Russia has made a key battlefield breakthrough in Ukraine as Vladimir Putin races to secure as much as land as possible before Friday’s Alaska summit with US President Donald Trump that could finally end war after three gruelling years.
Moscow has reportedly already seized more than 10 kilometres (six miles) of land in its lightning offensive.
The Ukrainian military estimates some 110,000 Russian troops are advancing in the direction of Pokrovsk in what may prove to be a major breakthrough for Vladimir Putin.
‘Our units are waging heavy defensive battles against superior enemy forces,’ the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine wrote on Telegram, adding: ‘The situation is difficult and dynamic, but the Defence Forces are taking all necessary measures to detect and destroy enemy groups.’
Kyiv has diverted special forces units to hold off the Russian advance on the ground in an effort to avoid Putin’s forces from gaining ground ahead of the anticipated summit with Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday.
The gains came just days before Trump was to meet Russian counterpart Putin in Alaska for talks on the war, the first meeting between a sitting US and Russian leader since 2021.
The Ukrainian army said it was engaged in ‘heavy’ battles with Russian forces attempting to penetrate its defences. ‘The situation is difficult and dynamic,’ it said in a statement.
A map published by Ukrainian battlefield monitor DeepState, which has close ties with Ukraine’s military, showed Russia had advanced around 10 kilometres (six miles) over around two days, deep into a narrow section of the eastern front line.
A Ukrainian National Guard serviceman of 3rd brigade runs through a tree line not far from the frontline on Pokrovsk direction, Ukraine, on Friday, August 8, 2025
Servicemen of 152nd Separate Jaeger Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces fire a 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled howitzer towards Russian troops in a front line, near the town of Pokrovsk in Donetsk region, Ukraine August 5, 2025
The corridor – now apparently under Russian control – threatens the town of Dobropillia, a mining hub that civilians are fleeing and that has come under Russian drone attacks.
It also further isolates the destroyed town of Kostiantynivka, one of the last large urban areas in the Donetsk region still held by Ukraine.
The Ukrainian military reported that defenders were holding off advancing troops moving on Dobropol and Pokrovsk.
‘Our units are waging heavy defensive battles against superior enemy forces. Thus, in the Pokrovsk direction alone, the invaders have concentrated groups numbering over 110 thousand personnel,’ the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine wrote on Telegram.
‘Some of the groups have already been destroyed, the rest are in the process of being destroyed,’ the statement added.
‘The situation is difficult and dynamic, but the Defense Forces are taking all necessary measures to detect and destroy enemy groups […] Additional forces and means have been allocated to strengthen the stability of the defense. Measures have been planned to block enemy groups in a certain area.’
‘The situation is quite chaotic, as the enemy, having found gaps in the defence, is infiltrating deeper, trying to quickly consolidate and accumulate forces for further advancement,’ DeepState said on its Telegram channel.
The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based observatory, said Russia was sending small sabotage groups forwards.
It said it was ‘premature’ to call the Russian advances in around Dobropillia ‘an operational-level breakthrough’.
The military’s Operational-Tactical Group Donetsk, which oversees parts of the front in the industrial region, also said Russia was probing Ukrainian lines with small sabotage groups, describing battles as ‘complex, unpleasant and dynamic’.
A serviceman of 152nd Separate Jaeger Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces checks the sky to look out for Russian combat drones, near the town of Pokrovsk in Donetsk region, Ukraine August 5, 2025
Ukrainian service members of the 25th Sicheslav Airborne Brigade fire a BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launch system towards Russian troops near the frontline town of Pokrovsk, in Donetsk region, Ukraine April 19, 2025
Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022, has made costly but incremental gains across the sprawling front in recent months
Trump has described his summit with Putin on Friday as a chance to check the Russian leader's ideas for ending the war
Trump has described his summit with Putin on Friday as a chance to check the Russian leader's ideas for ending the war.
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky warned ahead of the talks that Moscow was laying the groundwork for further attacks, after Trump said on Monday that both sides would have to swap territory for peace.
European leaders have meanwhile sought to ensure respect for Kyiv's interests.
'We see that the Russian army is not preparing to end the war. On the contrary, they are making movements that indicate preparations for new offensive operations,' Zelensky said in a statement on social media.
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Ukraine reported in late June that Russia had amassed 110,000 troops near Pokrovsk as part of its efforts to take over the strategic city in eastern Ukraine.
Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022, has made costly but incremental gains across the sprawling front in recent months and claims to have annexed four Ukrainian regions while still fighting to control them.
Ukrainian police meanwhile said that Russian attacks in the past hours had killed three people and wounded 12 others, including a child.
Ukraine's military said it had sent in reserves near the cities of Pokrovsk and Dobropillia to block advances by small groups of Russian troops.
In a statement, the General Staff said some of the groups attempting to bypass Ukraine's defensive lines in the area had already been destroyed, and that others were being engaged by Ukrainian forces.
Dobropillia is 94 kilometres (58 miles) northwest of Russian-occupied Donetsk, and around 22 kilometers (14 miles) north of Pokrovsk.
Earlier today, the Kyiv Independent reported that the Russian military is employing infiltration tactics, by sending small groups of soldiers beyond the first line of defense, often incurring significant losses.
'A number of small Russian groups are constantly putting pressure on Ukrainian positions and attempting to bypass the first line of defense,' said Victor Tregubov, spokesperson of the Dnipro group of forces.
'It is important to understand that this does not mean Russian forces have taken control of the territory,' the spokesperson added.
Trump has said that both Kyiv and Moscow will have to cede territory to end the war in Ukraine, so how much territory does Russia control in Ukraine?
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Russia controls nearly 114,500 square km (44,600 square miles), or 19%, of Ukraine, including Crimea, and a major chunk of territory in the east and south-east of the country, according to open source maps of the battlefield.
Ukraine does not control any internationally recognised Russian territory.
Russia says Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson - which were recognised by Moscow as part of Ukraine as the Soviet Union collapsed - are now parts of Russia.
Ukraine has repeatedly said it will never recognise Russian occupation of its land, and most countries recognise Ukraine's territory within its 1991 borders.
Following are details on the territory, Russian claims and Ukraine's position.
Russian forces in 2014 took control of Crimea, which juts out into the Black Sea off southern Ukraine, and after a disputed referendum on joining Russia, Moscow absorbed the region into Russia. Its area is about 27,000 square km.
Russia says Crimea is legally part of Russia. Ukraine's position is that Crimea is part of Ukraine, though privately some Ukrainian officials admit that it would be very hard to return Crimea to Ukrainian control by force.
Crimea was absorbed into the Russian empire by Catherine the Great in the 18th century. Russia's Black Sea naval base at Sevastopol was founded soon afterwards.
In 1921, Crimea became part of Russia within the Soviet Union until 1954, when it was handed to Ukraine, also then a Soviet republic, by Communist Party chief Nikita Khrushchev, an ethnic Ukrainian.
Russia controls about 46,570 square km, or 88%, of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, including all of the Luhansk region and 75% of the Donetsk region.
About 6,600 square km is still controlled by Ukraine but Russia has been focusing most of its energy along the front in Donetsk, pushing towards the last remaining major cities.
Russian-backed separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions broke away from Ukrainian government control in 2014 and proclaimed themselves independent 'people's republics'.
Putin in 2022 recognised them as independent states just days before the invasion of Ukraine.
Russian forces control about 74% of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions of southeastern Ukraine, or about 41,176 square km. Ukraine controls about 14,500 square km across the two regions.
Putin in 2024 said that he would be willing to agree peace if Ukraine withdrew from all regions claimed but not fully controlled by Russia - an area currently of about 21,000 square km - and officially renounced its ambitions to join NATO.
Reuters reported in 2024 that Putin was open to discussing a Ukraine ceasefire deal with Trump but ruled out making any major territorial concessions and insisted that Kyiv abandon ambitions to join NATO.
Two sources said Putin might be willing to withdraw from the relatively small patches of territory it holds in other areas of Ukraine.
Putin's conditions for peace include a legally binding pledge that NATO will not expand eastwards, Ukrainian neutrality and limits on its armed forces, protection for Russian speakers who live there, and acceptance of Russia's territorial gains, sources told Reuters earlier this year.
Russia also controls small parts of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions of Ukraine. Across the Sumy and Kharkiv regions, Russia controls about 400 square km of territory. In Dnipropetrovsk, Russia has a tiny area near the border.
Russia has said it is carving out a buffer zone in Sumy to protect its Kursk region from Ukrainian attack.
This is a breaking news story. More to follow.