(Kyiv) Russian troops quickly advanced in a strategic sector of the front in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian army said on Tuesday, a few days before eagerly awaited peace talks between the United States and Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told him that Russia was not preparing “not to end the war”, but for “new offensives” in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian army staff said on Tuesday morning that fighting took place in Koutcheriv Iar, a small village which was still a few weeks ago from the front, in fact admitting the Russian advance in this area.
This progression took place northeast of Pokrovsk, a mining city and epicenter of the fighting, in the eastern region of Donetsk whose Moscow claims the annexation.
In a single day, Russia has advanced about ten kilometers north along a road, according to the military analysis site Deepstate, close to the Ukrainian army, a much more sustained pace.
A map of the front, published by Deepstate, shows a narrow corridor now under Russian control, which threatens the city garrison of Dobropillia, northwest of Pokrovsk.
Photo Genya Savilov, Agence France-Presse Archives
Residents are looking at a fire garage and a damaged residential building after a Russian drone strike in the city of Bilozerske, in the Donetsk region on August 10, 2025.
The Tactical Donetsk operational group, which is fighting in the area, assured on Tuesday on Facebook that it “engaged exhausting defensive fights” against “significantly higher” Russian forces.
A “complex, unpleasant and dynamic” situation due to the infiltration of Russian troops between the Ukrainian defense lines, according to the group.
An analysis shared by the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which said it was “premature” to qualify the Russian advances as “operational breakthrough”, and that the next few days would be “probably crucial”.
A Ukrainian military blogger, Sternenko, wrote on Telegram that this advance had allowed Russian troops to seize certain portions of a road connecting important cities in the region. He said earlier that the situation was “critical”.
The ISW compared this tactical penetration to that which had enabled a major Russian advance in April 2024, after taking the city of Avdiivka, at the cost of a long and bloody battle.
National police have announced that three people had been killed and 13 others injured Tuesday in attacks of planing bombs and Russian rockets in this same region.
Ukraine fears that the meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on Friday, scheduled for the time being without the participation of their Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, will lead to an agreement which would force her to give up parts of her territory to Russia.