Throughout a troublesome week in Ukraine’s floor conflict, Russian troops accomplished their conquest of Chasiv Yar, a excessive floor in Ukraine’s japanese Donetsk area, and claimed to have breached the outskirts of Kupiansk, a metropolis with a pre-war inhabitants of greater than 26,000, in Ukraine’s northern Kharkiv area.
Each conquests are the results of months-long efforts and have value the Russians dearly in blood and weapons.
On the identical time, Russian forces pushed into Dnipropetrovsk, a Ukrainian area whose borders they first breached over the weekend of June 7-8, capturing the village of Sichneve, which Russians name Yanvarskoye. It was the third claimed conquest in Dnipropetrovsk. Earlier, Russia captured Dachnoye and Malynivka.
Russia additionally started to launch jet-powered unmanned aerial autos to lethal impact, killing 31 folks in Kyiv on July 31.
Ukraine responded with deep strikes on Russian transport networks and vitality hubs.
Chasiv Yar and the ‘fortress belt’
Russia’s Ministry of Defence stated its paratroopers overran Chasiv Yar on July 31.
Moscow’s forces started to besiege town in March 2024, a couple of month after the autumn of Avdiivka, 30km (20 miles) to the south freed up offensive troops.
Russia prioritised this line of assault after conquering town of Bakhmut in Could 2023, following months of battles led by Wagner Group mercenaries.
Since Bakhmut fell, Russian forces have conquered a salient working 27km (17 miles) west of it. Chasiv Yar introduced a problem and a prize – a problem as a result of it sat astride a canal that fashioned a pure defensive barrier, and a prize as a result of it’s a vantage level from which Russia can survey the remaining free areas of Donetsk.
“Chasiv Yar is a key peak by way of adjusting commentary and conducting fight operations,” army knowledgeable Vitaly Kiselyov advised the Soloviev Reside tv community in Russia.
“To all appearances, we can be outflanking from the south and the north, step by step puncturing the enemy forces and edging them out, all of the extra in order we now maintain an advantageous peak relative to all different settlements,” stated Kiselyov.
One other Russian army knowledgeable stated the seize of Chasiv Yar enabled Russian forces to advance in direction of the so-called “fortress belt” of closely defended Ukrainian cities in Donetsk.
“Chasiv Yar is located on a hilltop, and past it, there are very huge expanses of flat terrain. The closest agglomeration – Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka and Kostiantynivka – is nicely fortified,” Andrey Marochko advised the Russian newswire TASS.
Chasiv Yar sits on the northern finish of an tried Russian encirclement of Konstiantynivka, and on Saturday, the Russian Defence Ministry claimed its forces had captured Aleksandro-Kalinovo, on the southern finish of the crab’s claw enclosing Konstiantynivka.
Some analysts disagreed that the autumn of Chasiv Yar was as vital as Russian analysts made it sound.
“Tactical Russian advances westward in Chasiv Yar don’t represent an operationally important growth on this space,” stated the Institute for the Research of Battle (ISW), a Washington-based suppose tank.
“Russian forces have held most of northern and central Chasiv Yar since late January 2025 and commenced advancing in southwestern Chasiv Yar in mid-June 2025,” the ISW stated.
It added that Ukrainian strains of communication weren’t additional threatened, since “Russian forces have been inside tube artillery vary of Ukraine’s major logistics route by means of the fortress belt since late January 2025 and have held positions alongside the T-0504 Bakhmut-Kostyantynivka freeway for a number of months, and have but to considerably threaten Ukrainian positions in Kostiantynivka.”
The scenario was totally different in Pokrovsk, some 35km (22 miles) southwest of Chasiv Yar, which Russia has additionally besieged.
Denis Pushilin, the pinnacle of the pro-Russian, self-proclaimed Donetsk Individuals’s Republic, stated Ukrainian strains of communication into Pokrovsk had been impaired.
“The enemy has been largely denied the chance to ship ammunition and perform troop rotation,” Pushilin stated.
Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii stated on Telegram, “Probably the most troublesome scenario now’s within the Pokrovsk, Dobropillia, and Novopavlivka instructions,” naming two extra settlements that lie behind Pokrovsk in unoccupied Donetsk.
“The enemy is growing efforts to seize our key agglomerations, in search of weak spots in our defence, and conducting energetic fight operations concurrently on a number of fronts,” he stated.
He stated Russian forces had been forming sabotage teams within the Ukrainian rear in an try at “whole infiltration”, and that Ukraine was “utilizing anti-sabotage reserves, whose activity is to seek for and destroy enemy sabotage teams”.
Kupiansk and the ‘buffer zone’
On the northern finish of the entrance, Russia claimed to have entered Kupiansk in Kharkiv on Tuesday.
Russian troops had been combating road battles in Kupiansk, Russian army knowledgeable Andrey Marochko advised TASS. He stated troops had been deploying small, cell teams focusing on Ukrainian positions with exact strikes.
Russia’s forays into Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv lie past Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson, the 4 areas Russia formally annexed in September 2022.
Russia claims to be making a buffer zone to guard these areas, however Ukraine believes that declare to be an excuse for additional occupation.
Russian low-level officers have recommended that the buffer zone must be no less than 30km (20 miles) deep, however the Russian management has positioned no such restrict.
Moscow additionally continued its long-range strikes in opposition to Ukraine.
An in a single day drone assault on July 31 killed 31 folks in Kyiv. The Ukrainian Inside Minister Ihor Klymenko stated Russia used jet-powered Shahed drones, which journey a lot quicker than the propeller-driven type, and are troublesome to intercept.
The Ukrainian Air Drive reported that Russian forces launched eight Iskander-Ok cruise missiles from Kursk metropolis and 309 Shahed-type and decoy drones. United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer referred to as it “a fully vile, brutal strike”.
The confrontation
At the same time as he pressed on with these offensives, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that Ukraine was not prepared for peace talks.
Throughout a information convention with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday, Putin stated, “In precept, we are able to wait if the Ukrainian management believes that now just isn’t the time,” including that “all disappointments come up from extreme expectations.”
He was referring to the truth that three rounds of direct negotiations have yielded no ceasefire.
United States President Donald Trump repeated final week that he was “disenchanted” in Putin, and has in latest weeks allowed US weapons to stream to Ukraine.
On Friday, the US Pentagon stated it will promote Superior Medium-Vary Air-to-Air (AMRAAM) missiles to Ukraine.
Trump additionally acquired right into a social media spat with Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s Nationwide Safety Council, after Medvedev objected to Trump’s August 9 deadline for Russia to seal a ceasefire deal.
On Saturday, Trump wrote on his TruthSocial service that he had “ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned within the acceptable areas, simply in case these silly and inflammatory statements are extra than simply that”.
On the identical day, Trump introduced a 25 % tariff on India for getting Russian oil. On Tuesday, he advised CNBC, “I’m going to boost that very considerably over the subsequent 24 hours, as a result of they’re shopping for Russian oil, they’re fuelling the conflict machine, and in the event that they’re going to do this, I’m not going to be glad.”
Ukraine’s strikes
In the meantime, Ukraine stepped up its interdiction marketing campaign in opposition to Russian vitality and transport infrastructure.
On July 31, Russia stated it shot down 32 Ukrainian long-range UAVs in its western border areas. On account of the Ukrainian assault, it stated rail companies within the Volgograd area had been delayed.
Ukraine has been attacking the Russian railways connecting defence factories to the entrance, stated open-source intelligence gatherer Frontelligence Perception.
Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Middle for Countering Disinformation, stated a radio manufacturing facility in Penza, Russia was attacked, which made cell command complexes and automatic fight management techniques.
On Saturday, Ukraine unleashed a wide-ranging set of strikes.
Kovalenko stated the Radio Plant in Penza was attacked a second time, together with Electropribor, a producer of encryptors, safe modems and switches for army and intelligence businesses.
Ukraine additionally hit a storage and launch web site for Shahed drones on the Primorsko-Akhtarsk army airfield in Krasnodar.
However its greatest hits had been in opposition to oil refineries.
Ukraine attacked the Ryazan Oil Refinery, one among Russia’s 4 largest, chargeable for greater than 6 % of all refining in Russia, inflicting a fireplace. Additionally hit was the Novokuybyshevsk Oil Refinery close to Samara metropolis, the place explosions had been filmed. Ukraine additionally struck the Annanafteproduct oil depot within the Voronezh area, setting it alight, and on Sunday, a Ukrainian long-range strike hit an oil depot in Sochi on the Black Sea.
Ukrainian media reported that explosions broken the primary Russian gasoline pipeline carrying gasoline from Turkmenistan to Russia, shutting it down indefinitely. The media retailers stated it provided army industries, together with the Demikhov Machine-Constructing Plant, the MiG plane firm, and the Magnum-Ok ammunition plant.
