Ukraine war situation update: 9 - 15 August 2025

Spotlight: Russian forces breach the Donetsk frontline ahead of Ukraine negotiations

Around 11 August, small groups of Russian troops infiltrated Pokrovsk, while several hundred mostly dismounted Russian infantry bypassed Ukrainian positions and advanced about 15 kilometers into the rear east of Dobropillia, a town north of Pokrovsk.¹ The latter breach threatened the collapse of the defensive line protecting the Kramatorsk-Slovyansk urban agglomeration further north.² By 15 August, Ukrainian forces reclaimed some of the lost ground, bisecting Russia’s narrow and overstretched two-pronged advance east of Dobropillia, and cleared Russian presence in Pokrovsk.³ Although they were quickly tackled, both breaches point to an acute shortage of infantry on the Ukrainian side, which relies on drones to interdict Russian mechanised advances.⁴

The crisis coincided with the Alaska summit between United States President Donald Trump and Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin. Putin demanded that Ukraine cede the remainder of the Donetsk region to end the war in exchange for freezing the frontlines in the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions and Russian withdrawals from the border areas of the Kharkiv and Sumy regions.⁵ Trump abandoned the demand for an immediate ceasefire under the threat of sanctions on buyers of Russian oil⁶ and urged Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to accept the deal.⁷ During his follow-up meetings with Zelenskyy and European and NATO leaders on 18 August, Trump appeared to have changed his stance toward freezing the war at current frontlines and providing Ukraine with NATO-like security guarantees in exchange for purchases of US weapons.⁸

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