Russian assault units have stormed the eastern districts of the key Donetsk industrial city of Kostyantynivka, where street-by-street fighting now rages and thousands of civilians remain trapped. Moscow’s defence ministry said on Thursday that troops from its ‘Southern’ grouping had established full control over the eastern part of the city and reached its north-eastern outskirts. Ukrainian military sources, meanwhile, described a ‘semi-encirclement’ after Russian advances near Chasiv Yar and Berestok, with units pushing into the Novoselovka micro-district. Aerial footage released by Ukraine’s ‘Fenix’ border guard unit revealed the scale of destruction: few buildings still stand and the city is under relentless glide-bomb and artillery strikes.

The fight for Kostyantynivka is the sharp end of a wider Russian offensive across the northern Donetsk region. Moscow’s defence establishment says its forces are attacking on a broad front within the so-called Sloviansk-Kramatorsk-Kostyantynivka fortified area, a linchpin of Ukraine’s eastern defences. Further north, in Kharkiv province, Russian ‘North’ grouping units captured the village of Okhrimivka, described by the defence ministry as a key Ukrainian strongpoint in the Vovchansk district. Ukrainian troops defending Kostyantynivka’s Novoselovka and Zheleznodorozhnyi quarters have reported systematic assaults intended to exhaust their positions through constant shelling, drone strikes, and communications disruption.

The human toll is mounting. Some 2,000 civilians are estimated to be sheltering in the embattled city, frequently jolted by overnight explosions. The absence of safe evacuation corridors leaves them stranded in a wasteland of shattered apartment blocks. Ukrainian border guards describe a place where ‘hardly a stone stands on another’. The situation mirrors the grinding urban warfare seen earlier in Bakhmut and Avdiivka, with Moscow’s forces employing overwhelming firepower before committing infantry.

Viewed from Western capitals, the simultaneous pushes in Donetsk and Kharkiv suggest the Kremlin is determined to strain Ukraine’s overstretched front lines ahead of key diplomatic engagements. Analysts in London note that Russia’s claimed capture of eastern Kostyantynivka, if consolidated, would outflank Ukrainian positions around the Kramatorsk-Sloviansk conurbation—the major remaining strongholds in the Donbas. Retired officers close to the Russian defence ministry have openly boasted that the advance is proceeding ‘without slowing’, while Ukrainian soldiers acknowledge a systematic enemy effort to sap their defences. With more than 80 percent of Donetsk province already under Russian control, the battle for Kostyantynivka could prove a decisive chapter in the campaign for the industrial heartland.

On the diplomatic front, the intensification of operations underscores Moscow’s apparent calculus that military gains on the ground will strengthen its hand in any future negotiations. For Kyiv, the loss of Kostyantynivka would be both a tactical blow and a symbolic loss of yet another city in the Donbas. As summer approaches, the rhythm of the war shows no sign of slackening.