Russia’s gains speed up in Ukraine ahead of high-stakes autumn

Amid a flurry of activity in the geopolitical arena without much real progress toward peace, the fourth summer of Russia’s full-scale war has come and gone on the battlefield.

Not showing any real intent to stop its war in peace negotiations, Moscow has continued to pursue offensive operations at a high intensity across the front line.

The partially occupied far eastern Donetsk Oblast — in the spotlight internationally as the subject of Russian demands for it to be handed over as part of a supposed peace deal — has continued to be the area of the heaviest fighting of the war.

Russian forces have continued to take Ukrainian territory at a stable rate.

Ukrainian mapping and monitoring group Deep State put the total figure for new territory occupied over June, July, and August at 1,548 square kilometers, significantly more than the 659 square kilometres taken in the equivalent period in 2024.

Relying on waves of small infantry group assaults, Moscow’s summer gains, which continue to fall far short of taking all of Donetsk Oblast, have nonetheless come at a heavy cost.

According to estimates of Russian losses published by Ukraine’s General Staff, Moscow lost 94,810 personnel over the same three months, or an average of 1,030 per day.

With international efforts to pressure Russia to stop its war falling flat and plenty of fighting to be had before winter, the battlefield is staged for a high-stakes autumn.

Steady gains

This summer, like all of those before it in Russia’s full-scale war, has been a time of high-intensity fighting, with the season providing Russian offensive operations not just with good weather, but the crucial element of extra cover from drones.

“Russia prefers using dismounted infantry assaults,” said military analyst Rob Lee, senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, to the Kyiv Independent, “so it's easier as infantry to move forward in summer when you've got more tree lines and vegetation.”

“By the winter, the rate of advance will probably decrease again.”

The main focus of Russian forces’ attention has been in Donetsk Oblast, pushing between the cities of Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka in an effort to compromise the defense of all of the major population centers still in Ukrainian hands.

The city of Pokrovsk itself — which has now held out for almost a year since first approached by Russian forces early last autumn — continues to be a major thorn in Moscow’s side, with all attempts to storm the city ending unsuccessfully.

In July, Russian forces reached the outskirts of the town of Rodynske, north of Pokrovsk, where battles continue for a large coal mine seen as crucial to the control of paths in and out of the city.

For now, Ukrainian lines around Pokrovsk remain mostly stable, with the greater threat being Russian drone attacks on the roads in and out of the city across the fields to the northwest.

Further north, the most concerning offensive push by Russian forces was made near the city of Dobropillia, in a development that sparked concerns about the state of the Ukrainian defense.

Moving forward in small groups, hundreds of Russian infantrymen pierced through thinly-manned defensive positions and spilled deep into the Ukrainian rear, with some groups making it as far as 15-20 kilometers, past the Kramatorsk-Dobropillia road.

After the extent of the infiltration became public, some of Ukraine’s strongest units, including battalions of the 93rd Mechanized Brigade and the Azov Corps, were sent to contain the breach.

As of the end of August, most of the area initially infiltrated by Russian troops had been cleared and the front stabilized.

Meanwhile, in the southwestern sector of Donetsk Oblast, Russian forces have advanced through open Ukraine south of the village of Novopavlivka, in an area criss-crossed by rivers and with no major population centers around which to stage a defense.

As of early September, Russian forces have effectively reached the oblast border, which runs alongside the natural barrier presented by the Vovcha River, in several places.

In one small sector, for the first time since the start of the full-scale war, Russian troops have dug in inside neighboring Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.

One other area of the front line that has flared up after being relatively stable is the Kupiansk-Lyman axis, covering territory in the north of Donetsk Oblast and the east of Kharkiv Oblast that was liberated in Ukrainian counteroffensives almost three years prior.

Over August, Russian forces overran much of the Serebrianskyi Forest, a dense wooded area east of Lyman, while also coming within 10 kilometers of the Siverskyi Donets River, threatening to cut the city off from the west.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s defense of once-liberated Kupiansk has also come under grave danger thanks to successful Russian advances west of the Oskil River combined with infiltration operations into the urban area.

In a bright spot for Kyiv, Russia’s cross-border offensive on Sumy Oblast, which was moving forward with concerning pace over late May and threatened to bring the regional capital into drone range, has stagnated completely, with Ukrainian forces even taking back a handful of villages.

The pattern of Russian gains reflects Ukraine’s struggles to maintain a high-level of cohesion and combat effectiveness across the front line, said Emil Kastehelmi, a member of Black Bird Group, a Finnish open-source intelligence and analysis collective, to the Kyiv Independent.

“The Ukrainians are having a problem here to actually respond heavily to an emerging crisis,” he said.

“They need to move their units around from one direction to another; they don't really have a large reserve pool where they can just put a large amount of reserve troops to a certain direction.”

Chronic concerns

Across the front line over summer, Russian forces have almost completely done away with attempts at large armored attacks, due to the vulnerability of large vehicles to drone attacks on a battlefield that gets more transparent with every month.

Instead, Moscow has moved to expand and refine its infantry-heavy tactics, built around small assault groups sent forward one after another, often supported by motorcycles and other light, maneuverable vehicles.

These groups’ primary objectives are often infiltration missions: aiming to bypass the porous Ukrainian first line of defense and advance further, assaulting Ukrainian drone and mortar teams and creating wholesale chaos in the rear.

This approach, though coming with consistently high losses, was the main reason that led to the deep penetration of Ukrainian lines near Dobropillia.

“You can say for sure that they are having success with this tactic,” said Dmytro Zhluktenko, a Ukrainian drone operator serving in the Pokrovsk sector.

“They lose a lot of people in this whole process, but if they were doing it with large mechanized attacks on armored vehicles, then their losses would be higher still.”

Ukraine’s defense, meanwhile, is defined by a consistently improving coverage of the front line with reconnaissance and strike drones on one hand, contrasted with a dire shortage of front-line infantry on the other.

“We have a very strong unmanned component in this (Pokrovsk) area;” said Zhluktenko, “effective strike drone groups that destroy the enemy on an industrial scale and make an incredibly big impact.”

“But still, there is not enough Ukrainian infantry. The contact line is very sparse, in fact, it's not really a contact line but more of a contact zone.”

Ultimately, argued Lee, it is the weak spots in Ukraine’s thinly-manned defense that are the main reason for Russian gains over summer.

“The manpower aspect is really the critical factor explaining the nature of the fight right now,” he said.

“If Ukraine had enough infantry, they would probably be fighting a different way, and ultimately, I don't think Russia would be advancing.”

On top of the Russian gains, the summer has also been marked with several cases of successful Ukrainian counterattacks, often led by units of Ukraine's Assault Forces, a new branch of the Armed Forces established by Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi on Aug. 18.

In the first days of September, Ukraine's 425th Assault Regiment, better known as Skelia, reported to have cleared two villages around Pokrovsk of Russian forces: Novoekonomichne and Udachne.

But as much as small success might lift moods, there is a reason Ukraine must stick to its overall strategic defensive posture, Zhluktenko said.

“It is very difficult for us to carry out any offensive actions, because we have a more human-centric military doctrine,” he said.

“It doesn't work like that with the Russians. You tell them, and they just keep dying, one by one, in the same place.”

Behind Ukraine’s manpower crisis lies a bleak new battlefield reality for infantry

Editor’s Note: In accordance with the security protocols of the Ukrainian military, soldiers featured in this story are identified by first names and callsigns only. DONETSK OBLAST – Since he first volunteered to take up arms and defend his country in January this year, 54-year-old Ukrainian infantryman Ruslan “Kalyna” has only been on one combat mission. One 146-day combat mission. The trees were still bare and the air bitterly cold when Ruslan, an ex-convict soldier in Ukraine’s 93rd Mechan

The Kyiv IndependentFrancis Farrell

Is the worst over?

Though summer itself might have ended, Russia’s offensive campaign is continuing, even escalating, going into the autumn.

Toward the end of August, hardened Russian units, including the 155th and 40th Naval Infantry Brigades, were reported to have been redeployed to the Pokrovsk front.

“We know that Russians have been moving their units, for example, from Sumy and Kherson oblasts to Donetsk Oblast,” said Kastehelmi.

“They are clearly preparing for further offensives, and are doing so without really making much of an operational pause.”

In the equivalent period last year, Russian monthly gains continued to increase into autumn, peaking in November, when Ukrainian lines in southern Donetsk Oblast buckled under pressure and Russian forces advanced 5-10 kilometers in a day in some areas.

But as grim as some front-line developments have gotten, Ukraine’s effective control of the gray zone with their top drop units mean that Russian forces will likely be unable to turn creeping infiltration-based gains into a greater Ukrainian collapse.

“The question is whether or not they'll be able to achieve an operational breakthrough, whether or not there'll be a collapse of lines,” said Lee.

“We haven't seen that thus far, and my view is that in most cases, infiltration tactics will likely only lead to tactical advances on Russia's side.”

Ultimately, how long the war can continue in this form will likely depend on the Russian state’s ability to continue recruiting expendable contract soldiers at scale.

For now, Moscow’s recruitment figures per month remain at a steady 35,000, Ukrainian military intelligence deputy head Vadym Skibitskyi said on Sept. 7.

“I think this is not sustainable at all for them, but since their goal of the war is also to cleanse Russia from various, like, poorly socialized elements, then it can even be beneficial for them,” pondered Zhluktenko.

“But for us, it is tragic because it is anti-human, a huge loss of human life.”

Note from the author:

Hi, this is Francis Farrell, cheers for reading this article. Things are moving fast on the front line, ahead of what could be a crazy autumn on the battlefield. Whatever happens, we are dedicated to continue being Ukraine's voice to the world, no matter how dangerous and dark this war gets. Please consider supporting our reporting.