Ukraine Situation Report: Russia Advancing Toward Key Logistics Hub

In their biggest advances so far this year, Russian troops are pushing forward toward the once-thriving Donetsk Oblast industrial hub of Pokrovsk. Ensconced in the middle of three key highways in the western part of Donetsk, the city is now a garrison and a critical bulwark against a large-scale collapse in the region.

“Of the 150 Russian attacks over the past 24 hours, almost half occurred on a 40-50 kilometer section of the front west-northwest of Donetsk – the Pokrovsk and Kurakhovsk directions,” the Ukrainian Radio Svaboda news outlet wrote on Telegram Thursday. “This is the part of the front where Russian troops have made their greatest advance since the beginning of the year, occupying Avdiivka and advancing towards Pokrovsk.”

The Russian advance, much of it along the railroad tracks running west from Avdiivka, has been steady. That’s creating concern in Ukraine.

“For the past seven days, the enemy advanced 6 km in the direction of Mirnograd-Pokrovsk,” Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov wrote on Facebook Tuesday. That area “is the last district of defense before the Dnipropetrovsk region. The enemy is very close, the situation is critical because the pace of the enemy’s advancement causes concern.”

Russian troops are just 14 miles from Mirnograd, Butusov wrote. About five miles east of Pokrovsk, its capture would greatly imperil that city, an important logistics hub for Ukraine.

Butusov complained bitterly about what he said was Russia taking advantage of poor Ukrainian leadership in certain sections of that front.

“According to the commanders and fighters who defend the Pokrovsk-Mirnograd district, the main problem in terms of intensive actions is primarily in the management and organization of our actions,” he wrote. “The Russian command attacks in the first place those brigades who have the weakest management and organization. When a poorly managed crew is attacked, it can’t hold even a narrow margin.”

As a result, reserves sent to the area in March have to “reinforce the weak units that bear the most losses,” he explained. “It prevents the creation of significant tactical reserves that would have time for additional training, could rotate combatants more often, and have second and third lines of defense.”

Moreover, the “lack of prepared defense positions, reliable fortification structures occupied by the troops, does not allow to stop the enemy on any frontier. Continues a virtually continuous encounter battle, and occupation during the offense.”

Making matters worse, Butusov states that Ukrainian forces are mismanaging their drone and electronic warfare (EW) efforts.

“A critical problem is the lack of single competent management of all drone forces and [EW] tools, which continue to be used scattered and unorganized. Our own [EW] destroys a significant number of our own drones. Drone units receive tasks without taking into account tactical and technical capabilities.”

Russian forces, meanwhile, continue to strike with their own drones.

Still, the Russian advances are at a very high cost, said Butusov.

“The Russians are coming patternally and predictably. Russians carry out front attacks of small groups of infantry with heavy casualties.”

Exacerbating Ukraine’s problems, Commander-in-Chief Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi told The Guardian that the Russians have a huge number of troops and weapons in Ukraine.

Their original 100,000-strong invasion force has grown to 520,000, he told the publication, with a goal by the end of 2024 of 690,000 men. Ukraine has not released information about the size of its forces.

“When it comes to equipment, there is a ratio of 1:2 or 1:3 in their favor,” he said. Since 2022 the number of Russian tanks has “doubled” – from 1,700 to 3,500. Artillery systems have tripled, and armored personnel carriers nearly doubled, from 4,500 to 8,900.

“The enemy has a significant advantage in force and resources,” Syrskyi said. “Therefore, for us, the issue of supply, the issue of quality, is really at the forefront.”

Among other advances, the Russians are “gobbling up territory northwest of Avdiivka, towards the garrison town of Pokrovsk and the hilltop settlement of Chasiv Yar.”

Syrskyi, The Guardian wrote, tried to put recent setbacks in context.

Russia’s creeping victories as “tactical” – local gains rather than an “operational” breakthrough, such as the capture of a major city, he suggested.

“In principle, the enemy has not made any significant progress,” he said. The frontline, he added, was 3,700 km long. Active hostilities were taking place across “977 km” of it, or “twice the length of the border between Germany and France.”

Echoing Butusov’s analysis, Syrskyi said Russia has paid dearly in terms of troop losses for its advances. The Kremlin’s casualties were “three times” higher than Ukraine’s, and “even more” in certain directions, he said. “Their number of killed is much bigger,” he emphasized. In February Volodymyr Zelenskiy said 31,000 Ukrainian service personnel had died since 2022, a figure that seems absurdly low given the nature of the fight.

Syrskyi declined to provide additional insights, saying losses were “sensitive” and a topic Moscow could exploit.

With its Kharkiv advance largely sputtering, Russia is now focusing a lot of attention on western Donetsk Oblast, creating one of its deepest salients in the war toward Pokrovsk.

“When Ukrainian units are ground down by artillery and drone fire, Russian troops continue to move along the main route through the railway line” toward Pokrovsk,” the Russian Colonelcassad Telegram channel wrote.

Meanwhile, life goes on in Pokrovsk.

Before diving into more developments from the conflict in Ukraine, The War Zone readers can review our previous coverage here.

The Latest

Elsewhere on the battlefield, Russia continues applying pressure across the frontlines, putting Ukraine on its heels but making little real gain, according to the latest assessment from the Institute for the Study of War.

• Kharkiv Oblast: Russian forces recently advanced north of Kharkiv City amid continued positional fighting in northern Kharkiv Oblast.

• Luhansk: Russian forces reportedly continued to advance southeast of Kupyansk on July 24, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline.

• Donetsk Oblast: Russian forces reportedly recently advanced south of Toretsk and northwest of Avdiivka, but did not make confirmed advances near Chasiv Yar or Donetsk City.

• Zaporizhia Oblast: Russian forces continued ground assaults in western Zaporizhia Oblast northeast of Robotyne near Mala Tokmachka on July 24, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline.

• Kherson Oblast: Russian forces continued assaults in east (left) bank of the Dnipro River including near Krynky and on the islands of the Dnipro River delta.

There are unconfirmed reports that NATO-member Romania had to shoot down Russian drones attacking the Ukrainian port city of Izmail, which is just across the Danube River from its territory. That city has come under frequent attack by Russia.

Romania has not yet confirmed this but said Thursday it found the remains of a Russian drone on its soil. It was one of three Ukrainian media said crashed in Romania after an attack Wednesday on Izmail.

Specialists from the Ministry of National Defense (MoND), the Romanian Intelligence Service, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, “identified the remains of a Geran… type-drone of Russian origin,” the MoND said in a release. Russians use the word Geran, meaning Geranium, for the Iranian-designed Shahed-136 models.

The discovery was made near Plauru, in Tulcea County. Video emerged on social media of that location.

“Search will continue today to cover the entire area,” the MoND said. “We make it clear that all the locations identified as possible areas of incidence are outside the inhabited areas, not affecting the infrastructure elements.”

Meanwhile, Russia resumed its drone attacks against civilian targets and port infrastructure in Ukraine on the night of July 24th to 25th, MoND said, adding that it intensified monitoring and surveillance of its national airspace by engaging the Air Police Combat Service forces.

“Starting at 1:32 a.m., two Finnish Air Force F-18 aircraft took off from the 57th Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base to monitor the aerial situation. The aircraft returned to base at around 3.25 a.m.,” MoND said.

A day earlier, Romania scrambled two F-16 fighters in response to the earlier Russian drone attack

“At 2.19 a.m., two Romanian Air Force F-16 aircraft took off from the 86th Borcea Air Base to monitor the aerial situation. The two aircraft returned to the base at around 4.20 a.m.,” the MoND said in a media release. “Also, the National Military Command Center notified the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations with regard to the establishment of measures to alert the population of Tulcea County.”

On Wednesday, the MoND said it “ordered measures to conduct investigations in the field, in the vicinity of Plauru, to search for possible objects that have fallen on the national territory, searches that will continue during the day.”

A Ukrainian media outlet was a little more definitive in saying Russian drones did strike Romania “Three Shahed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) were recorded falling and subsequently causing fires in Romania,” the Kyiv Post reported, citing “informed sources in Ukraine’s Security and Defense Sector.”

“Explosions from kamikaze drone strikes were reported near the village of Niculițel, 7 kilometers from the Ukrainian border,” the publication added.

This is not the first time a Russian drone attack on Ukraine’s Danube River ports impacted Romania.

“On the evening of March 28, 2024, fragments that seem to come from an aerial device (drone) were identified on agricultural land in Insula Mare a Brailei,” the Romanian MoND said at the time.

The MoND also confirmed that at least one drone exploded in its territory in December. Romanian and German jets were scrambled, but the order to shoot the drone down was not given. The incident caused Romania to summon Russia’s envoy over that latest in a series of drone violations of its airspace.

North Korea has sent more than five million artillery shells and dozens of short-range ballistic missiles to Russia to be used in the war against Ukraine, South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won Sik told the Japanese Yomiuri Shimbun news outlet on Wednesday.

“North Korea has secured the backing of Russia, which has given it the opportunity to strengthen its military technology,” Shin said, according to the publication.

Shin told Yomiuri Shimbun that the first confirmed arms supply from North Korea to Russia was last August.

“It involved a ship bound for Dunai in the Russian Far East from Rajin in northeastern North Korea,” the publication reported. “As of July 15, the number of containers transported to Russia reached 11,000 or over enough to hold 5.2 million rounds of 152mm artillery shells.”

Shin noted that he believed “about several dozen” ballistic missiles were also provided.

In return, North Korea is believed to have obtained food, oil and technology related to the launch of a military reconnaissance satellite, Shin added. However, Shin said the technology obtained from Russia “is not certain to lead to a successful launch.”

Facing “an increasingly volatile” world, Britain must be ready to fight a war in three years, the new head of the Army has said.

Gen Sir Roland Walker said war was not inevitable and the Army had “just enough time” to prepare itself to avoid conflict, according to the BBC.

In his first speech in his new role, Walker said the U.K. has to double its fighting power by 2027 and triple it by the end of the decade.

The UK, he said, is facing danger from an “axis of upheaval.”

Among those threats “is an angered Russia, which could seek retribution against the West for supporting Ukraine, regardless of who wins the war,” BBC reported.

He also warned that China was intent on retaking Taiwan, and Iran was likely to pursue nuclear weapons.

Walker did not directly appeal for further funding or troops in his speech, describing his force of just over 70,000 regular troops as a “medium-sized army.”

His ultimate ambition, according to the network, is for the Army to be able to destroy an enemy three times its size.

This would mean firing faster and further, he said, helped by learning the lessons from the war in Ukraine.

So far, Poland has transferred 10 MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters to Ukraine, that nation’s Ambassador to Poland Vasyl Zvarych told Ukrinform.

The diplomat added that Poland “is working on the possibility of further reinforcing Ukraine’s Air Force with its aircraft.”

“We have an understanding of when and under what conditions this can happen and we are working on it together with Poland and other NATO allies,” Zvarych stated.

“The bilateral security agreement between Ukraine and Poland was signed by President Volodymyr Zelensky and Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw on July 8,” Ukrinform reported. “It considers the possibility of transferring the MiG-29 squadron without harming the security of Poland and operational capabilities of the Polish Air Force.”

Zelensky at the time emphasized that Ukraine was counting on these Soviet-era warplanes, which have been modernized in line with NATO standards. In turn, Tusk noted that he did not know the exact date of their transfer to Ukraine, as they are currently still performing missions in NATO airspace. The first tranche of Polish Fulcrums was delivered to Ukraine in April 2023.

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a top contender to be Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, lambasted Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) over his lack of support for Ukraine.

Kelly, a former astronaut and Navy pilot, told Politico that Vance would “abandon” Ukraine in favor of Russia.

“It’s pretty clear to me you’ve got JD Vance who wants to totally abandon Ukraine, and you’ve got Donald Trump who has been in the past rather pro-Russia and leaned in with Vladimir Putin in ways I would never expect the president to do,” Kelly told the news outlet. “So again, we have a serious choice to make, and I’d be really concerned about what those guys would do to abandon an ally in favor of an adversary. And that would be a much more dangerous world.”

In contrast to Vance, who has opposed aid to Ukraine in the past, Kelly has been a staunch advocate for helping the Kyiv government fight Russia.

A senior Senate Armed Services Committee member, he has taken a hands-on role on the issue of training Ukrainian F-16 pilots at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in his home state, Politico noted. Vance, a Marine Corps veteran, is a vocal opponent of Ukraine aid, saying it’s prolonging a bloody war Kyiv cannot win.

Ukrainian special operations forces (SSO) have taken drone-one-drone warfare to a new old height.

In a video posted on Telegram, an SSO drone equipped with a stick in front is seen trying to take down a Russian Zala drone by repeatedly trying to jam its propellers. The 45-second video shows the stick-armed drone conducting a mid-air dance with the Zala, making at least five attempts to force it to crash. During the first such try, the attacking drone appears to be spun around through the air as its stick gets stuck in the Zala’s whirling propeller.

The video ends before we find out the result of this interception attempt.

This is the latest in a growing effort by Ukraine to use its drones against Russian ones, which you can read more about here.

During WWII, the Soviet pilots tried similar ramming maneuvers, only instead of sticks on drones, they used pilots in airplanes. While many of these attacks were against ground targets, a number were plane-on-plane, using propellers, wings or other parts of an aircraft to strike the Germans. It often ended in tragedy and was officially discouraged.

With so much equipment damaged and in many cases so few parts available, members of one of Ukraine’s repair battalions have to come up with alternative solutions. In the case of one U.S.-donated armored vehicle, that meant ‘MacGuyvering’ a Ukrainian hydraulic system into it. The battalion is also building buggies for casualty evacuation and ammunition delivery.

Troops from the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland are training Ukrainian recruits on the Starstreak air defense system, according to the UK Ministry of Defense and the United Kingdom Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ).

“The training will help Ukrainian Recruits defend their sovereign skies from Russia’s illegal aerial advances,” PJHQ said in a Tweet.

Starstreak — also known as the High-Velocity Missile (HVM) — incorporates several unique features for a weapon of its class. You can read more about that in our deep dive here.

Ukraine is reportedly using a smaller variant of its Enclave Electronic Warfare (EW) system.

Developed by Ukraine, Enclave was designed to interfere with GLONASS and GPS navigation systems, according to the Russian Military Review website. It has been constantly modernized since the Russians first invaded in the east in 2014 based on the experience gained fighting in the Donbas.

Enclave is also capable of interfering with control and telemetry channels used in UAVs and precision weapons, Military Review explained.

It has a range of up to 40 kilometers when using directional antennas and up to 20 kilometers when using non-directional antennas. It can suppress signals in the general frequency range from 400 MHz to 2,500 MHz.

The system mostly covers stationary military installations and causes enemy drones to lose control and transmit signals.

House-to-house, street-to-street fighting continues in the Kharkiv region. Ukrainian special operations forces released a video showing its fighters battling through an unnamed village.

Russian Armed Forces “began to massively transfer equipment closer to the Kerch Bridge,” the Atesh partisan group claimed Thursday on its Telegram channel.

“Today we can state that the Russians are actively relocating surviving air defense installations, aviation, radar stations and all military facilities from the western part of Crimea,” the group, which spies on Russian activities, stated. “Oil storage facilities are already empty, and it is virtually impossible for even the local population to get fuel.”

The bridge itself has been successfully attacked twice by Ukraine.

Atesh offered no visual evidence to back up that claim, which The War Zone cannot independently verify.

The Fighterbomber Telegram channel, closely connected to Russia’s Aerospace Forces, is complaining about how pilots are experiencing extreme water rations in Crimea.

“It turns out that pilots are not allowed water,” Fighterbomber fretted. “None. After the intervention of those who didn’t care, within a day the issue with rations was essentially resolved, and the water issue was partially resolved. A water standard has appeared.”

The results, however, were less than satisfactory, Fighterbomber said.

The pilots are being given one liter each every day.

“When not flying combat missions, pilots are forced to drive around the surrounding villages in search of water,” Fighterbomber bemoaned. “I think this is wrong.”

To right the situation, the Telegram channel is launching a crowd-funding campaign.

Speaking of Russian crowd-sourcing efforts, the Dambiev Telegram channel said it took a “large load” of equipment to front-line troops. The equipment was paid for through donations with the help of the Colonelcassad Telegram channel

Included in the haul were four “Courier” combat uncrewed ground vehicles (UGV), a truck, body armor, electronic warfare systems, and 38 quadcopter drones among other items.

One of Russia’s so-called turtle tanks recently returned from a combat mission, looking a bit worse for the wear.

And finally, a haunting memorial to the 487 Ukrainian athletes killed during Russia’s all-out invasion was set up in London’s Parliament Square. The display features items representing the athletes’ sports.

That’s it for now.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com