Russia appears to infiltrate first ‘fortress city’ as Ukraine changes guard
Concerning reports emerge from the front that Russia has infiltrated most of Kostiantynivka as it tries to regain the offensive Russia claimed this week to
Concerning reports emerge from the front that Russia has infiltrated most of Kostiantynivka as it tries to regain the offensive Russia claimed this week to be advancing into Ukraine’s regions of Sumy, Kharkiv and Donetsk, as Ukraine installed new political leadership in its defence ministry and a new military leadership in its armed forces. The changes followed the unprecedented firing of both defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov and commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii within a week. Most concerning was the news from Ukrainian soldiers in the eastern region of Donetsk that Russia was “effectively cutting off” Kostiantynivka, the southernmost of four “fortress cities” Russia had pledged to overthrow in a bid to capture the remaining free territory of the region by the end of the year. Kostiantynivka was “the key to liberating the entire territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic”, Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said. “Things are very bad in Kostiantynivka. It’s not a question of whether we’ll lose [it] or not – we’ve effectively already lost it,” a soldier told the Ukrainian news outlet Hromadske. “If there’s a large number of Russians there, you can’t really say we’re holding it. They’re just pushing our guys into a corner.” A local Ukrainian commander told Hromadske that Russians were moving into the villages of Molocharka and Izhevka north of the city, and his units could find themselves surrounded in “another month or two” unless reinforcements arrived or containment tactics changed. Shortly before he was dismissed on July 21, Syrskii had painted a more optimistic picture, saying there were an estimated 145 Russian infiltrators in the city who were suffering “significant losses” of about 25 people a day, as Ukrainian drone units hunted them down in their urban shelters. The commander of a group called Kurt and Company shared that more optimistic view with the news outlet Suspilne. “Heavy fighting and gunfire are going on all over the city,” said the commander, identified by the call sign Kurt. “But we still control most of the city and the enemy is mainly on the flanks.
They are trying to bypass us, cut us off, but we are holding our defence there. We are just constantly under attack from the KABs – they are just taking out positions with aerial bombs. This is the only thing that still gives the Russians success and this is a big problem for us.” KABs are massive aerial ordnance with payloads of between 500kg and 3,000kg, which Russia has been dropping on Ukrainian positions at a rate of more than 200 and sometimes more than 300 a day. Ukraine has repeatedly placed aerial defence equipment at the top of its list of requirements from allies. As recently as three weeks ago, the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, estimated that Russian forces had a presence in just 37 percent of Kostiantynivka, mostly in the form of “infiltrations” rather than firm control. Its most recent assessment of Russian infiltration suggests that it has spread to most of the city, however. Overall, Russian forces have been slowing down, though. The ISW estimated that they were capturing 16.6sq km a day in the first half of 2025, but just 1km a day in June this year. In July, the ISW has assessed that Russia has been losing territory at a rate of 1.6sq km a day. Now, it appears that Russia has been mounting an effort to regain the offensive. The commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces (SBS), Robert Brovdi, said “the actual number of enemy personnel involved in offensive operations along the front line” during the month had increased by 12 percent compared with June and 18 percent compared with May, based on analysis from the SBS intelligence centre. Russian casualties increased by similar proportions, he said. In the northern Kharkiv and Sumy regions, Russia claimed to have destroyed 10 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) control centres on July 27, killing 70 personnel. Three days later, it said its troops had routed defenders in Nova Sich, Mogritsa and Malaya Slobodka in Sumy and Yurchenkovo in Kharkiv, by copying the Ukrainian tactic of using drones to disrupt ammunition deliveries.
The BriefWire