Ukraine Conflict Monitor
Update
Ukraine war situation update: 30 August – 5 September 2025
Overview of political violence and conflict events in Ukraine from 30 August to 5 September 2025
Key stats
1,495 political violence events
3% increase compared to last week
133 incidents of violence targeting civilians
34% increase compared to last week
At least 72 fatalities from civilian targeting
50% increase compared to last week
Key events
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30 Aug.
Zaporizhia – Russian drones and missiles hit Zaporizhia city, killing one civilian and injuring 34 others
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3 Sep.
Donetsk – Russian drones and artillery kill nine civilians and wound 10 others in Kostiantynivka
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4 Sep.
Chernihiv – A Russian missile hits the Danish Refugee Council’s demining crew near Novoselivka, killing two Ukrainian employees
Key trends
- Russian forces seized a village northeast of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region and two villages northwest of Velyka Novosilka on either side of the Donetsk-Dnipropetrovsk administrative boundary.
- Ukrainian forces recaptured three settlements around Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region and another one west of Borova in the Kharkiv region.
- Russian forces launched at least 37 long-range missile and drone strikes, including on the western regions of Ivano-Frankivsk, Khmelnytskyi, Lviv, and Volyn, as well as on the Kyiv region and city.
- Russian strikes killed at least 64 civilians in the Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Khmelnytskyi, Kyiv, and Zaporizhia regions. Ukrainian strikes reportedly killed three civilians in the Russia-occupied parts of the Kherson region.
Spotlight: Ex-parliament speaker’s assassination highlights ongoing shadow war
On 30 August, a disguised gunman killed serving member and former chairman of the Ukrainian parliament, Andriy Parubiy, in the western city of Lviv. Parubiy was a prominent nationalist politician for over 30 years and took an active part in the mass pro-European demonstrations in 2004 and between 2013 and 2014.1 His assassin was arrested the following day in the Khmelnytskyi region following a manhunt. While police suspect that the killing may have been ordered by Russia due to the assassin’s contacts with Russian representatives, the gunman claimed before court that he acted alone.2
ACLED records frequent incidents of political violence across Ukraine outside of direct military engagement. This includes dozens of killings, as well as many more foiled assassination attempts. These attacks usually target government officials, activists, conscription officers, and military personnel or property, and often reveal a link to Russian special services. Higher profile targets are often prominent Ukrainian nationalists, such as Iryna Farion, who was killed in August 2024, also in Lviv, and — most recently — Serhii Sternenko, a prominent pro-Ukrainian activist who survived an assassination attempt in Kyiv in May 2025. There have been more than 150 such attacks or thwarted attempts across Ukraine and Russia as part of the duel of assassinations masterminded by Russian and Ukrainian special services as well as sabotage and other incidents across Europe. These events exemplify an important dimension of the shadow war occurring alongside fighting on the battlefield and long-range targeting.
Explore the ACLED Conflict Exposure Calculator to assess the numbers of people affected by armed violence, disaggregated by locations, time period, and actors involved.
