A view of a research institute building destroyed in what local Russian-installed officials called an attack on Ukraine, in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Ukraine, on August 26, 2026, as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine continues.
Stringer | AFP | Getty Images
The Russian military is stepping up attacks within Ukraine’s so-called “fortress zone”, made up of the industrial cities of eastern Donetsk, in an effort to increase pressure on key locations in the country after more than four-and-a-half years of all-out war.
Russian forces have long targeted the strategic cities of Kostiantynivka, Kramatorsk and Slovyask as part of their efforts to fully capture Donetsk Oblast, one of the Kremlin’s main objectives in the conflict.
Russian Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov, speaking at an undisclosed location on Thursday, said Russian troops had advanced to just 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from the eastern outskirts of Sloviansk.
Gerasimov also claimed that Russian forces had breached the first line of defense in the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk fortified region in certain areas and that operations were now progressing along a 160-kilometre front.
The report was published shortly after data from Ukraine’s open-source mapping group Deep State revealed that the most active battlefield actions are taking place around Kostyantynivka, considered the gateway to the rest of the Donbass region.
Analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said earlier this week that Russian forces were stepping up efforts to advance toward Sloviask from the east and southeast after attempts from the northeast failed.
However, in its latest assessment of the Ukraine war, the ISW disputed Mr Gerasimov’s recent claims about battlefield advances, saying they appeared designed to construct a narrative of “wide-ranging” Russian military successes and “remain detached from reality”.
Away from the front lines, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sibikha on Friday welcomed renewed efforts from four European Union member states to use frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine’s war effort.
“It is fair and logical to use Russian assets, not just European taxpayers’ money, to cover the additional costs of protecting Ukraine and the rest of Europe from the Russian threat,” Sibikha said in a social media post.
“This discussion needs to be rational, not emotional,” he added.
Ministers representing Spain, Sweden, Poland and the Netherlands wrote to the EU’s executive body, the European Commission, on Thursday, calling on Brussels to resume work on a plan to tap more than 200 billion euros ($232.9 billion) of Russian central bank assets locked in by EU sanctions.
Talks on the initiative, which Russia considers “blatantly illegal”, collapsed last year when Belgium blocked the move, citing liability issues.
