Sitrep for July 10-13, 2026 (as of 10 a.m. UTC+3)
Frontline Situation Update
Over the past several days, there have been virtually no significant changes along the frontline. Fighting for the town of Kostiantynivka continues, and new footage has emerged showing Russian flags, indicating that the Russian Armed Forces have reached the northern outskirts of the town.
Attention is now focused on a new Ukrainian assault tactic under which assault troops advance to their positions carrying only their personal combat gear, while all additional equipment and supplies are delivered after their arrival by heavy Vampire [Baba Yaga] UAVs. Compared with current RuAF tactics, the difference is substantial. Russian assault troops must carry backpacks weighing several dozen kilograms—which can be seen in some combat footage—containing limited supplies of food and water, a radio and ammunition. Ukrainian troops, by contrast, carry only their personal equipment: a helmet, body armor, a weapon and spare magazines. Reports indicate that even Starlink terminals and heavy weapons, such as machine guns or anti-tank guided missile systems (ATGMs), can be delivered by heavy UAVs. As a result, Armed Forces of Ukraine assault troops gain an advantage while crossing the most dangerous stretch of terrain—the kill zone—as they are less fatigued and able to move more quickly.
In response, Russian forces have been attempting to detect and target these heavy Ukrainian UAVs. Ukrainian servicemen operating in the Kostiantynivka direction have reported such efforts in recent months. On July 10, the Russian Ministry of Defense released footage claiming to show the destruction of one such drone launch site near the town of Dobropillia by four Gerbera Seeker UAVs.
In addition, Michael Kofman has previously noted that Russia continues to expand its network of ground surveillance radars within its Airspace Control System [SKVP] along the frontline. These compact radar units are frequently mounted in trees or on elevated towers to detect incoming Ukrainian UAVs and improve the effectiveness of Russian counter-drone operations.
In a recent address, Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced a restructuring of AFU’s Assault Forces, including reforms to their command structure. Although they have not yet been established as a separate service branch, the changes are intended to further develop and streamline their organization. Ukraine also plans to establish the Joint Rapid Reaction Forces, which will combine assault, drone and artillery units under a single command to enable the fastest possible response to developments along the frontline.
Under this plan, the new formation would be built around the existing assault regiments within the Ukrainian Ground Forces, reinforced with dedicated artillery and drone units. In our assessment, this formation would function as a centralized rapid-reaction reserve for reinforcing critical sectors of the frontline. These "emergency" forces would have their own organic artillery and drone capabilities.
It is worth recalling that Ukraine's Air Assault Forces already constitute a well-established service branch with permanent brigades, their own history and recruitment system, an independent command structure and dedicated artillery, reconnaissance, engineering and drone units. The Air Assault Forces report directly to the Commander-in-Chief of the AFU, Oleksandr Syrskyi. For example, the 8th Corps includes three airmobile brigades, three air assault brigades, one artillery brigade and a UAV battalion, giving it a full complement of organic combat support assets.
Meanwhile, the assault regiments were not permanently incorporated into the newly established Territorial Army Corps. Instead, they remained a centralized reserve and earned the nickname "Syrskyi's personal guard." For example, the 225th Assault Regiment could operate alongside a brigade from the 17th Army Corps while remaining under a separate chain of command. As a result, although the corps headquarters is responsible for that sector, it does not exercise command over the assault regiment, creating obvious coordination challenges.
Under the new plan, the assault regiments will be reinforced with their own artillery, reconnaissance and drone units before being consolidated into the Joint Rapid Reaction Forces. Initially, the new formation will remain part of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, but it could eventually be reorganized into a separate service branch. In our view, the key distinction from the Air Assault Forces will be their role. The Air Assault Forces are likely to remain assigned to specific sectors of the frontline, whereas the Joint Rapid Reaction Forces will serve as official “emergency” forces and be deployed wherever the situation becomes most critical along Ukraine's defensive line.
Brigadier General Dmytro Voloshyn, who previously commanded the 8th Army Corps of the Air Assault Forces of Ukraine, has been appointed commander of the Joint Rapid Reaction Forces. In our view, the appointment is likely intended, at least in part, as a response to the recent scandals involving the assault regiments, including allegations of violence against servicemen. This appears to be what Zelenskyy was referring to when he said that some of the assault forces' problems would be handled by law enforcement authorities.
In his address, Zelenskyy also announced the establishment of a dedicated command responsible for conducting long-range—effectively strategic—strikes against Russia. The new command will concentrate all available resources on degrading Russia's capacity to wage war. In essence, the plan is to establish a Joint Operational Command that will coordinate all assigned forces and assets, collect and process intelligence, including information provided by European and US partners, plan strike operations and assign missions to subordinate units. While the AFU General Staff will continue to determine overall targeting priorities, operational planning and execution will be handled by the new command.
The new Ukrainian structure can be compared, for instance, to the British Royal Air Force’s Bomber Command, which from 1942 onward was responsible for Great Britain’s strategic campaign against Germany. It was likewise a massive organization with its own system of planning, reconnaissance, training, logistics and supply under the command of Arthur Harris—who earned the nickname "Butcher" for his disregard for personnel losses and civilian casualties. In 1941, the RAF concluded that nighttime bombings of German factories were not achieving great success and decided to shift to area bombings of neighborhoods where German workers employed in the military-industrial complex lived compactly. The goal was to break the morale of the German population, particularly the working class. In 1942, Winston Churchill’s chief scientific advisor, Frederick Lindemann, proposed a strategy to the government called Dehousing; his memorandum suggested demolishing working-class residential areas to disrupt military production. At the time, the 1907 Hague Convention was in effect, which prohibited attacks on undefended cities. However, German cities were equipped with air defenses, meaning they formally did not fall under the convention's protection.
Harris himself explicitly stated that the destruction of cities, the murder of workers and the disruption of normal life across Germany, as well as the creation of a refugee problem unprecedented in scale, were recognized and intentionally pursued objectives.
Although the bombings caused fear, apathy and defeatism among the population, the discontent with the regime and loss of trust in the Luftwaffe did not lead to mass resistance against the regime, an uprising or attempts to force Germany's leadership to halt the war. Consequently, the population endured the hardships, but adapted and continued to work; the police state maintained control and an economic collapse or industrial shutdown never materialized.
In his memorandum, Lindemann proceeded from the erroneous assumption that the German economy was already operating at its limit and that a mass loss of housing among workers would trigger a production crisis. In reality, despite the bombings, Germany's military-industrial complex continued to grow until 1944, and the effect of the area attacks turned out to be significantly smaller than expected.
On the one hand, an analogy can be drawn between the special command within the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the UK's RAF Bomber Command, as both placed their bets on long-range strikes against the enemy, including with the aim of destroying production capacities and the desire to force the population to pressure the country's leadership into stopping the war.
On the other hand, it is Russia's regular strikes on residential buildings that resemble the Dehousing policy, the futility of which was proven in post-war studies.
In the latest episode of the Russia Contingency podcast, Michael Kofman argued that no single factor in the current war is likely to enable Ukraine to achieve its key objectives, such as freezing the war on acceptable terms. One essential component, he said, is stabilizing the frontline. At present, the Russian army is making only minimal gains, and at its current pace it would take years for Putin to complete the conquest of the Donbas. Another component, on which Ukraine's leadership is now placing considerable emphasis, is its long-range strike campaign against Russian industrial facilities, aimed at making the war an increasingly heavy burden on the Russian economy.
Ukrainian and Russian StrikesÂ
On July 9, the Azov Optical-Mechanical Plant, a defense industry factory in the Rostov region, was struck. The facility manufactures optical and radar equipment, missile guidance systems and other high-precision components.
On July 10, the Ilsky oil refinery in the Krasnodar region was attacked again. A day earlier, on July 9, an oil depot in the hamlet of Vyazniki in the Stavropol region was also struck. As we have noted previously, such attacks do not completely destroy an oil refinery; rather, they damage individual storage tanks and processing units that can later be repaired. For example, the Exilenova+ project analyzed satellite imagery of the Saratov oil refinery and concluded that the July 8 strike damaged an isomerization unit and two storage tanks.
On July 12, the Syzran oil refinery in the Samara region was attacked by drones. One person was killed and three others were taken to hospital, including one child. The previous day, the regional branch of the state broadcaster VGTRK had reported that restrictions on fuel sales had been lifted—an interesting coincidence, if indeed it was one.
In our previous sitrep, we reported on the launch of the campaign targeting tankers in the Sea of Azov. It is worth noting that some Russian-language reports contain a machine translation error from Ukrainian, causing the tankers to be described as having been destroyed, whereas the strikes in fact only damaged them.
To protect against drones, some tankers have started stretching cables above their wheelhouses.
On July 10, following Ukrainian drone raids, Russia suspended navigation through the Azov-Don Sea Canal, which connects the Don River with the Sea of Azov and is used, among other purposes, for grain exports. According to experts, the shutdown of the canal could affect nearly a quarter of Russia's wheat exports through the Sea of Azov.
The Swedish OSINT account Auonsson, after analyzing satellite imagery, confirmed the effective suspension of Russian shipping through the Kerch Strait. Before the Ukrainian strikes began, 98 vessels were observed waiting north of the Kerch Strait for permission to transit. After the attacks began on July 6-7, the number fell to 42, then to 28 by July 8, and to just three by the morning of July 11.
Russian forces, presumably in response to the attacks in the Sea of Azov, again struck the Ukrainian ports of Chornomorsk, Pivdennyi and Izmail. It is claimed that one of the strikes hit a vessel that had been converted for the launch of uncrewed surface vessels.
A humanitarian crisis is unfolding in occupied Crimea. Beginning on July 13, the Russian Red Cross will start distributing humanitarian aid in Crimea and Sevastopol, including food and hygiene kits, drinking water and rehabilitation equipment such as wheelchairs, walkers, canes and crutches.
In the early hours of July 12, Russia launched six ballistic missiles at Ukraine. Once again, none of them were intercepted. Apparently, Ukraine has simply run out of PAC-3 interceptor missiles.
According to Kofman, the Russian air campaign typically develops over the course of a year as follows: at the beginning of the year, Russia strikes defense-industrial enterprises and residential areas with missiles, and closer to summer or fall, switches its focus to energy infrastructure, gas production, and gas distribution facilities in an attempt to disrupt heating before the winter season. At the moment, it appears that we are observing this gradual transition toward strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
The UN notes that June became the deadliest month for Ukraine's civilian population since April 2022. According to its tally, at least 265 civilians were killed and 1,816 were injured in territory controlled by Ukraine. According to our data, 296 people were killed and another 2,414 were injured (72 percent of the total number of casualties on both sides of the frontline). We do not know what accounts for this discrepancy in the casualty figures. One possible explanation is that the UN does not include people suffering from acute stress reactions, whom we count among the injured.
A video has emerged showing a poorly secured Yakushev-Borzov four-barrel aircraft machine gun (YakB-12.7) on a pedestal mount, which spun around its own axis during firing due to a flawed mount design. As a result, the gunner was thrown out of the truck bed. There are, however, successful examples of using machine guns similarly mounted in the back of a vehicle. According to servicemen, additional shock absorbers are attached to the weapon to dampen the powerful recoil.
The Federal Security Service (FSB) has announced that it foiled an alleged FPV drone attack on airfields in the Amur and Chelyabinsk regions. According to the agency, Ukrainian forces dropped containers carrying FPV drones from balloons and fixed-wing UAVs in the Belgorod region. Hired saboteurs allegedly retrieved the containers and concealed them beneath false bottoms in passenger-car trailers before transporting them deep into Russia. There, they assembled the drones in rented garages and prepared them for attacks on the Ukrainka airfield in the Amur region and the Shagol airfield in the Chelyabinsk region. "Every unlawful action was under the close operational control of the Russian intelligence services and was documented," the FSB's statement said. On the one hand, this could have been a staged operation or a false flag incident, given the extensive video footage documenting the operation from its very beginning. On the other hand, it would not be surprising if the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) were attempting to carry out further operations similar to "Spiderweb."
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