Late August 2025: Where the Front Stands

In mid-August Russia attempted a sudden push on the Pokrovsk–Dobropillia sector, advancing in small infiltration groups and exploiting seams between Ukrainian brigades. Open-source mapping and wire reporting recorded a penetration on the order of 10–17 kilometres toward Dobropillia, at points threatening the Dobropillia–Kramatorsk road. Ukrainian reinforcements then contained the wedge and, within days, stabilised sections of the line. By 25 August, independent campaign analysts judged that Russian forces had failed to convert the thrust into a sustainable lodgement. 

The fighting around Dobropillia remains intense. Local officials and frontline units describe frequent Russian attacks, with Ukrainian reconnaissance-strike battalions using drones to attrit build-ups before they can coalesce. The picture is fluid, but it is no longer the one-way Russian momentum of the first 48–72 hours. 

How close are the Russians to Dobropillia?

At the peak of the mid-August incursion, forward Russian elements approached within several kilometres of the approaches to Dobropillia and the road toward Kramatorsk; some OSINT assessments put the nearest points inside single-digit kilometres. Since then the front has seesawed, with Ukraine clawing back positions and Russia failing to hold her deepest gains. Because distances have varied day by day and neither side publishes precise grid references, the prudent characterisation as of 28 August is: Russian forward positions have at times pressed to within roughly five to eight kilometres, but the current line sits somewhat farther out after Ukrainian counter-actions. 

What would it take to seize Dobropillia?

To take the town, Russia must do more than nose forward. She would need to widen the salient, secure flanks around Bilozerske–Myrnohrad, interdict the east–west road to Kostiantynivka, and sustain logistics under Ukrainian artillery and FPV-drone interdiction. The mid-August attempt showed Moscow’s chosen method—small-unit infiltration followed by aggregation—but it also exposed its limits: the wedge could be pinched at the shoulders and starved. The Insitute for the Study of War's late-month assessment that Russian command “gave up efforts to exploit the penetration” underscores that constraint. On present evidence, a near-term fall of Dobropillia is unlikely unless Russia musters fresh assault formations and secures a broader frontage than it achieved in mid-August. 

Forecast for Dobropillia. Over the next four to six weeks, the balance of probabilities favours continued attrition and short, local gains rather than a clean capture. A Russian seizure becomes more plausible only if a renewed push also unhinges the road network south and east of the town, or if Ukrainian manning and munitions on this sector deteriorate markedly. Absent such a change, Dobropillia is more likely to remain contested ground than to fall outright in September.

The Kramatorsk question

Kramatorsk sits inside the Donetsk “fortress belt” with Sloviansk, Druzhkivka and Kostiantynivka—an arc of entrenched urban positions that anchor Ukraine’s eastern defence. Even as Russia increases pressure with heavy glide-bombing (for example, a 37-bomb strike on 22 August), the city’s outer approaches are buffered by multiple urban-industrial obstacles and by Ukrainian lines that have withstood years of pressure. 

For Russia to seize Kramatorsk, she would first have to crack Kostiantynivka and the Chasiv Yar complex from the south-east and south-west or achieve a deeper envelopment from the Pokrovsk–Dobropillia axis. Progress of that order has been slow: even around Chasiv Yar, where Moscow claimed a capture on 31 July, independent mapping has not verified full control, and the measured rate of Russian advance across comparable urban belts has been glacial. 

Forecast for Kramatorsk. Barring a dramatic change in Ukraine’s defensive power—such as a systemic shortfall in air defence and artillery ammunition, or a major breach that collapses two adjacent sectors—the probability of Russia seizing Kramatorsk in 2025 remains low. Russian forces can punish and progressively degrade the city with bombing, but taking it outright would require simultaneous successes on multiple axes and sustained logistics under Ukrainian interdiction. The more realistic Russian objectives in the near term are to menace the belt, force Ukrainian redeployments, and accumulate positional advantages for later campaigns. 

What could change these trajectories

Three variables would materially alter the outlook. First, manpower and munitions: if Ukrainian infantry density or interceptor stocks dip below critical thresholds on the Pokrovsk–Dobropillia arc, Russia’s infiltration tactics could again bite. Second, Russian mass and engineering: if Moscow is willing to pay higher assault costs to widen its salient and throws bridging, de-mining and electronic-warfare assets at scale, Dobropillia’s risk rises. Third, rear-area strikes: increased Ukrainian pressure on Russian depots and bridges that feed the salient can keep any new wedge starved, as seen after the mid-August thrust. The balance amongst these will decide whether this month’s scare becomes next month’s capture.