Sitrep for Aug. 3-7, 2026 (as of 10 a.m. UTC+3)
Frontline Situation Update
In the Kharkiv region, Russian forces continue advancing from two directions toward the village of Bilyi Kolodiaz. They are still attempting to advance from the village of Artilne toward the villages of Ustynivka and Ivashkyne, while also pushing from the northwest—from the village of Vovchanski Khutory toward Bilyi Kolodiaz itself. Meanwhile, the MoD has claimed to have captured Ustynivka, Bilyi Kolodiaz and the village of Baksheivka to its east. This time, however, the ministry did not even release any flag-planting photo ops, publishing only combat footage. Nevertheless, this sector of the frontline has become much more active than it was in previous months.
In the Kostiantynivka direction, footage has emerged showing Ukrainian airstrikes on Russian positions in the town of Kostiantynivka. The strikes have been geolocated in various parts of the town, including central and northern districts. Because the Armed Forces of Ukraine are employing precision-guided air-dropped bombs, the strikes themselves do not indicate that all of these areas are under the control of the Russian Armed Forces. It is entirely possible that Ukrainian positions remain in the vicinity of the targeted locations. Fighting for Kostiantynivka continues, but Russian forces are gradually consolidating their positions and taking control of the northern part of the town. This area remains contested for now. It is unlikely that Kostiantynivka will be captured before the end of August.
Also in the Donetsk region, in the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk direction, Russian forces struck a bridge in the city of Sloviansk, leaving it almost completely destroyed. Footage of the aftermath shows several bridge spans collapsed. A narrow section remains intact, but it is too narrow for military vehicles; however, it can still be crossed on foot. Two civilian vehicles that fell from the bridge are visible below. According to the person filming the footage, there were no fatalities. The apparent objective of the strike was to complicate AFU logistics east of Sloviansk, near the town of Mykolaivka and the villages of Rai-Oleksandrivka, Orikhuvatka and Nykonorivka. The bridge's destruction also complicates travel toward the city of Kramatorsk. Although this was not the only crossing in the area, its loss will make it more difficult for the AFU to reach their positions in this sector.
We continue to assess the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk direction as the RuAF's highest priority. For a long time, however, the AFU placed greater emphasis on counterattacks in the Dnipropetrovsk region in an effort to impede the Russian advance west of the town of Huliaipole. Now, possibly as a result of Mykhailo Drapatyi's appointment as Commander-in-Chief, the 33rd Separate Assault Regiment has been redeployed to the Sloviansk area, where it has taken part in counter-battery operations and even assisted with the evacuation of civilians. This should strengthen the AFU grouping in the area and slow the Russian advance toward the last major urban agglomeration in the Donbas.
In the Dobropillia direction, DeepState has mapped Russian advances near the villages of Shakhove and Nove Shakhove. It was toward this sector that Russian armored vehicles advancing from the village of Novoekonomichne were headed during the assault we covered last week. Although that mechanized assault was repelled, the RuAF nevertheless managed to make further gains in the area.
Footage has been published showing drone strikes of the AFU’s 118th Mechanized Brigade against Russian positions on the eastern outskirts of Orikhiv. Although no soldiers are visible in the videos, they appear to indicate that Russian assault troops have already managed to infiltrate Ukrainian rear areas within Orikhiv itself. While the Orikhiv direction, together with Mala Tokmachka, is not currently a priority one, Russian assault troops continue to “seep” farther forward. OSINT researcher Playfra has suggested that the soldiers reached the town via the village of Novodanylivka. It remains unclear, however, whether the assault troops were subsequently eliminated. Although there is still no immediate threat to Orikhiv—and such infiltrations can occur as far as 10 km behind enemy lines—it is important to monitor these developments closely and strengthen defensive measures in this direction.
In the Sumy region, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed to have captured the border village of Ryzhivka, releasing only footage of combat. Ryzhivka is located south of the village of Tyotkino in Russia’s Kursk region. West of Tyotkino, the DeepState map has long shown a small Ukrainian bridgehead (1, 2). Although this position is relatively easy to hold, being situated between the state border and a river, it serves little apparent purpose. There has been no news from this sector for quite some time, and we doubt that Ukrainian forces are still present there.
According to the Black Bird Group, a Finnish independent monitoring team, the RuAF captured 106 square kilometers in July. This is significantly more than in June and exceeds the estimates of other projects that track territorial changes. It also represents the Russian military’s greatest monthly advance since January. Although this year’s summer offensive can still be regarded as unsuccessful for the RuAF overall, there has nevertheless been some increase in activity during the second half of the summer. Unlike Michael Kofman, however, we continue to believe that combat operations have reached a strategic stalemate.
Ukrainian and Russian Strikes
Returning to the topic of Ukrainian strikes on Russian logistics, we note a report by the AFU’s 412th Nemesis Brigade, which includes footage of strikes against, among other targets, a fairly large convoy of trucks. This once again suggests that the expectation that attacks on trucks would discourage drivers from using the land bridge to Crimea has not yet been borne out. The Nemesis Brigade released drone strike footage showing attacks on clearly military targets as well as trucks whose cargo could not be conclusively identified. Russian forces continue to use unmarked vehicles, and in June, Robert "Madiar" Brovdi, Commander of the AFU’s Unmanned Systems Forces, stated that his forces would target any truck traveling along the R-280 highway.
In recent months, Russia has intensified its strikes on Ukrainian commercial and logistics facilities. On Aug. 5 alone, attacks (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) targeted two logistics complexes belonging to the Epicentr chain of home-improvement hypermarkets, Nova Poshta’s sorting center, Intertop Ukraine’s main logistics center, as well as Rozetka and Toyota warehouses. The Russian MoD does not conceal that it targets these facilities, but each time claims that they store dual-use goods. By the same logic, virtually any store, postal terminal or commercial warehouse could be designated as a legitimate military target. For example, the presence of Toyota pickup trucks in the AFU and the need for spare parts for them could theoretically be used to justify an auto-parts warehouse as a military target. In our view, this is the same kind of reasoning as attempts to justify strikes on Wildberries warehouses by claiming that the marketplace sold fiber-optic spools for drones. We consider both types of strikes to constitute war crimes.
One of Ukraine’s most critical problems remains Russian ballistic missiles, which Ukrainian air defenses are still unable to intercept. In addition, Russia is increasingly using cluster munitions, which significantly raise the number of civilian casualties. It is worth noting that international humanitarian law prohibits the use of cluster munitions against residential areas, even if military facilities are located nearby. Nevertheless, footage (1, 2) shows such munitions being used against Kyiv on Aug. 5.
During Russia’s large-scale strike on the Kyiv and the surrounding region on Aug. 5, eight people waiting for a train on the Kvitnevyi railway platform, less than 200 meters from warehouses near Brovary, were killed (1, 2). Judging by the damage pattern and the high number of casualties, a cluster munition may have been used in the attack. We consider this strike an unequivocal war crime. In total, 17 people were killed and 44 others were injured in Kyiv and the surrounding region that day. Not a single ballistic missile launched at Ukraine during the early hours of Aug. 5 was intercepted.
Against this backdrop, Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that deliveries of missiles for air-defense systems had fallen threefold compared with 2025. In his view, this could be a means of pressuring Ukraine into becoming more accommodating in negotiations.
We do not know whether the decline is attributable, even in part, to political pressure. A more straightforward explanation is the depletion of Western stocks of air-defense interceptors by the end of 2025. Current production remains insufficient to meet increased demand, particularly after the United States and its allies expended a significant number of missiles in the Middle East. Only around 600-700 PAC-3 MSE interceptors are produced annually, and according to a CSIS assessment, the United States had only about 800 of these missiles remaining in its inventory as of late July. The same shortage likely explains why Donald Trump declined (1, 2) to provide the emergency package of 300 Patriot interceptor missiles requested by Zelenskyy. As a result, the shortage of air-defense interceptors is likely to persist.
Iryna Terekh, Fire Point CEO, gave an extensive interview to The War Zone. She said that the FP-1 UAV, which is frequently used to strike targets in Russia, was originally developed as an analogue of the Shahed-136 (Geran-2) loitering munition. Another concept was to develop a drone capable of carrying the supposedly vast stockpile of Soviet FAB-50 air-dropped bombs believed to be stored in Ukrainian warehouses. However, this ultimately proved to be nothing more than a rumor. It is worth recalling that a similar situation emerged in 2023, when many of the tanks promised to Ukraine were found to have deteriorated in European storage facilities.
Terekh also said that the AI-25TL engine used by the Flamingo missile is only one of five compatible engines. This addresses our earlier concern that engine availability could become a production bottleneck. However, no information has been released about the other engine types, so it is impossible to estimate the missile's potential production rate. There have recently been rumors that an older British-made engine was found in one of the missiles. However, we have not seen sufficient evidence to verify these claims. Commenting on Fire Point's failure to achieve its previously announced Flamingo production target, Terekh explained that the projected output represented the level the company could reach with adequate funding. However, difficulties with a contract and a European loan prevented the company from scaling up production.
Regarding the FP-7.x ballistic missile interceptor, Terekh said that everything required for mass production is ready, except for the radar seeker heads, and that testing has already been completed. The radar seeker heads are still being refined because they have not previously been manufactured in Europe. According to Terekh, the company ultimately intends to produce interceptor missiles without practical production limits. The initial goal is to reach an annual output of at least 2,000 missiles, and the company plans to continue expanding capacity. In our view, this target seems overly ambitious. Northrop Grumman, for example, received two seven-year Pentagon contracts worth $3 billion to expand production of PAC-3 interceptor missiles, yet the planned output of 2,000 missiles per year is not expected to be achieved until the end of the decade. Unlike the US production effort, Fire Point lacks the industrial base of a major defense contractor or the financial resources of the US government. For this reason, we remain skeptical of Terekh's projections, even though Ukraine's economy is considerably more oriented toward wartime production than those of the United States or Europe. If the company succeeds in reaching its stated goal, it will be a remarkable achievement.
In addition to discussing weapons production, Terekh outlined Fire Point's longer-term goals. In particular, the company plans to establish its own satellite constellation to provide independent communications for its drones. However, such a project would require enormous investment, and creating an entire satellite network solely to support one company's UAVs seems highly unrealistic. It would also be extremely difficult to make such a project commercially viable, as it would require a customer base extending well beyond Ukraine.
As we previously reported, the two remaining operational Russian ferries in the Kerch Strait were likely operating between Crimea and the Port of Kavkaz. The Dnipro OSINT Telegram channel has now published photographs of the ferries Lavrentiy and Panagiya and reported that they are being used in a tug-and-barge configuration to transport fuel to the peninsula. Thus, although Russian logistics have become more difficult, Ukraine has not yet succeeded in completely isolating Crimea.
According to Bloomberg, Russian oil refining has fallen to its lowest level since 2002 due to Ukrainian strikes on refineries and sanctions pressure. Despite this, gas station chains in many Russian regions have begun lifting limits on fuel sales, and gasoline prices have fallen for the first time since the crisis began. This suggests that the immediate effects of the fuel shortage have eased, at least in some regions. Although restrictions are sometimes reintroduced following renewed strikes on oil refineries, the situation generally stabilizes over time. The shortage has likely been mitigated by fuel imports from Kazakhstan, Morocco, India and Belarus, though this has come at a significant cost to the Russian budget. The government's decision to permit sales of Euro 2 gasoline have also contributed to this improvement. While its higher sulfur content is harmful to modern engines, making it more available has helped alleviate fuel shortages.
Speaking of the economy, it is worth noting that with the growth of expenses, the real budget revenues of 65 out of 85 regions at the end of 2025 were below the pre-war level of 2021. The main reasons for this were a reduction in uncompensated transfers from the national center and a decline in corporate income tax revenue. This issue primarily affects large companies, such as coal and metallurgical enterprises, whose taxes played a significant role in some regional budgets, rather than small and medium-sized businesses. Nevertheless, the deteriorating economic situation has so far not affected Putin's desire to continue the war.
In the previous sitrep, we noted that the 40-day operation announced by Ukraine to impact Russia had come to an end—it was unclear what would follow. Kyrylo Budanov, Chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine's Ministry of Defense, stated that Ukraine would continue such operations, calling for no special importance to be attached to specific timelines: according to him, the result with which the country emerges from this process is more important. We allowed for the possibility that after 40 days, the Ukrainian leadership might change its position on potential negotiations, put forward tougher conditions, or announce an expansion of long-range strikes. However, nothing of the sort happened, and the operation essentially continues in its previous format, but without loud statements about its timeframe.
Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg, the Russian government is preparing a support package for entrepreneurs affected by the strikes on Wildberries' warehouses. The package includes loan deferrals, debt restructuring, subsidized loans for replenishing working capital, temporary tax incentives, and rate reductions. Additionally, marketplace sellers may be permitted to store goods in Russian Post warehouses. While compensation for lost property is not planned, this could enable some entrepreneurs to gradually resume operations. The marketplace itself is likely to receive support as well. Thus, while the strikes have indeed caused damage to the company, its sellers, and the Russian economy, they have not directly affected the course of the war.
Ukraine continues to carry out sabotage operations in the Russian Federation. On August 5, Vladimir Tkachuk's car was blown up. Tkachuk is the head of Uraldronzavod, which produces Upyr FPV drones. Tkachuk was severely injured and sent to the hospital in intensive care, while his driver-guard was killed. The Ukrainian Telegram channel OSINT Varta published a contract between Uraldronzavod and an unnamed party for the supply of Upyr-11 fiber-optic FPV drones with a flight range of up to 12 km. According to the document, deliveries of up to 10,000 drones per month are involved.
This example illustrates how insignificant the volume of military equipment sold through Wildberries and other online marketplaces is compared with the scale of the RuAF's centralized supplies. The bulk of military supplies is delivered directly by manufacturers and amounts to tens of thousands of drones. Strikes on warehouses may affect individual units that rely on donated funds to purchase equipment, but they are unlikely to have any meaningful impact on the supply of Russia's operational groupings. More broadly, Ukrainian strikes on Wildberries warehouses and oil refineries are intended to reduce Russia's ability to finance the war, manufacture weapons and recruit contract soldiers. However, in July, Russia’s Air Force dropped more than 8,300 air-dropped bombs—the highest monthly total since the start of the full-scale invasion. At present, therefore, economic pressure has neither reduced Russia's weapons production nor led to any noticeable decline in the intensity of its strikes. In practice, both Russia and Ukraine are attempting to force political concessions from each other: Russia is doing so through attacks on Ukraine's energy and civilian infrastructure, and Ukraine—through long-range strikes deep inside Russian territory. For attacks on the economy to directly impact the course of the war, they would need to result in lower missile and drone production or a decline in military recruitment. So far, there are no signs of this, and it will likely take a long time for any meaningful effect to materialize. We do not believe these efforts are bringing the war any closer to an end.
The previous day marked the second anniversary of the AFU's Kursk operation. In August 2024, Ukraine appears to have expected that the bridgehead in Russia's Kursk region would allow it to put pressure on Putin and eventually exchange the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from Russian territory for Russia's agreement to freeze the war along the frontline. However, this objective was never achieved.
Similar claims were made about Ukraine's middle-strike campaign, with some commentators arguing that it was destroying Russian military logistics and effectively isolating Crimea from the combat zone. While living conditions on the peninsula have indeed become more difficult, we do not see any significant impact from this campaign on the situation along the frontline. The proclaimed "isolation of the combat zone" has now continued for several months, yet it has not been followed by any major Ukrainian offensive operation, apart from localized counterattacks in the Novopavlivka and Oleksandrivka directions.
In our view, the war has reached a stage where operational planning should be guided not by the prospect of obtaining dramatic footage of another burning warehouse, but by whether a particular strike is capable of degrading Russia's military capabilities and influencing the course of combat operations. Almost every day, photographs and videos emerge showing fires at facilities inside Russia—for example, yet another Wildberries warehouse. Such images are welcomed by part of the audience, yet at the same time Russian strikes continue to kill and injure civilians in Ukraine every day. Civilians are being killed on both sides, but according to our tally, roughly seven out of every ten civilians killed or injured become victims of Russian, rather than Ukrainian, attacks. Ukraine therefore cannot afford to rely solely on measures that may begin to influence the war only two or three years from now. At a time when ballistic missiles are launched at Ukrainian cities on a regular basis, it is necessary to look for approaches capable of producing faster and more tangible results. We are not in a position to propose a specific course of action, but we believe it is necessary to discuss and develop new ways of directly degrading Russia's military capabilities.
A telling example of the inefficient use of resources occurred when a Ukrainian middle-strike UAV struck a decommissioned Yak-40 passenger aircraft at Belgorod Airport. It is unclear why the drone was used against a retired civilian aircraft instead of a more valuable military target. One possible explanation is that, after nearly exhausting its fuel or battery charge, the operator did not want to lose the UAV and therefore selected the nearest visible target.
A bill has been introduced in Verkhovna Rada [Ukraine's Parliament] that would, among other things, prohibit Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support (TCR) personnel from wearing balaclavas and require them to continuously record both video and audio from the moment they begin checking a person's documents until all procedures have been completed. Their vehicles would also be required to carry dashcams. The bill would also place additional restrictions on the use of force. These proposals come amid another series of controversial incidents involving TCR personnel.
Reuters, citing the HUR, reported that a unit of approximately 90 North Korean troops is undergoing training in Russia's Voronezh region and may receive six KN-23 launchers along with up to 120 ballistic missiles. However, there is still no confirmation that either the weapons have been delivered or the troops have arrived. A video circulated on Russian Telegram channels showing people of East Asian appearance at a training range likewise proves nothing. They are dressed far too warmly for August, leading us to believe that the footage was actually recorded during the Kursk operation.
A UAV carrying explosives was found next to a Ukrainian An-124 aircraft at Leipzig Airport. The explosive device apparently failed to detonate because of a malfunctioning detonator. The most plausible explanation is that this was an act of Russian sabotage. There is no reliable information about the aircraft's cargo. According to one account, the aircraft may have been transporting munitions, such as Aster 30 missiles for SAMP/T air defense systems, from France to Ukraine. Another version claims that the aircraft was empty.
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