The Battle of Dobropillya/Myrne/Pokrovsk

The main news here is that the Russian “penetration” towards Dobropillya is basically over; there are some smaller bands of Russian troops at large, and over the week, there has been back-and-forth fighting with the general trend of Ukrainians slowly advancing and taking prisoners.

I am informed that the Ukrainian strategy is to let starvation and thirst force the Russians to give up. However, given this is Russian infantry, the more likely outcome is that they will sneak out of encirclement in most cases. Conventional wisdom is that the Russians are basically gone, but the Ukrainians haven’t yet moved in everywhere, so part of the salient is mopped up, and part of it is a gray zone. Here’s a write-up of how things looked on Monday, Aug. 25. There haven’t been many updates since then.

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As time has passed, we have gotten a better picture of the units involved in the Ukrainian counterattacks in this sector. One of the best ways we have of knowing where they are and are not is by tracking content the units themselves put on the internet, and then matching it against other information. This requires wading through the repeats of funny videos, Syrksy announcements, Zelensky briefings, appeals for donations, and recruiting ads that appear constantly on combat unit Telegram channels. But every once in a while, solid battle information gets posted that you can connect to a location. The conventional wisdom is, this sort of stuff is usually posted 24-72 hours after the event, but sometimes units are so proud of what they did that it almost becomes real-time.

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My observation is pretty much all the units involved in the Dobropillya counterattacks have effectively gone dark: the generic non-tactical content is flowing, but from the front, nothing.

This is normally an indicator of units preparing for or executing an operation, or absolutely static activity. From the Russian side, reports are that fighting is still in progress. I’ve seen conflicting reports about who’s in control of Myrne.

Here’s the list of units that were in the Dobropillya area last week, and who should be there this week, but if they are, they’re radio/internet silent. The date is the last time the official brigade Telegram channel told the world what the unit was up to, and where:

Azov – Aug. 17

82nd Assault – Aug. 20

93rd Mech – Aug. 20

37th Marines – Aug. 20

4th NG Rubizh – Aug. 24

RVK – Aug. 28

92nd Assault – Aug .16

Liut Special Ops Police – Aug. 18

82nd Air Assault promo image.

But, the outlier was 425th Assault Regiment Skala, which, until Wednesday, had not registered any trackable activity, but then reported its attacks had entered the western end of the town Novoekonomichine.

There are hints that what’s going on is a cycle of preparation, reconnaissance, and deliberate short-objective assaults. Unless all those above units were so exhausted from fighting last week that they could do nothing, it’s logical to expect they would rest up a bit and fight more this week. But I can’t confirm it.

I think it’s also useful to take a look at a brilliant piece of work by a young Frenchman who has plotted every single Russian air strike for months (image of Pokrovsk sector). On the tactical level, this is an excellent explanation as to why Ukrainian lines are so thin and why weak air defenses force Ukraine to lose ground. In the Pokrovsk context, we might not be seeing much evidence of Ukrainian operational activity, because the Russians are bombing the cr*p out of the whole sector.

Excellent French evaluation of air strikes in Pokrovsk sector, all credit to Clement, brilliant research!

As to the psychological side, see the section about this morning’s attack.

In other developments, it seems Ukrainian forces retreated in the Serebryanske forest sector. According to several accounts, it was several hundred meters to a few kilometers, and it was organized withdrawals. Which may be true, but the Russians published video of at least eight soldiers looking like Ukrainian POWs being led to the rear by Russian soldiers.

Also, in the Zaporizhzhia sector, there are some pretty believable reports that the Russian Volunteer Corps, a big company/small battalion-sized unit made up mostly of Russian nationals fighting on the Ukrainian side, captured 16 prisoners, possibly in attacks on the village of Malynivka.

Missile Boat Hit

The really interesting news on the Ukrainian long-range attack front, I think, had to do with the missile boat. But be advised, this isn’t facts, it’s guesswork.

This afternoon, the maritime special ops forces published video showing pretty conclusively that, somehow, they had hunted down a Russian Project 21631 “Buyan-M” missile boat and hit it somehow with drones. Screen grab from the video.

Russian Buryan missile boat under attack by Ukrainian drones.

This is a small warship that carries Kalibr cruise missiles. According to the Ukrainians, first they used a strike drone to take out the missile boat’s radar, and then, after that, they attacked the hull with more drones. It seems pretty clear, but is not absolutely confirmed, that the radar attack was with a flying drone and the hull attacks were with boat drones.

Image is from an airborne drone going for the radar.

The missile boat made off; it did not sink. But still, this was an impressive little op. The Ukrainians have been hunting for these missile boats for years, but mostly they stay hiding in Novorossiysk port.

I’m not sure when it happened, although the last time I know of that Russia launched Kalibr missiles was on Aug. 20-21. Again, this is speculative, but from the images, it looks like the Ukrainians caught up with the missile boat after it fired its missiles, maybe on Aug. 21, maybe earlier.

The Ukrainian official statement says they intercepted the boat in Temryuk Bay, which is just north of the Kerch Bridge. According to the Ukrainians, this was a “launch site” from which the missile boat had to flee from. Possibly. Did the first effective interference of a Russian ship-launched missile strike operation take place for the first time in the war, about a week ago?

If yes, then it’s pretty easy to see what that means for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. High seas intercepts are not easy; effective ones causing damage are harder still. For the record, for the last 30-45 days, we’ve seen unprecedented activity by US Navy Poseidon patrols over the Black Sea. It used to be that they stayed next to Romania. Now they are flying within 50-70 miles of Russia’s Black Sea coast regularly. Image of a Poseidon recorded by a Russian Air Force Su-27, somewhere over the Black Sea, on Wednesday.

Picture of US Poseidon naval reconnaissance plane over the Black Sea, taken by a Russian fighter pilot.

Kuibyshev and Afinsky Refineries Got Smoke Again

In air-land bombardment, overnight Wednesday-Thursday, the Ukrainians launched what appears to have been several dozen long range strike drones and two attacks – one at Russia’s very biggest oil refinery in the Rostov region, and the other against an oil refinery (one of three) in the Samara region – that were devastating: huge fires, multiple explosions, smoke across the horizon, visible from space, etc. etc. Image.

Kubyshev oil refinery, Samara region, burns following a Ukrainian drone strike on Thursday.

The Samara area strike, attacking the Kubuishevsk refinery, reportedly involved 17+ aircraft, of which at least a dozen scored hits.

There is video of drones flying right through Russian small arms fire – AKs just don’t cut it against a modern drone.

This review observed the Ukrainians were concentrating on Russian oil and gas infrastructure already a month ago, and the mainstream pretty much registered the same thing about two weeks ago. So, the Ukrainians smoking a pair of Russian oil refineries (split image), not really a noteworthy development, right?

L-Oil refinery burns after Ukrainian drone hits, Rostov region. Center – same thing, but Samara region. R-Good map showing oil refineries in SW Russia.

Well, actually, yes, noteworthy. Both refineries had been hit less than ten days before, and at both locations, it took the Russians days to put out the fires. For years, the rah-rah Ukraine club has been griping that the Ukrainian drones are great, but they never follow up. This almost certainly was down to the limited drones available, but that’s neither here nor there. What is important, this week, we saw the Ukrainians launch unprecedented repeat attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, with the obvious objective of not just taking it offline, but keeping it offline.

This is a new stage of the Ukrainian bombardment campaign. They have to sustain it, but if they do, this is awful news for Russia economically.

Energy has been the main but not only target. A big rail hub in Rostov got hit, as did a big oil pipeline in the Ryazan region delivering fuel to Moscow, as did air defense installations in Crimea and Voronezh. At night on Tuesday-Wednesday, a Russian Railways locomotive was set on fire in the Syktyvkar depot in the Komi Republic. Thursday saw a fuel train blown up in Tver, apparently by partisans or commandos. Image.

This is from Thursday. Tver’, Russia, more than 1,000 km. from the train in south Ukraine. But once again fuel cars.

How are the Ukrainians doing this, you ask? Well, an interesting piece of information got published by Special Operations Command this evening. According to them, the past several days have delivered a really big bag of Russian air defense systems.

To wit:

“17 Russian air defense, electronic warfare, and radar systems were hit by the SBU in less than a week. To achieve such a striking result, the special forces of the SBU’s CSO “A” needed only four days. The total value of this equipment on the Russian domestic market alone exceeds $250 million, and for export – 2.5 times more expensive…including:

 Four TOR-M2 SAM systems

 Three Pantsir missile-gun systems

 Two S-300 SAM systems

 One BUK-M3 SAM system

 50N6 S-350 radar

 Kasta-2E2 radar

 Podlyot radar

 Zhitel electronic warfare system

 Nebo-SVU radar

 55Zh6M Nebo-M radar complex

I would say about half of this is confirmable from some other source, but in general, the SBU doesn’t usually fib about things like this. Meaning, we now have a better understanding of how the Ukrainian bombardment operation works: First, the SBU takes down air defense systems that could block the drones’ path to the target, and then the attack drones go in. Almost certainly, SBU is getting an assist on the air defense systems’ locations via NATO. This is interesting for us, especially because when the Ukrainians upscale, how do the Russians stop it?

Finally, a week after the train got hit and burnt in the Tavria steppe, it’s still there. Traffic on the line is still stopped, both ways. I guess clearing the track is a problem because the repair crews would be just as in range of Ukrainian drones as the train was. Image of the train burning, it isn’t anymore.

This is from last week. This week, the wrecked train was still there, no traffic either way.

The Russian Ill Blindness

This review, I think two weeks ago, made a WAG-based estimate that the Ukrainian drone strikes had taken 15-20%  of Russian oil processing capacity offline, and this week internationals like Bloomberg were reporting the same thing.

Reports of spot shortages and even empty fuel stations are increasing, and, I think tellingly, on Thursday, no less than Foreign Minister Lavrov announced Russian fuel supplies are stable and Russian fuel consumers have nothing to worry about.

According to the Ukrainians, meanwhile, following the Thursday strikes, fully one-quarter of the oil processing capacity (the formal number is 25.7%) of the entire Russian Federation is offline. And it seems very clear they have more drones to launch.

According to EU Foreign Policy Chief Kaja Kallas, Russian oil revenues have dropped by 30%. What’s more, she told Die Welt, new EU sanctions against Russia’s “shadow tanker fleet” cut oil transport revenues through the Baltic and Black Seas by 30% in a week. She called on the US to join the sanctions; no response from DC on that.

The trade publications this week reported that Russian oil companies still using international accounting standards have taken giant hits, already, to their bottom lines, to wit, net profit for the first half of 2025, annualized for twelve months, was as follows:

RussNeft — 11.8 billion rubles, a 3.2-fold drop over 2024

Tatneft — 58.01 billion rubles, a 2.6-fold drop over 2024

Also, there was this: Latvian Member of the European Parliament, Mārtiņš Staķis, said that the Russian budget deficit right now is €55 billion and is expected to reach €90 billion by the end of the year. Russia is not the US or China; the ruble isn’t a base world currency, and Putin can’t print money to dig Russia out of that budget hole. Staķis called Russia a “colossus on clay feet.”

One day later, during a marathon cabinet meeting, US President Donald J. Trump attacked Ukraine for starting a war with Russia that Ukraine could never win, because Russia is “14 times bigger.”

Reports have been conflicting this week, but it appears that once it was clear the White House was imposing 50% tariffs on India (the highest US tariff in Asia), the Indian response seems to be to increase Russian crude oil exports, and then make money processing the crude into usable fuels.

Reuters reported on Thursday that Indian refiners will increase their purchases of Russian oil in September by 10-20% compared to August, or by 150,000-300,000 barrels per day. According to analysts at Vortexa, India imported 1.5 million barrels of Russian oil per day in the first 20 days of August.

Te nem értesz?! Én láttam az ördögöt! Szemtöl-szembe láttam öt! Keyser Söze! Keyser Söze!

Yes, that is a pop culture reference. Hint: It involves Hungarian and a scary individual.

The predict/repeat of this section is the now long-running conflict between the Hungarian government and the Armed Forces of Ukraine (ZSU), about whether or not it’s OK for Ukraine to blow up oil transportation infrastructure in Russia that delivers crude oil to Hungary (and Slovakia).

As many of you will recall from last week, Budapest’s position is that Ukraine’s “conflict” with Russia has nothing to do with Ukraine, and so any Ukrainian attack on Hungarian energy sources – and Russia’s Druzhba pipeline is Hungary’s sole source of crude oil – is a direct threat to Hungarian national sovereignty and so probably aggression towards NATO.

The Ukrainian view is that Hungary has had three years to divest itself of Russian energy; it hasn’t, and Russian oil sales in Hungary – which are state-controlled by both Moscow and Budapest – buy Russian tanks, artillery shells, missiles, bombs, and soldiers the Kremlin uses to kill and injure Ukrainians.

Also, Hungary opposes any move by the EU towards Ukrainian membership, and Hungary has repeatedly vetoed – as the sole member state opposed – the EU’s latest planned assistance package to Ukraine, worth €6 billion with a “b.”

Things got heated last week when Ukraine hit a critical node in the Bryansk region called Unecha, shut off supplies, the Russians fixed it, and then the Ukrainians hit it again, harder.

As many of you will recall, an ethic Hungarian unmanned aircraft commander in the Ukrainian military named Robert Brovdi said it was his drones that did it.

Robert Brovdi eats popcorn, he and his brigade took credit for damage to the Druzhba oil pipeline pumping station (right)

Then on Wednesday, Hungarian Foreign Minister Szijjarto (image) announced Hungary’s friend Russia would fix the pipeline and “limited supplies” would be flowing on Thursday.

This is Hungary’s Foreign Minister, he is mad at Ukraine and Robert Brovdi for blowing up the Druzhba pipeline.

The background to this was that the Hungarian company importing the oil announced that if the oil doesn’t start flowing, Slovakia will have to unseal its strategic reserves and stop exporting oil products, and THAT will cut all Hungarian fuel imports by 20%.

This naturally produced a wave of Ukrainian internet content cheerily reminding everyone that the person who decides how much Russian oil does or does not get isn’t in Budapest, he’s the commander of the drone units that have been hitting the pipeline. Image of two Ukrainian special operations commanders and a meme pointing out they, not Russia, decide how much Russian oil gets delivered to Hungary.

Funny Ukrainian meme pointing out that Hungary doesn’t decide how much oil Russia will ship Hungary, Ukrainian special operators will. Left is the boss of military intelligence HUR and right is the boss of secret intelligence SBU.

So, same day, Zaijarto declared Brovdi persona non grata in Hungary and further extended the ban to the entire Schengen area. This was a mean thing to do: Brodvi has spoken at NATO conferences to explain to NATO officers how drone warfare works, and Brovdi’s father and his relatives come from Hungary. Zajarto’s order, among other things, makes it impossible for Brovdi to visit his grandparents’ graves. That one ethnic Hungarian would deny another ethnic Hungarian the right to tread on Hungarian soil – well, you can see how that’s nasty and doesn’t play particularly well with the current Hungarian government party line about the international solidarity of Hungarians.

In typical bureaucrat fashion, Szaijarto justified the travel ban on Brovdi with official-sounding boilerplate that probably looked good on the outreach specialist’s laptop:

“Ukraine knows very well that the Druzhba pipeline is vital for Hungary’s and Slovakia’s energy supply, and that such strikes harm us far more than Russia. Anyone who attacks our energy security and sovereignty must face consequences.”

This on Thursday drew a statement from Brovdi. I quote it in full so that you can see the difference between language used by an *ahem* authoritarian Hungarian bureaucrat talking in obsessive-compulsive orgspeak, during a war, because he thinks it makes him sound clever and superior,

– and –

The words of a man who has been at war for three years, starting off as a civilian and who now arguably commands one of the most lethal combat organizations on earth, to wit, 414 Unmanned Aircraft Brigade, and who, by the by, is plenty Hungarian himself.

Brovdi told Szaijarto:

“You can shove your sanctions and restrictions on visiting Hungary up your ass, Mr. ‘Dancer-On-Bones’. I am a Ukrainian. I will travel to the land of my Father, even after you are gone. There are enough real Hungarians in Hungary. One day, they will get sick of you. And as far as Schengen restrictions – don’t bite off more than you can chew. Your humor stinks. Your “special agents” aren’t anywhere near the top ten. So, for now, just wait for what’s coming to you.

‘And as far as your populism about the ‘sovereignty of Hungary,’ you just keep on selling that claptrap to the stupid and uneducated. As long as there are even a few of them, you’ll have someone who will buy your bla-bla-bla. But just remember, this is the black-and-white position of an ethnic Hungarian, of a Ukrainian soldier, and the commander of the ‘Birds’ (414 Unmanned Aircraft Brigade) of the Armed Forces of Ukraine:

’By taking oil from the Druzhba pipeline, you aren’t defending Hungary’s sovereignty. You’re filling your own dirty pockets with sanctioned, cheap, raw materials. By buying them, you are complicit in transferring bloody money to Russia, which then flies back into Ukraine as missiles and Shahed drones aimed at peaceful Ukrainian cities.

‘Just today, August 28, 2025, dozens of Ukrainians have been killed in Kyiv. Your arms are elbow-deep in Ukrainian blood. And we remember that.“

UPDATE: Thursday evening, the Foreign Minister of Poland wrote an open note to Brovdi: If he wants a European vacation, he’s welcome in Poland.

If Hungary doesn’t support Ukraine, Poland does, and FM Sikorski is very good at needling people.

Actually, Ukraine is Getting Help – From Europe

This week saw a wave of announcements of new military assistance for Ukraine. By and large, this is European money buying European and US equipment for Ukraine.

Norway

– Patriot air defense systems (along with Germany, two total)

– An electronic intelligence gathering system/air surveillance radar called TRML-45 (along with Germany)

– Typhon 2 air defense systems; this is an anti-aircraft missile, Norway’s Kongsberg is the manufacturer. Image, and I bet it’s Ft. Huachuca.

This is a new air defense system the Norwegians and Germans will buy for the Ukrainians, it’ very effective but medium range.

– Norway’s support to Ukraine in dollars for 2025 will be $8.45 billion.

The US

– ERAMS long-range guided bombs, contract for 3,600; if the Americans don’t weasel out of the contract, then probably 100 a month for three years. This is not US “help,” it is a sale paid for by Europe.

Sweden

– Agreed on joint arms production with Ukraine, not clear what, but anti-tank weapons would be obvious

– ASC 890 AWACS aircraft is operational, money committed to keep it flying. Image.

Spiffy ASC 890 AWACS plane of the type the Ukrainian air force just started flying, this is an “eye in the sky” radar platform and another one of those high tech capacities, the Americans always were in a position to take away from the Ukrainians, but now not so much.

 

UK

– Interflax training to continue through 2026

– Current courses are basic infantryman, platoon and squad commander, and training the trainer

Canada

– Announces new support of half a billion dollars US for Ukraine.

Two Weeks and Another Big Strike

There was another “big” Russian drone/missile strike on Thursday. Numbers on that below, but for those of us who seek patterns, here’s how August has been so far:

Aug .19 – 270 drones, 10 missiles

Aug. 21 – 574 drones, 40 missiles

Aug. 28 – 598 drones, 31 missiles

The other days, zero to two missiles and 50-100 drones, every day.

So, first thing, I think we can safely say the Russian Federation sees its foreign policy objectives best served by bombarding Ukraine, rather than by negotiations under a ceasefire.

As to Thursday, it was 598 drones, two Kinzhal “hypersonic” missiles, nine Iskander M/KN-23 ballistic missiles, and 20 X-101 air-launched cruise missiles.

Of these, the Ukrainians by their counts knocked out/disabled 563 drones, one Kinzhal, seven Iskanders/KN-23s, and 18 X-101s. Kyiv absorbed most of the hits (image), but Sloviansk, which had no air defense to speak of, absorbed two ballistic missiles. (Image). It seems possible the Russian target was the city hotel, which is a place where transients like soldiers and journalists stay.

It looks like two cruise missiles and one Kinzhal hit Kyiv. It was loud, and one weapon – suspect the Kinzhal – hit an apartment building, leveled it, killed at least ten, and injured about 50, around half of the victims were children. The rail depot got hit, and at least one of the nice South Korea-made Intercity trains got totally burnt out. This delayed most Intercity departures throughout the day.

There is some evidence that the Russians were targeting the EU office in Kyiv and the British Council office in Kyiv, but with the CEP of these weapons, it could just as easily have been just bad luck.

Ukrainian Ship Sunk

Ukraine’s navy on Thursday reported a Russian sea drone had penetrated into the mouth of the Danube River and hit, and according to the Russians, sunk the naval reconnaissance ship Simferopol. It seems to have been defenseless. Probably it was a platform for air and sea radars. A Ukrainian spokesman said most of the crew was unhurt, but some were missing, and the crew is fighting on-board fires.

So next obvious question: NATO members Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria – How well defended are their ports and warships against Russian sea drones? Because the Russians just demonstrated what the Ukrainians could do with sea drones about two years ago, the Russian navy now can deploy them as a weapon as well.

Mariupol Water

The water crisis in Russia-occupied Donbas is getting worse, this is because of demolished infrastructure, polluted water tables, and a dry summer. A general write-up on that is here.

The Russians have put forward all manner of schemes to solve the problem, many of them pretty hare-brained.

For those of you who recall patrolling in the Mariupol sector for OSCE, I ran across a report that Mariupol authorities are planning to empty the Chermalyk/Pavlopil reservoir and use the water in the reservoir to end the water drought around Mariupol.

One strongly suspects it has to be cheaper just to truck the water in from the Don. But, according to the plan, the reservoir will be drained of 64 million m³ of water over three months, after which water from the Kalmius will be diverted to the vicinity of Donetsk, and basically the reservoir will disappear forever.

The Mariupol pro-ecology people think this is a bad idea because once the reservoir – Mariupol’s main source of clean drinking water is gone – then the city will drink not reservoir water but river flow water, and that means increased salt, chemicals, and pollutants for humans.

For wildlife, the same problem. Instead of relatively clean water heading down the Sea of Azov via the Pavlopil/Chermalyk dam, it will be an effectively unfiltered flow.

This will mean dried-up wetlands, reduced habitat for both water and land animal life, reduced oxygen levels where there is water, and, of course, increased salinity and reduced depth in the Sea of Azov.

So the prediction is a vicious circle of dried-up estuaries, mass fish die-off, death or departure of most bird species, and – wait for it – mosquito plagues. Also, irrigation will be less or not at all.

The write-up I read closes: “This will NOT solve the issue of water supply to Mariupol. At best, it will simply postpone the inevitable for six months. And then it will immediately get even worse. Because this is the final destruction of the Azov Sea hydrosystem.” Image is a pretty pre-war picture of the Kalmius, and a children’s drawing of the lower Kalmius flood basin today.

Kalmius river in peacetime (L), in the eyes of a Mariupol child in modern times (R)

Reprinted from Kyiv Post’s Special Military Correspondent Stefan Korshak’s blog. You can read his blog here.

The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.

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