Two Way Street

For the identical four-week window of June 23 to July 21, 2026, the three open-source projects that measure Russian territorial gain published materially different figures: DeepState 15 square miles, ISW 10 square miles, and The Economist 30 square kilometres — which its own interactive also gives as 12 square miles. All three are compiled side by side in the Russia Matters war report card of July 22, which discloses part of the reason for the spread: its ISW total is produced by summing three separate ISW map layers, "Claimed Russian control over Ukrainian territory", "Assessed Russian-controlled Ukrainian territory" and "Assessed Russian Advances in Ukraine", while DeepState maintains a distinct third state between occupied and Ukrainian-held, the "penetration" or grey zone. ISW named the underlying problem itself in its May 2, 2026 assessment: comparisons across years "are not straightforward, as Russian forces exert a significantly lower degree of control over infiltration areas than they do over seized areas." Where the trackers do converge is the total: Russia presently holds 45,156 square miles of Ukraine on DeepState's count and 45,660 on ISW's — about 19% and about 20% respectively, including Crimea and the parts of Donbas taken before February 2022. Every square-kilometre figure on this page, in either direction, carries this spread.

The Institute for the Study of War restated its control assessment for Kostyantynivka on July 22, and the revision ran against the direction Russian commanders have claimed. Working from geolocated footage published July 11–21 — some of it filmed as early as July 7 — ISW assesses that control of the city remains contested: Russian forces are infiltrating the northwest, centre, east and southwest, but Ukrainian forces still hold positions in the northwest, northeast and centre, and exercise more control of the southern industrial area than ISW had previously assessed. ISW states this indicates Russian forces still do not control all of Kostyantynivka, as senior Russian commanders have recently claimed. Corroborating geolocations point the same way: footage published July 18 places Ukrainian forces in Molocharka northeast of the city, footage published July 19–20 shows Ukrainian forces striking Russian positions in western Illinivka and central Dovha Balka after likely infiltration missions, and footage published July 22 shows Russian forces striking Ukrainian positions in northern Lyman — a Russian strike on a position being itself evidence that the position is Ukrainian-held. The clarification closes an open question carried in this sub-topic since the mid-June capture claims: infiltration is not control, and by ISW's definition Kostyantynivka has not changed hands. Three days later the picture had not moved in Russia's favour. In its July 26 assessment ISW wrote that "Russian forces continue infiltration missions in Kostyantynivka while Ukrainian forces maintain positions within the city", and geolocated footage published July 23 to 25 shows Ukrainian forces striking Russian positions in the north-west, centre, south and west of the city and north of Illinivka — strikes ISW reads as following infiltration, not a change of control. A second and methodologically independent tracker now says the same thing: DeepState assessed that Russian forces failed to expand permanent control in the urban area over the past week, holding the southern and eastern outskirts while the neighbourhoods themselves remain mostly grey zone and the northern part of the city stays under Ukrainian control. Neither the July 24, 25 nor 26 assessment records any Russian claim of having captured the city.

Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets reported on July 22 that Russian forces have advanced to the Rodynske–Novooleksandrivka line south of Dobropillya in areas ISW had previously assessed as infiltration only, indicating Russian forces likely seized Novooleksandrivka, and that they have infiltrated south of Novomykolaivka and into Kucheriv Yar, Vilne, Toretske, Novyi Donbas and Vodyansk. He reported elements of the Russian 2nd and 51st Combined Arms Armies, supported by the 41st CAA, pushing toward the outskirts of Dobropillya along the Pokrovsk–Dobropillya and Novotoretske–Novyi Donbas lines, reinforced with artillery, mortars and small groups of armoured vehicles, and named a fresh order of battle: the 91st Separate Rifle Regiment plus the 99th, 107th and 111th separate rifle regiments attached to the 51st CAA — the first evidence ISW has observed of the last three operating on the battlefield — and elements of the 92nd Missile Brigade in the Dobropillya direction. Mashovets assesses the aim is to take Dobropillya quickly to set conditions for an offensive against Druzhkivka and, potentially, the Fortress Belt in summer–autumn 2026, but that Russian forces may instead become bogged down there. Two Russian FAB-500 strikes on a Ukrainian command post in Dobropillya were geolocated on July 23. The reporting is Ukrainian-sourced and relayed by ISW as 'likely', not geolocation-confirmed — so no map polygon, axis or unit marker has been moved on it. It is nonetheless the only direction in this window where either side is described as gaining ground, at a moment when ISW recorded no confirmed advances anywhere on the front on July 23. The axis did not open. ISW recorded Russian forces continuing offensive operations in the Dobropillya tactical area on July 23, 24, 25 and 26 and not advancing on any of the four days, and the settlement names Novooleksandrivka and Rodynske — the reported seizure that made this axis worth watching — appear nowhere in those three assessments, neither confirmed nor retracted. What did firm up is what was thrown at it. Brigadier General Oleksandr Pivnenko, commander of Ukraine's National Guard, confirmed that the July 22 push was a reinforced company-sized mechanised assault by elements of the Russian 8th and 41st Combined Arms Armies including the 41st's 90th Tank Division, advancing from Novoekonomichne and Vozdvyzhenka toward settlements near Shakhove over about four hours. Geolocated footage published July 23 shows Ukrainian strikes on a Russian tank and armoured personnel carrier north of Novotoretske, a tank at Shakhove and a BM-21 Grad at Nove Paltavka; footage published by Ukraine's State Border Guard Service, which ISW notes appears to have since been deleted from the agency's website, claimed nine tanks, two armoured fighting vehicles and three Grad launchers struck. ISW's July 24 and July 25 reports place Shakhove on opposite sides of Dobropillya, so its bearing is left unstated here.

For three consecutive daily assessments — July 24, 25 and 26 — the Institute for the Study of War concluded that neither side made a confirmed advance anywhere on the front. The phrasing is near-identical each day ("Neither Ukrainian nor Russian forces made confirmed advances on July 24"), and it is ISW's strictest standard: confirmation requires geolocated evidence. The independent OSINT project DeepState puts a number on the same stall. It assessed Russian-controlled area growing by 9.76 square kilometres over the past week — about 1.4 sq km a day, against 2–3 sq km a day in June and early July, 4–5 in March, and 8–14 a day in the final months of 2025. Across the four Donetsk sectors where Russia has concentrated its effort — Dobropillia, Kostiantynivka, Kramatorsk and Slovyansk — DeepState recorded 6.92 sq km taken, down from 17.33 the week before, a slowdown of more than half. Movement ran the other way too, though modestly: near Filia on the Donetsk–Dnipropetrovsk border, 6.69 sq km dropped out of the occupation zone into DeepState's contested "grey zone", and Ukrainian forces cleared a further 5.42 sq km between Filia and Ivanivka into permanent control. DeepState is explicit that this was not enough to reduce the overall occupied area: the week was still net-positive for Russia, only barely.

Over the same three days in which ISW recorded no confirmed advance by either side, Russian sources publicly claimed to have taken at least five settlements. The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed Shevchenko, northwest of Pokrovsk, on July 26, and Zakharivka and Ivashkyne in the Kharkiv direction on July 24; Russian milbloggers claimed Bilytske, northeast of Pokrovsk, and advances southwest of Osykove, at Kivsharivka near Kupyansk, northeast of Borova and into eastern Dolynka. ISW confirmed none of them, and in each case recorded in the same section that Russian forces had not advanced there. The Bilytske claim is the one ISW went out of its way to address: the milbloggers made it, ISW wrote, "after Russian sources posted likely artificial intelligence (AI) altered footage purporting to show Russian forces operating in the settlement." The ledger is not one-sided. The only claimed movement in the Ukrainian direction — the military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets reporting advances south of Maliivka and Zlahoda, toward Zaporizke and Uspenivka, and toward the Hulyaipole–Velyka Novosilka road on the Oleksandrivka axis — is equally unconfirmed, and falls under the same July 25 finding of no confirmed advances by either side.