Sitrep for August 24-27, 2026 (as of 10 a.m. UTC+3)

Frontline Situation Update

In the Dobropillia direction, where, according to our team and other analysts, the Russian Armed Forces made a localized breakthrough, the corresponding expansion of the "gray zone" has still not been reflected on DeepState's map. The Russian Ministry of Defense has announced the capture of the villages of Kucheriv Yar and Hannivka. However, the ministry has released only combat footage, which does not confirm even partial control of the villages. Nevertheless, individual Russian assault troops are already infiltrating these settlements.

Over the past one to two weeks, DeepState analysts have shown small Russian advances west of Kostiantynivka, around the village of Dovha Balka and the villages of Stepanivka and Illinivka. According to Ukrainian military analyst Bohdan Myroshnykov, the situation for Ukrainian forces in the Kostiantynivka direction is becoming particularly difficult. A significant concentration of Russian units has been observed around Stepanivka and Dovha Balka, while the village of Mykolaipillia, announced as captured by Russia on Aug. 20, remains in the contested area with individual Russian soldiers managing to reach the village. The situation is similar farther northwest, in the village of Torske, where DeepState reported Russian advances in the vicinity of the village of Sofiivka.

The situation continues to deteriorate not only in the Kostiantynivka direction, but also in the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk direction, where the RuAF continue to actively infiltrate the town of Mykolaivka, east of Sloviansk. Until recently, the Oleksandrivka direction remained a priority for the AFU. There are now signs that the Ukrainian command is devoting greater attention to the Donetsk region as a whole, and to the Lyman direction in particular. This is important in the context of the fighting for Sloviansk, because until the RuAF reach the Siverskyi Donets River from the Lyman direction, Ukrainian drone operators can continue striking Russian forces advancing toward Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

In the northwestern part of the Lyman direction, which is also often treated as a separate Rubtsi direction, fighting continued near the village of Ridkodub throughout the summer. In recent days, evidence of AFU advances has emerged: Ukrainian forces have reached the village of Nove and are gradually advancing toward the villages of Zelena Dolyna in the Donetsk region and Novoliubivka in the Luhansk region. A contested area now appears to extend from Ridkodub to Novoliubivka. The AFU are also attacking from the south, from the village of Stavky toward the village of Kolodiazi. All these attacks indicate an effort to cut off the Russian salient extending toward the village of Novoselivka. If the AFU can indeed cut off the salient along the Katerynivka-Kolodiazi line and begin clearing it, this would significantly complicate the situation for the RuAF in the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk direction, as it would hinder their advance on Sloviansk from the north. At the same time, Ukrainian drone operators and artillery crews would be able to effectively target Russian forces advancing from the east.

The DeepState project continues to display Ukrainian advances with a delay for operational security reasons. Nevertheless, even the pro-Russian Telegram channel Rybar has acknowledged the AFU's gains.

Notably, during this local offensive, the AFU used various types of armored vehicles to support the advance and bring infantry closer to enemy positions. In the near future, while the trees are still covered with foliage, intense combat operations are likely to continue. The 3rd Corps of the AFU, commanded by Andriy Biletsky, the founder and first commander of the Azov Brigade, is responsible for the Lyman and Rubtsi directions.

We attribute the delays in announcing AFU gains, including in the Oleksandrivka direction, in part to the Ukrainian command's desire to force the RuAF to redeploy some of their forces from elsewhere in the Donetsk region to these sectors. This could help ease pressure on the 11th AFU Corps defending Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, as well as facilitate offensive operations by the 3rd Corps.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that AFU positions in the Donetsk region will be reinforced by two "reorganized" groupings. They will be commanded by Denys Prokopenko, commander of the 1st Azov Corps of the National Guard, and Andriy Biletsky, commander of the AFU’s 3rd Corps. It is not yet clear how significantly the command structure will change, including how the reorganized groupings will interact with the Eastern Operational Command or whether the corps will receive additional units. Both corps are considered among the best-trained and most professional formations in Ukraine, capable of operating effectively even with limited resources. According to Robert "Madiar" Brovdi, commander of the AFU’s Unmanned Systems Forces, the Unmanned Systems Forces will provide both formations with all possible support. The corps already have substantial forces under their command; the 3rd Corps, for example, has six brigades. Although this news is generally encouraging, it is important to remember that the situation along the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk axis continues to deteriorate, and even the reorganized groupings will struggle to stabilize it.

Western Assistance

The United Kingdom will declassify and provide Ukraine with technical documentation on the SCALP-EG missile to help Ukraine establish domestic production. The announcement coincided with the visit to Ukraine by the new British Prime Minister, Andy Burnham. Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG is an Anglo-French cruise missile incorporating US components. According to Zelenskyy, France had already agreed to provide the information needed to manufacture or assemble the missiles in Ukraine, and the United Kingdom has now done the same. When Storm Shadow missiles were supplied to Ukraine, there were significant difficulties in obtaining permission to use them against targets on Russian territory because the presence of US components meant that US authorization was also required. Such authorization would probably also be required for production in Ukraine, although it is possible that Ukrainian-made missiles will use only French and British components, effectively creating a version of the Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG without US components.

In addition, Zelenskyy said that a roadmap for further work on the Freyja missile defense system should be drawn up within seven to 10 days. The roadmap should specify when Ukraine will hold meetings with its partners, identify where delays are occurring, and show which companies or countries are blocking individual elements of the project. For Ukraine, it is particularly important that at least the first Freyja systems be deployed before winter. Zelenskyy also said that Norway had confirmed $9 billion in funding for 2027, part of which will likely go toward producing components for Freyja.

Ukraine received a new batch of PAC-3 interceptor missiles for Patriot systems, although neither the number of missiles nor their source was disclosed. However, today's sitrep from the Air Force of the AFU already reported the interception of one of two P-800 Oniks cruise missiles launched, as well as seven missiles fired by 9K720 Iskander mobile short-range ballistic missile systems; the sitrep does not specify the total number of Iskander missiles launched. For the time being, air defenses will almost certainly be able to intercept some ballistic missiles, although it remains unclear how long the new supply will last.

The Italian government has prepared a new military aid package for Ukraine, including air and missile defense systems, Aster 30 interceptor missiles for the SAMP/T system, and seven long-range radars. According to a joint statement issued in July by French President Emmanuel Macron and Zelenskyy, the radars will include five Thales GM40 radars, one Thales Ground Fire 300 and one Leonardo Kronos. The package may include four SAMP/T NG systems, which, as far as we know, should reliably intercept ballistic missiles. Italy plans to transfer some of the Aster 30 interceptor missiles by October, while the rest of the package will take longer to arrive.

Reports indicate Ukraine is testing and has apparently already begun using a new type of battery from the Dutch company Tulip Tech on DJI Mavic 3T and Matrice 4T civilian aerial reconnaissance drones. These higher-capacity batteries double the drones' range compared with standard batteries. Tulip Tech developed them specifically at the request of the Ukrainian military, which sought greater capacity without an increase in battery weight. The company has not disclosed technical details, but we assume that the increased capacity comes at the cost of a shorter service life: as in auto racing, in wartime it is more important to extend a drone's range, even at the expense of battery lifespan.

In the spring, Ukraine began using An-28 aircraft as platforms to launch P1-SUN interceptor drones. M134 Minigun machine guns had previously been mounted on these aircraft, turning them into flying air-defense platforms. Interceptor drones make the use of these aircraft in an air-defense role safer, because a drone shot down by machine-gun fire could explode too close to the aircraft, potentially causing its loss. It has now been reported that Mil Mi-8 helicopters have also been adapted to launch P1-SUN drones.

Ukrainian and Russian Strikes

In an article published on Aug. 24, The New York Times reported that Russia has begun using drones in Ukraine that autonomously select their targets with the help of artificial intelligence. As an example, the article cites an attack on July 6 on the city of Zaporizhzhia. The drone was apparently intended to strike a gas station and selected its propane tanks as the target, but ultimately collided with a building. Three civilians were killed in the resulting explosion. According to local officials interviewed by the NYT, the drone was part of a group that emitted no noticeable radio control signals. This led to the conclusion that the drones were operating autonomously. On July 1, Ukrainian military expert Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov reported seeing a Molniya UAV with no control antennas of any kind. An Nvidia Jetson Orin computing module was found in the wreckage of one of the drones, and an examination of the data recovered from its memory showed that the algorithm was searching for propane tanks at a gas station.

This story triggered another wave of posts about the emergence of a “robot war,” but this was not a drone sent to a designated area to hunt for targets autonomously and capable of deciding on its own which of multiple objects in the area to attack. Judging by the NYT's description, the drone had been trained in advance to search for a specific type of target — in this case, gas station infrastructure.

Over the past year, both sides have begun actively using drones with varying levels of automation. The simplest is computer vision, which highlights potentially relevant objects on the screen, such as cars, trucks or armored vehicles. The final decision to attack remains with the operator. The next level is automatic target tracking and guidance: the operator identifies and designates the target in the video feed, after which the algorithm tracks it and guides the drone toward the target. Even if the connection is subsequently lost, the drone will continue the attack. Such systems have already been widely used by both sides for quite some time and are fundamentally no different from the homing systems used in surface-to-air and anti-ship missiles for decades.

A higher level of automation means that the operator specifies only an area and the type of target to look for, while the drone independently detects a suitable target and guides itself toward it. The case described by the NYT may be one of the first well-documented examples of such behavior.

Technically, this is entirely feasible if the algorithm is trained to recognize only a single narrow category of objects, such as an oil refinery or a gas station. However, such a device does not "understand" the situation the way an operator does: it merely matches the image against a predefined visual template. A drone trained to search for gas stations cannot independently decide that attacking a tank or truck instead would be more advantageous. We previously suggested that Ukrainian long-range drones may have used similar technology: one such UAV, after straying from its route, struck an oil storage facility in Latvia on May 7.

It is also worth noting that the presence of an Nvidia Jetson Orin module in a Russian drone does not in itself mean that Nvidia is knowingly supplying the Russian army. These computing modules are sold by a large number of intermediaries worldwide and reach Russian online stores through long and opaque supply chains. While a Starlink satellite terminal can be remotely disabled, a purchased Nvidia module or Ubiquiti router operates autonomously, and the manufacturer has no "kill switch" that can remotely disable it.

In June, the Ukrainian MoD presented the Litavr drone with automatic guidance, designed to intercept aerial targets and strike ground objects. The operator can pilot the drone into the target area and lock onto a target, after which automation handles a significant portion of the guidance while the operator monitors the flight and makes adjustments if necessary. However, full autonomy creates its own problems for the military employing it: if the drone operates without transmitting data back to its operators, the command receives no imagery or telemetry from it and does not know whether it reached the target or what damage it inflicted. The outcome can be determined from satellite imagery, intelligence or eyewitness posts, but not in real time. This makes it harder to assess the effectiveness of the strike and decide whether to launch another wave. This is why we believe human involvement in aerial attacks will remain necessary for a long time to come.

Another important development concerns the control of Ukrainian long-range drones. On Aug. 24, the Armed Forces of Ukraine struck the Kamensky plant, which produces solid rocket fuel, and the Millerovo airfield in the Rostov region. Both targets are located a considerable distance from the Ukrainian border. Footage of the attacks shows that the drones were manually controlled during the final stage of their flight, with operators adjusting their course and guiding them toward the selected targets. This sets these strikes apart from most long-range drone attacks on more distant parts of Russia, where drones typically follow a pre-programmed route and strike designated coordinates with little visible operator input.

This has prompted speculation that Starlink may have been quietly enabled over Russian territory for Ukrainian drones. Some pro-Russian Telegram channels linked this to the CIA director’s visit to Moscow and the presence of satellites directly over Russia, though in fact they pass over the country constantly. Service availability depends not on a satellite's position in the sky, but on software restrictions and terminal geofencing.

A far more likely explanation is that the attacks on the Rostov region used a mesh network of relay stations, allowing operators to maintain contact with a drone at distances of approximately 150 to 200 kilometers from the border. Relay stations can be positioned on the ground, on other drones or on balloons. Each node receives a signal and passes it along, allowing the operator to maintain contact with the drone beyond direct line of sight. Ukrainian authorities have previously accused Russia of placing ground-based relay stations in Belarus, claiming that they were used to control drones during attacks on Kyiv and the Kyiv region.

The AFU have previously demonstrated the ability to use such technology, for example, in the drone strikes on Russian helicopters in the Voronezh region in late April, approximately 150 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. Thus, the attacks on the Millerovo airfield and the Kamensky plant in the Rostov region are consistent with the known capabilities of relay networks and do not require Starlink.

Russian forces continue to target Ukrainian shops and malls. On Aug. 24, Russian forces attempted to strike the Karavan shopping center in Dnipro, followed on Aug. 25 by strikes on an Epicentr DIY retail chain shop in Odesa and a mall in the village of Slobozhanske near Dnipro. On Aug. 27, warehouses belonging to Rozetka and Fozzy Group in the Kyiv region caught fire following a strike. This confirms a shift in Russian strikes that we first noted about three weeks ago. Previously, attacks on civilian commercial facilities were focused mainly on Nova Poshta [a private Ukrainian postal and courier company] terminals and industrial warehouses, but strikes on stores and malls have now become noticeably more frequent. This change may also be linked to Ukraine’s retaliatory campaign against warehouses of major Russian online retailers Wildberries and Ozon.

In this context, it is worth noting that Putin issued a new decree, allowing retail and industrial businesses to be placed under external management if their owners fail to protect their facilities from drones or promptly restore them after attacks. In effect, the state has shifted responsibility for war-related losses onto business owners.

This decision reflects Putin’s long-standing attitude toward private business. Evgeny Chichvarkin [Russian émigré entrepreneur] has noted that Russian authorities perceive entrepreneurs as "crooks" who obtained property through dishonest means and to whom the state owes nothing. Under this logic, business losses resulting from attacks remain the owners’ responsibility, and failure to deal with the consequences could lead to the seizure of the business.

On Aug. 23, Ukrainian drones apparently attempted to attack the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. Footage was published showing drones flying in that direction and smoke rising in the distance, but it is impossible to determine whether at least one of them reached its target.

In any event, the attack did not prevent Russia from launching a Soyuz-2.1b rocket the following day “in the interests of the Russian MoD.” The rocket successfully placed an unspecified spacecraft into its designated orbit.

Anatoly Zak, the author of RussianSpaceWeb, noted that a warning about the drop zones for the rocket’s jettisoned components had been published in advance. The locations of these drop zones correspond to a trajectory typical of GLONASS satellite launches rather than Rassvet spacecraft launches, as Ukrainian Telegram channels had suggested.

New details have emerged regarding the alleged attempt to attack a Ukrainian Antonov An-124 Ruslan aircraft at Leipzig Airport on Aug. 4. At the time, a drone carrying explosives was found near the aircraft, after which German police began searching the airport grounds and adjacent fields.

On Aug. 14, another drone carrying explosives—50 g of RDX—was reportedly found in a field near the airport. German law enforcement agencies initially believed that three drones had been involved: one had been found near the Ukrainian aircraft, another had collided with and damaged a DHL aircraft on approach, and a third was being searched for in the vicinity of the airport. The newly discovered drone therefore appears to have been one of the drones involved in the Aug. 4 incident and does not indicate a second attempted sabotage operation.

Photographs from the scene show Russian aircraft, but they are unrelated to the incident. These are sanctioned Russian aircraft that have been impounded at the airport since 2022 and are not in operation.

Conscription, Mobilization and Contract Military Service

Armenian Security Council Secretary Alen Simonyan said on TV Rain [independent Russian television channel] that Armenia is ready to accept Russians who may leave Russia in the event of a new wave of mobilization. According to him, they will not face additional checks at the border and will still be able to enter Armenia using an internal Russian passport. Simonyan emphasized that those who leave would receive assistance and would be able to return to Russia whenever they felt able to do so.

We are grateful to Armenia and Kazakhstan for the way they welcomed Russians during the 2022 mobilization. Kazakhstan was one of the main destinations for Russians leaving Russia at the time. Human rights activists now warn that Kazakhstan is no longer as safe for deserters and service members. Nevertheless, its role in the fall of 2022 was extremely important.

Our assessment of the likelihood of a new wave of mobilization has not changed.

We need your support to continue our efforts. Please consider making a monthly donation to CIT through our fundraising page or Patreon.