Russia and Ukraine are sending assault groups deep behind enemy lines, blurring the front line
The nature of the war has changed once again. Not only in the rear, where the intensity of mutual strikes has increased and warehouses belonging to online marketplaces and other businesses have often become targets. There have also been changes at the front, in tactics. Traditional infiltration by small groups has reached a new level. Now assault units try to slip through undetected not for hundreds of meters, but for kilometers. Sometimes the depth of these raids exceeds 10 kilometers. The idea is that such groups do not require large amounts of supplies and can therefore operate cut off from the main forces. The raids destabilize the enemy’s defenses and can also be dangerous for its drone operators. This has created a new picture at the front: in many sectors, the battle formations of the two armies have become intermixed; control over roads and towns is often unstable; villages change hands several times a week.
Kramatorsk agglomeration
- Russian forces are pressing their offensive on Kramatorsk and Sloviansk from several directions. Having captured most of Kostiantynivka — where video-documented resistance from Ukrainian troops has all but disappeared, suggesting most remaining Ukrainian forces there have withdrawn or been killed — Russian units are now trying to launch an assault on the next settlement along the road to Kramatorsk, the village of Oleksiievo-Druzhkivka. Fighting continues on the village’s southern outskirts, but Russian forces have failed to significantly improve their position there over the past two weeks. The main Russian force in the area is likely still busy clearing Kostiantynivka and nearby villages.
- East of Kostiantynivka, Russian forces have opened a path into the rear of Ukrainian troops that have held positions near Chasiv Yar for years, forcing a Ukrainian retreat in this sector along the Siverskyi Donets–Donbas Canal.
- Farther north along the canal, Russian forces are trying to expand a foothold just outside Kramatorsk, where assault units advanced several kilometers in quick succession and captured Vasyutynske, 5 to 7 kilometers (3 to 4 miles) from the city. Progress in this sector has slowed in recent weeks, since Ukrainian positions remain “intermixed” with Russian ones along the canal’s banks.
- Northwest of Kostiantynivka, Russian troops continue advancing along the Kazenyi Torets River toward Druzhkivka, pushing into the rear of the Ukrainian group defending the Kostiantynivka area. In recent weeks, they have captured Krasnyi Kut and reached Raiske, just 3 to 5 kilometers (2 to 3 miles) from Druzhkivka’s southwestern outskirts.
- Farther west, a Russian group fighting its way toward Dobropillia — the largest settlement in northwestern Donetsk region — has spent months battling to capture villages and towns on the city’s southern approaches, including Shevchenko, Chernihivske, and Krasnopodillia. That raises the threat that an assault on Dobropillia itself could begin soon. Russia’s Defense Ministry claims such an assault is already underway, carried out by troops it says infiltrated from the direction of Novyi Donbas, but that claim remains unconfirmed.
Where the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipro regions meet
- Along the front stretching from Orikhiv, in central Zaporizhzhia region, to the point where the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipro regions meet — where Ukrainian and Russian offensives are underway simultaneously — the trend toward deep raids is especially pronounced. The terrain helps explain why: steppe broken up by tree lines, rivers, ravines, and small, scattered settlements. In places, the fighting resembles maneuver warfare, with small groups of troops moving by vehicle and trying to “catch” similarly small enemy units, though more often assault troops move on foot through the steppe and tree lines.
- Drones are the main defense against these raids in areas thinly held by infantry. Fragmentary reports suggest drone operators themselves have sometimes become targets of enemy assault troops who infiltrated the area.
- Adding to the confusion, commanders on both sides are trying to demonstrate superiority through so-called “flag-planting” campaigns, ordering assault troops to prove their presence in various settlements by literally planting a flag there.
- Two large such campaigns played out on August 12 and 13. Ukrainian forces first raised flags in several villages across two sectors: in the Russian rear along the Haichur River (Rybne, Krasnohirske, Zlahoda, and Pryvilne), and farther east, where Ukrainian troops are trying to break through at the junction of the Russian Tsentr and Vostok groups in the Mokri Yaly valley (Yalta, Novokhatske, Tolstoi, Zelenyi Hai, and Piddubne). A day later, Russian forces raised their own flags in most of the same villages — sometimes no more than 100 meters (330 feet) from where the Ukrainian flags had gone up.
- The two sides’ explanations for the incidents naturally diverge, generally boiling down to accusations that the enemy published old footage, generated it with AI, or sent soldiers on one-way suicide missions purely for political effect. Russia’s version has an inherent advantage, since videos of Russian flags surfaced later — disproving it would require assuming Russian commanders knew in advance where Ukrainian forces planned to “plant their flags” and had prepared rebuttals ahead of time. Either way, it is currently impossible to reliably determine who controls specific settlements.
- The Ukrainian offensives on the northern flank, in the Haichur and Mokri Yaly valleys, were aimed at slowing the Russian advance eastward from Huliaipole toward Orikhiv — and largely succeeded. The main forces of the Russian Vostok group stalled for several months on their approach to Orikhiv, forcing Russian commanders to send reserves to counter Ukrainian brigades advancing from the north. Now the Russian advance has resumed thanks to a new tactic: assault units from the area of Vozdvyzhenka, a village that has changed hands several times, slipped through the steppe to reach the T0480 highway leading north from Orikhiv, near Liubytske and Novosoloshyne.
- At the same time, forces from Russia’s 58th Combined Arms Army, part of the Dnepr group, took advantage of the Vostok group’s advance to step up their own offensive on Orikhiv from the south. Russian assault units broke through what had once been an impenetrable Ukrainian defense at Novodanylivka, reached the southern outskirts of Orikhiv, and seized a stretch of the Orikhiv–Mala Tokmachka road.
- Russian wa bloggers reported that Russian forces had once again captured Mala Tokmachka — a town that has become something of a running joke — but it remains unconfirmed.
Kharkiv region
- Russian forces opened several new incursions of varying size along the entire Russia–Kharkiv region border in 2025 and 2026, but the two main fronts remain the older, interconnected footholds near Vovchansk and Kupiansk. Russian commanders had planned as early as 2024 to capture both district centers and push deeper into Kharkiv region toward Velykyi Burluk and Izyum, with the ultimate goal of cutting off the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donbas from the rest of the region.
- The Russian army did not capture the ruins of Vovchansk until early 2026 and still has not fully occupied Kupiansk. Ukrainian forces not only halted the Russian advance there but recaptured the southern part of the city and most of its center in a late-2025 offensive.
- After regrouping, Russian forces again went on the offensive against the city center, Zaoskillia — the half of Kupiansk on the Oskil River’s eastern bank — and neighboring industrial towns. By the end of summer, Russian forces had reached the river’s eastern bank in several places and once again seized central districts on the western bank, though Ukrainian forces continue to hold back the advance around the city.
- Near Vovchansk, however, the redeployment of Ukrainian troops to Kupiansk for the winter offensive weakened the defense there, allowing Russian forces to infiltrate the front line with relatively large units from two directions — from the north, out of occupied Vovchansk, and from the east, across the border at the village of Artelne.
- The groups that infiltrated from Vovchansk reached the outskirts of Bilyi Kolodiaz, but Ukrainian forces pushed them back. Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed its forces had captured the village, which is important for supplying the Ukrainian group, and videos later surfaced showing Russian assault units massing in tree lines to the north.
- Capturing Bilyi Kolodiaz and the surrounding area would open the way for Russian forces to break through to Velykyi Burluk, in the rear of the Ukrainian group defending Kupiansk.
Interactive map of the fighting
The red dots show recent events, and the gray dots show earlier events. Black indicates the approximate contact line as of the last update; the red and blue areas mark places occupied (since early September) by Russian and Ukrainian forces. Clicking on them will provide additional information. Air strikes are marked with a special icon, ground operations with dots. Click on the point on the map to pull up source links.
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Meduza’s Razbor (“Explainers”) team