large number of armored vehicles in an area where, for a long time, Russian forces had relied exclusively on small infantry groups to minimize losses from drones,” Militarnyi noted.

Faced with heavy losses and only limited territorial gains, Russian forces have previously shifted tactics—now infiltrating through the so-called “gray zone” under drone surveillance and concentrating troops for assault operations.

The Russian army attacked an evacuation vehicle carrying three wounded civilians, which resulted in the death of one of them, Ukraine's National Police reported on July 1.

Russia has for months focused its offensive efforts on the embattled town of Pokrovsk in Donetsk Oblast and has recently been escalating attempts to break through to neighboring Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, a region that has not yet seen combat.

According to the police, Russian forces attacked the evacuation vehicles provided by chaplains three times: at the entrance to the city, in the city center, and during the evacuation of civilians from Pokrovsk. The police called Russia's actions "targeted hunting."

The police picked up one injured person in the city, and the other two — on the way to the hospital. In the meantime, the Russian army hit the car with a Molniya drone. As a result of the attack, one of the police officers was injured.

As the evacuation vehicle came under fire, one of the injured could not be brought to the hospital in time and died of blood loss.

"We called for reinforcements and sent the injured civilian with them, hoping for a miracle. But it did not happen, Russia took another life," Hennadii Yudin, head of the "White Angel" police unit, said.

Another injured man, who was evacuated with a shrapnel wound, is undergoing treatment, the police said.

Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi reported on June 27 that Russia has amassed "about 111,000 personnel" in the Pokrovsk sector, but Ukrainian forces are holding the line.

Syrskyi's statement came as Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed Moscow is "ready" for a third round of peace talks with Kyiv.

Russia's so-called "peace memorandum" demands that Ukraine recognize Russia's annexation of Crimea, as well as Kherson, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Luhansk oblasts — none of which are fully under Moscow's control.

As Russia inches closer to Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, new Ukrainian region might soon be at war

Moscow said its troops had crossed into Dnipropetrovsk Oblast and were conducting offensive operations in the region, a claim Kyiv quickly denied as “Russian disinformation.” Russian troops have been pushing toward Dnipropetrovsk Oblast for months, trying to solidify the southern flank to capture Pokrovsk and the remaining parts of the

The Kyiv IndependentAsami Terajima

Pokrovsk remains the "hottest spot" along Ukraine's front lines, with Russia concentrating its largest group of personnel in that direction — a force numbering 111,000 troops, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi reported on June 27.

Russia has for months focused its offensive efforts on the embattled town of Pokrovsk in Donetsk Oblast and has recently been escalating attempts to break through to neighboring Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, a region that has not yet seen combat. Ukraine denied reports that Russian forces breached the regional border in May and June.

In May, Syrskyi reported that Ukraine had stabilized the situation in Pokrovsk.

After a working visit to the Pokrovsk sector, Syrskyi on June 27 said that the city is still "the hottest spot along the entire 1,200-kilometer front line" with nearly 50 combat clashes recorded per day. It's also where Russia has concentrated the bulk of its forces in Ukraine.

Russia has amassed "about 111,000 personnel" in the Pokrovsk sector, Syrskyi said, but Ukrainian forces are holding the line.

"The enemy continues to try to break through to the administrative border of Donetsk Oblast ... Russian sabotage and assault groups were particularly active here two weeks ago," Syrskyi said.

"But they were all destroyed or neutralized, and the remnants were pushed back from the administrative border. The situation is under control."

Russia is attempting to break into Dnipropetrovsk Oblast not only for operational reasons, but also for performative ones, Syrskyi said.

"To achieve a psychological effect: to put the infamous 'foot of the Russian soldier' there, plant a flag, and trumpet another pseudo-'victory.'"

Syrskyi's comments echo recent remarks by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who claimed in a propaganda-heavy speech on June 20 that "wherever the foot of a Russian soldier steps is Russian land." President Volodymyr Zelensky fired back the next day, promising "Ukrainian drones for the foot of every Russian soldier."

While Putin claimed on June 27 that Moscow is "ready" for a third round of peace talks with Kyiv, the Kremlin has sent no signal that it's ready to abandon its maximalist ambitions in Ukraine.

Russia's so-called "peace memorandum" demands that Ukraine recognize Russia's annexation of Crimea, as well as Kherson, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Luhansk oblasts — none of which are fully under Moscow's control.

Zelensky's Deputy Chief of Staff Pavlo Palisa said on June 6 that Russia aims to occupy all Ukrainian territory east of the Dnipro River and advance toward Odesa and Mykolaiv in a broader plan to sever Ukraine's access to the Black Sea amid a renewed summer offensive.

Ukraine war latest: Ukrainian drones reportedly strike 4 fighter jets in Russia

Key developments on June 27: * Ukraine war latest: Ukrainian drones reportedly strike 4 fighter jets in Russia * North Korea deployed 20% of Kim’s elite ‘personal reserve’ to fight against Ukraine in Russia, Umerov says * Pro-Palestinian activists reportedly destroy military equipment intended for Ukraine * Zelensky signs decree to synchronize Russia sanctions

The Kyiv IndependentThe Kyiv Independent news desk