Throughout a tough week in Ukraine’s floor battle, Russian troops accomplished their conquest of Chasiv Yar, a excessive floor in Ukraine’s japanese Donetsk area, and claimed to have breached the outskirts of Kupiansk, a metropolis with a pre-war inhabitants of greater than 26,000, in Ukraine’s northern Kharkiv area.
Each conquests are the results of months-long efforts and have value the Russians dearly in blood and weapons.
On the identical time, Russian forces pushed into Dnipropetrovsk, a Ukrainian area whose borders they first breached over the weekend of June 7-8, capturing the village of Sichneve, which Russians name Yanvarskoye. It was the third claimed conquest in Dnipropetrovsk. Earlier, Russia captured Dachnoye and Malynivka.
Russia additionally started to launch jet-powered unmanned aerial automobiles to lethal impact, killing 31 folks in Kyiv on July 31.
Ukraine responded with deep strikes on Russian transport networks and power hubs.
A serviceman of the 57th Separate Motorised Infantry Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine repairs a tank within the Kharkiv area, on August 1, 2025 (Inna Varenytsia/Reuters)
Chasiv Yar and the ‘fortress belt’
Russia’s Ministry of Defence stated its paratroopers overran Chasiv Yar on July 31.
Moscow’s forces started to besiege the town in March 2024, a few month after the autumn of Avdiivka, 30km (20 miles) to the south freed up offensive troops.
Russia prioritised this line of assault after conquering the town of Bakhmut in Could 2023, following months of battles led by Wagner Group mercenaries.
Since Bakhmut fell, Russian forces have conquered a salient working 27km (17 miles) west of it. Chasiv Yar introduced a problem and a prize – a problem as a result of it sat astride a canal that fashioned a pure defensive barrier, and a prize as a result of it’s a vantage level from which Russia can survey the remaining free areas of Donetsk.
“Chasiv Yar is a key peak when it comes to adjusting statement and conducting fight operations,” army skilled Vitaly Kiselyov instructed the Soloviev Stay tv community in Russia.
“To all appearances, we shall be outflanking from the south and the north, steadily puncturing the enemy forces and edging them out, all of the extra in order we now maintain an advantageous peak relative to all different settlements,” stated Kiselyov.
One other Russian army skilled stated the seize of Chasiv Yar enabled Russian forces to advance in the direction of the so-called “fortress belt” of closely defended Ukrainian cities in Donetsk.
“Chasiv Yar is located on a hilltop, and past it, there are very huge expanses of flat terrain. The closest agglomeration – Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka and Kostiantynivka – is effectively fortified,” Andrey Marochko instructed the Russian newswire TASS.
Chasiv Yar sits on the northern finish of an tried Russian encirclement of Konstiantynivka, and on Saturday, the Russian Defence Ministry claimed its forces had captured Aleksandro-Kalinovo, on the southern finish of the crab’s claw enclosing Konstiantynivka.
Some analysts disagreed that the autumn of Chasiv Yar was as essential as Russian analysts made it sound.
“Tactical Russian advances westward in Chasiv Yar don’t represent an operationally important improvement on this space,” stated the Institute for the Examine of Warfare (ISW), a Washington-based suppose tank.
“Russian forces have held most of northern and central Chasiv Yar since late January 2025 and commenced advancing in southwestern Chasiv Yar in mid-June 2025,” the ISW stated.
It added that Ukrainian traces of communication weren’t additional threatened, since “Russian forces have been inside tube artillery vary of Ukraine’s essential logistics route by the fortress belt since late January 2025 and have held positions alongside the T-0504 Bakhmut-Kostyantynivka freeway for a number of months, and have but to considerably threaten Ukrainian positions in Kostiantynivka.”
Residents stroll on the website of an residence constructing hit by a Russian army strike within the metropolis of Kramatorsk, Donetsk area, Ukraine, July 31, 2025 (Yevhen Titov/Reuters)
The state of affairs was completely different in Pokrovsk, some 35km (22 miles) southwest of Chasiv Yar, which Russia has additionally besieged.
Denis Pushilin, the top of the pro-Russian, self-proclaimed Donetsk Folks’s Republic, stated Ukrainian traces of communication into Pokrovsk had been impaired.
“The enemy has been largely denied the likelihood to ship ammunition and perform troop rotation,” Pushilin stated.
Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii stated on Telegram, “Probably the most tough state of affairs now’s within the Pokrovsk, Dobropillia, and Novopavlivka instructions,” naming two extra settlements that lie behind Pokrovsk in unoccupied Donetsk.
“The enemy is growing efforts to seize our key agglomerations, searching for weak spots in our defence, and conducting lively fight operations concurrently on a number of fronts,” he stated.
He stated Russian forces had been forming sabotage teams within the Ukrainian rear in an try at “whole infiltration”, and that Ukraine was “utilizing anti-sabotage reserves, whose process is to seek for and destroy enemy sabotage teams”.
Kupiansk and the ‘buffer zone’
On the northern finish of the entrance, Russia claimed to have entered Kupiansk in Kharkiv on Tuesday.
Russian troops had been preventing road battles in Kupiansk, Russian army skilled Andrey Marochko instructed TASS. He stated troops had been deploying small, cellular teams focusing on Ukrainian positions with exact strikes.
Russia’s forays into Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv lie past Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson, the 4 areas Russia formally annexed in September 2022.
Russia claims to be making a buffer zone to guard these areas, however Ukraine believes that declare to be an excuse for additional occupation.
Russian low-level officers have urged that the buffer zone ought to be at the very least 30km (20 miles) deep, however the Russian management has positioned no such restrict.
Former pro-Russia service members collect to have fun the Paratroopers’ Day, the annual vacation of Russia’s Airborne Troops, in Donetsk, Russian-controlled a part of Ukraine, August 2, 2025 (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)
Moscow additionally continued its long-range strikes towards Ukraine.
An in a single day drone assault on July 31 killed 31 folks in Kyiv. The Ukrainian Inside Minister Ihor Klymenko stated Russia used jet-powered Shahed drones, which journey a lot quicker than the propeller-driven sort, and are tough to intercept.
The Ukrainian Air Pressure reported that Russian forces launched eight Iskander-Okay cruise missiles from Kursk metropolis and 309 Shahed-type and decoy drones. United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer referred to as it “a completely vile, brutal strike”.
The disagreement
Whilst he pressed on with these offensives, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that Ukraine was not prepared for peace talks.
Throughout a information convention with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday, Putin stated, “In precept, we are able to wait if the Ukrainian management believes that now shouldn’t be the time,” including that “all disappointments come up from extreme expectations.”
He was referring to the truth that three rounds of direct negotiations have yielded no ceasefire.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko go to the Valaam Monastery within the Republic of Karelia, Russia, August 1, 2025 (Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov/Pool by way of Reuters)
United States President Donald Trump repeated final week that he was “dissatisfied” in Putin, and has in latest weeks allowed US weapons to circulation to Ukraine.
On Friday, the US Pentagon stated it will promote Superior Medium-Vary Air-to-Air (AMRAAM) missiles to Ukraine.
Trump additionally bought right into a social media spat with Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s Nationwide Safety Council, after Medvedev objected to Trump’s August 9 deadline for Russia to seal a ceasefire deal.
On Saturday, Trump wrote on his TruthSocial service that he had “ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned within the applicable areas, simply in case these silly and inflammatory statements are extra than simply that”.
On the identical day, Trump introduced a 25 p.c tariff on India for getting Russian oil. On Tuesday, he instructed CNBC, “I’m going to lift that very considerably over the following 24 hours, as a result of they’re shopping for Russian oil, they’re fuelling the battle machine, and in the event that they’re going to try this, I’m not going to be completely satisfied.”
Ukraine’s strikes
In the meantime, Ukraine stepped up its interdiction marketing campaign towards Russian power and transport infrastructure.
On July 31, Russia stated it shot down 32 Ukrainian long-range UAVs in its western border areas. On account of the Ukrainian assault, it stated rail providers within the Volgograd area had been delayed.
Ukraine has been attacking the Russian railways connecting defence factories to the entrance, stated open-source intelligence gatherer Frontelligence Perception.
Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Heart for Countering Disinformation, stated a radio manufacturing facility in Penza, Russia was attacked, which made cellular command complexes and automatic fight management techniques.
On Saturday, Ukraine unleashed a wide-ranging set of strikes.
Kovalenko stated the Radio Plant in Penza was attacked a second time, together with Electropribor, a producer of encryptors, safe modems and switches for army and intelligence businesses.
Ukraine additionally hit a storage and launch website for Shahed drones on the Primorsko-Akhtarsk army airfield in Krasnodar.
However its greatest hits had been towards oil refineries.
Ukraine attacked the Ryazan Oil Refinery, certainly one of Russia’s 4 largest, chargeable for greater than 6 p.c of all refining in Russia, inflicting a hearth. Additionally hit was the Novokuybyshevsk Oil Refinery close to Samara metropolis, the place explosions had been filmed. Ukraine additionally struck the Annanafteproduct oil depot within the Voronezh area, setting it alight, and on Sunday, a Ukrainian long-range strike hit an oil depot in Sochi on the Black Sea.
Ukrainian media reported that explosions broken the primary Russian gasoline pipeline carrying gasoline from Turkmenistan to Russia, shutting it down indefinitely. The media shops stated it provided army industries, together with the Demikhov Machine-Constructing Plant, the MiG plane firm, and the Magnum-Okay ammunition plant.
Service members of the thirteenth Operative Goal Brigade ‘Khartiia’ of the Nationwide Guard of Ukraine relaxation as they return from a fight mission within the Kharkiv area, Ukraine, August 2, 2025 (Sofiia Gatilova/Reuters)
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