Sitrep for Aug. 13-17, 2026 (as of 10 a.m. UTC+3)

Frontline Situation Update

The main development on the frontline remains the successful Ukrainian operation in the Dnipropetrovsk region in the Oleksandrivka direction. Last week, Ukraine officially announced that it had liberated a large number of settlements over the past six months, and DeepState reflected these advances on its map. The Russian side responded almost immediately, publishing footage showing Russian flags in roughly the same areas where the Armed Forces of Ukraine had been advancing. OSINT researchers who examined these posts found that in some cases the claimed geolocation did not match the actual location; in others, the footage turned out to be old; and some videos had been generated using AI. The latter does not yet appear to be a systemic problem, as most such videos can still be identified by characteristic errors, such as people appearing at the wrong scale. Since the Ukrainian advances occurred at different times, Russian channels were also able to publish footage of Russian troops planting a flag, presenting it as "proof" that Ukrainian claims were false, even though it had been recorded before the AFU entered the village in question.

Going forward, we expect the Russian command may attempt to achieve new tactical gains to offset the negative impact of the AFU counteroffensive. For example, it could intensify assaults in the neighboring Huliaipole and Orikhiv directions. In such cases, the Russian Armed Forces invariably prioritize propaganda value over actual military gains.

Russian forces continue to strike bridges in Sloviansk: it has been reported that the third of nine bridges across the Kazennyi Torets River has been destroyed. These strikes are intended to disrupt Ukrainian logistics in the area amid the ongoing Russian offensive.

Brigadier General Serhii Sobko, Chief of Staff of the 11th Army Corps of the AFU, is reportedly set to become deputy to Mykhailo Drapatyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to a profile by the media outlet Babel, Sobko is a highly professional military officer who graduated from the Odesa Institute of Ground Forces before serving as a grenade launcher platoon commander in the 30th Mechanized Brigade. During that time, he encountered theft within the army and problems with personnel training. Sobko focused on training soldiers, and shortly before the full-scale invasion, he opened the "Captains' School," a two-month course for commanders. In 2006, he met Mykhailo Drapatyi, who was then a company commander in the 72nd Brigade, and the two subsequently crossed paths regularly during exercises and deployments. Sobko also traveled to Canada to improve his English and participated in a peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. Although he had previously been named the top international student of 2009, he was not permitted to attend additional training at the United States Army War College in Pennsylvania. In 2014, he led a battalion tactical group and participated in the so-called Anti-Terrorist Operation, including rear-guard fighting to help other units break out of encirclement, for which he was awarded the title Hero of Ukraine in 2015. In 2016, he finally went to study at the United States Army Command and General Staff College.

Throughout his career, Sobko advocated for the military's transition to NATO standards, improved soldier training and better treatment of personnel—issues that became a stumbling block in his relations with Oleksandr Syrskyi and certain other officers. Consequently, despite an impressive service record, Sobko spent a long time in relatively junior positions. In 2026, his book Scars and Seeds was published in English. In it, he describes the evolution of warfare, shifting Russian tactics, the successes and failures of the Ukrainian army in the current war, and the lessons that Western nations should draw from it.

Sobko's appointment as deputy commander-in-chief is a significant step for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which has a pressing need for professional military officers guided by strategy rather than political considerations and committed to preserving personnel. This offers hope that the effectiveness of Ukrainian combat operations will improve further.

In addition, it has become known that the 11th Army Corps will be headed by Colonel Emil Ishkulov, currently Deputy Commander of the 7th Air Assault Corps and formerly Commander of the 80th Air Assault Brigade. The 11th Corps is currently responsible for the most critical sector—the Sloviansk–Kramatorsk axis. Ishkulov was among those who in 2024 objected to launching the Kursk operation and was subsequently dismissed by Syrskyi. In September of that year, Politico reported that the operation had initially been proposed by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, while military commanders were skeptical about plans for further operations following the incursion into the Kursk region. This represents another step in the ongoing reform of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and appears fairly encouraging.

Former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, meanwhile, has still declined all of the positions offered to him. The Verkhovna Rada [Ukraine’s Parliament] is due to approve the appointment of the new Defense Minister on Aug. 18. Fedorov, however, continues to work on developing Ukraine's drone capabilities. On Aug. 14, Fedorov posted a video on his Telegram channel showing the production of Ukraine's first jet-powered interceptor drone, as well as footage of its launch. The drone is intended to intercept Russian jet-powered Shahed drones, which are too fast for conventional interceptor UAVs. Even if the new system achieves sufficient speed, its cost remains an open question, given the high cost of jet engines.

Ukraine and Russia conducted another exchange of the bodies of fallen servicemen, with 261 bodies returned to Ukraine and 24 to Russia. It is worth noting that this significant disparity is due to the fact that most bodies remain in territory controlled by the side that is predominantly advancing—that is, Russia. At the same time, whereas Russia handed over approximately 1,000 bodies in each exchange last year, only 261 were returned this time. We attribute this to a change in the nature of the war.

According to the latest report by Mediazona [independent Russian media outlet], the number of confirmed Russian military deaths has now exceeded 239,000. However, of the 77,000 obituaries confirmed this year, 90% concern servicemen who were killed between 2022 and 2025. Looking at how quickly information about military deaths becomes public, it appears that in 2022 obituaries were published almost immediately after a servicemember's death, whereas as the war has continued, the time lag between a servicemember's death and its public confirmation has grown.

As infiltration tactics have become increasingly widespread, the contested area and kill zone have expanded, while recovering the bodies of fallen assault troops has become increasingly difficult. For some time now, most combat operations have involved small assault groups infiltrating enemy positions. Most assault troops are killed, but some manage to remain concealed and, once enough survivors have accumulated, begin to consolidate their positions and advance further. Under conditions of persistent aerial reconnaissance, however, the bodies of fallen personnel cannot be recovered and may remain on the battlefield for months.

Ukrainian and Russian Strikes

As a result of a Ukrainian attack on Aug. 12, all three grain terminals at the Port of Novorossiysk ceased operations. They handled roughly half of Russia’s total grain exports, so, in our view, it is much more likely that the Volna Kupol Garant systems and the S-400 SAM systems were protecting the Port of Novorossiysk rather than Putin’s "palace" in Gelendzhik.

According to Reuters sources, Ukraine, through an intermediary country, offered Russia a halt to attacks on civilian targets in the Black Sea. After launching large-scale strikes against the "shadow fleet" and effectively halting shipping in the Odesa region, Ukraine proposed that both sides cease such attacks. Russia, however, rejected the proposal. Russian strikes on Ukrainian ports are also causing enormous economic damage.

It has become known that Ukrainian strikes inflicted critical damage on the Chongar railway bridge connecting Crimea with the occupied part of the Kherson region. At the same time, satellite imagery shows that Russian authorities are likely carrying out repairs. Putting this bridge out of service primarily complicates supplies to Crimea, but it could also have some impact on the fuel situation in the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region, where fuel tankers could have been delivered by rail via Crimea.

Russia continues to strike Ukrainian rail transport. On Aug. 13, a UAV struck the locomotive of a passenger train in the Odesa region, killing the driver and his assistant, while no passengers were injured. Video footage clearly shows that it was a passenger train; nevertheless, the Russian side claimed that the strike targeted a repair-and-recovery train and a locomotive used by the AFU. A Russian video filmed by a reconnaissance drone also appears to show the strike drone operator guiding the drone toward its target.

Flamingo missiles struck the Progress rocket plant in Samara. According to an analysis by the CyberBoroshno project, the strike most likely damaged two of the plant’s buildings where onboard electronics are installed in rockets and final assembly takes place. The scale of the damage cannot yet be assessed. Progress manufactures Soyuz-2 rockets, which Russia uses to launch Rassvet satellites (Russia’s equivalent of Starlink) and Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS). The plant has apparently suspended operations, but this should not affect ISS launches for now. Those missions are scheduled years in advance, including flights carrying American astronauts under exchange programs, and the rockets are prepared well ahead of time. If the plant cannot resume operations for a prolonged period, next year’s launch schedule could indeed be affected. The Rassvet system, as far as we know, is still in its early stages, although claims have emerged that it can already provide satellite communications for up to an hour and a half per day. In our view, this is an overly optimistic assessment, as Rassvet still lags far behind Starlink in the number of satellites launched (more than 10,000 for Starlink versus 31 for Rassvet). Dmitry Baranov, deputy director of Roscosmos [Russia’s space agency], said in January that orders for Soyuz-2 launch vehicles for 2027-2030 exceed Progress’s production capacity by 30% to 50% due to numerous orders from Rassvet’s developer. A prolonged halt in production could therefore affect the pace of military satellite launches, including communications satellites.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that on Aug. 15, Ukrainian forces struck the Savasleyka airfield in the Nizhny Novgorod region, which hosts MiG-31K fighters. These aircraft carry Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missiles. The consequences of the strike are still unknown. Ukrainian intelligence previously reported that production of these missiles had stopped.

On Aug. 16, Ukrainian drones once again targeted logistics and warehouse facilities across the Moscow region. In Koledino, a village near Podolsk, a fire broke out at the largest remaining distribution center belonging to e-commerce retailer Wildberries—a facility previously hit in an earlier strike. At the nearby Severnoye Domodedovo logistics park, a 56,000-square-meter pharmaceutical warehouse collapsed. Reports also indicated that a food distribution hub in the same area was affected, raising concerns about potential supply disruptions in the capital. The attack left one person dead and six injured across several municipalities: an 83-year-old man was killed in Ramenskoye, three people were injured in Podolsk, two in Klimovsk, and a woman in Zheleznodorozhny.

Ukrainian strikes on Galaktika DIY stores in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region have become systematic in recent weeks, with a third location hit on Aug. 15.

Russia, for its part, continues to target the Ukrainian Epicentr DIY retail chain, striking another location on Aug. 16 in Odesa. This appears to be a pattern of reciprocal strikes on civilian retail and warehouse infrastructure.

The Ukrainian Strategic Aviation Telegram channel published satellite images of a "droneport" near the village of Tsimbulova in the Oryol region. The site already has 23 launchers and more than 100 Shahed-136 (Geran-2) loitering munitions, including jet-powered variants. It also contains warehouses, hangars, and solar panels to provide backup power for communications and guidance systems in the event of a blackout. The images show no significant protective structures around the infrastructure. The "droneport" is located about 180 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, within range of Ukrainian middle-strike drones, yet it continues to expand without apparent hindrance. A similar situation can be seen at Donetsk airport, which is also used to launch drones at Ukraine: after several strikes during the active phase of combat operations, it has returned to service.

In our view, given the shortage of anti-aircraft missiles, it would be more effective to follow the principle of "hit the archer, not the arrows"—prioritizing the destruction of launchers and launch infrastructure rather than intercepting UAVs after they have already been launched. Even when air defense systems, mobile fire groups, and jammers are deployed, the defenses of such facilities can be overwhelmed by a mass attack. It is therefore unclear why Wildberries warehouses appear to be higher-priority targets for the Ukrainian side than "droneports."

The fuel crisis continues to worsen in some Russian regions. The governor of the Orenburg region acknowledged the difficult situation after the Orsk oil refinery was struck on Aug. 11. The plant was completely shut down, and repairs reportedly require replacing imported components that are difficult to obtain because of sanctions. Fuel imports are insufficient to cover the shortfall in Russia, while fuel purchased from India and Morocco has yet to reach the market.

Lines formed at gas stations in Moscow and the Moscow region last week, and some stations reportedly ran out of gasoline. Although there have been no new strikes on the oil refineries supplying the capital region, previously damaged refining capacity in other regions may already be unable to redistribute fuel in the same volumes as before. The shortage is more pronounced in major population centers, while fuel is often more readily available at roadside gas stations farther from cities.

Media reports have emerged stating that the Federal Security Service (FSB) intends to "eliminate the border" with the occupied territories of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions. These reports are based on draft orders (1, 2) to abolish the border zone regime in the Rostov and Voronezh regions, as well as in annexed Crimea. The documents have not yet been adopted and say nothing about eliminating checkpoints. The border zone applies near the state border and imposes special rules on those entering or staying within it, including permit requirements, restrictions on movement and filming, additional requirements for foreign citizens, and the need to coordinate certain trips. Checkpoints may be located at the entrance to such a zone, where documents are checked and travelers may be asked about the purpose of their trip. At the same time, the law does not establish a maximum depth for the border zone, so theoretically the FSB could extend it tens or even hundreds of kilometers from the border. Formally, however, such a zone must still be linked to the state border.

Following the annexation of Ukrainian territories, under Russian law, the state border no longer runs along the Rostov and Voronezh regions or Crimea, but along the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions. Therefore, maintaining the previous border zone regime in neighboring regions created a legal conflict, which the FSB is now seeking to resolve by bringing its regulations into line with the Russian Constitution and the annexation decisions.

We believe that checkpoints and inspections will likely remain, but on different legal grounds. Martial law has been in effect in the occupied territories since October 2022, allowing for the establishment of checkpoints and vehicle searches. Thus, this is not about introducing free movement between Russia and the occupied territories, but effectively about changing the legal basis for the existing regime. The FSB cannot move the state border—this is outside its authority—but it can abolish the border zone regime in the Rostov and Voronezh regions, as well as in Crimea.

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