Donbas 'Fortress Belt' Faces Daily Bombardment as Putin Rejects Compromise, Ukraine Strikes Deep Into Russian Arctic

Since Ukrainian police in Donetsk region began ordering families with children out of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk in recent weeks, the reality on the ground in Ukraine's eastern "fortress belt" has grown markedly worse, according to BBC reporting drawn from Donetsk police data.

Pavlo Dyachenko of Donetsk police told the BBC that glide bomb strikes on Slovyansk, which used to hit roughly once a week, now come almost daily. Ukrainian police figures cited by the BBC show civilian casualties in the two cities rose from 70 wounded in June to 212 in August, with 16 deaths in June, 20 in July and 15 in August. Glide bomb launches against the cities jumped from 40 in June to 109 in July and 92 in August.

On August 25, nine glide bombs hit Kramatorsk, seven of them striking apartment blocks and wounding 24 people, including a two-month-old infant, Ukrainian police told the BBC. Two days later seven more bombs hit the city and five hit Slovyansk. A volunteer in Kramatorsk, Viktor Makurin, told the BBC that FPV drones now hover over key streets, which are covered in anti-drone netting, and that driving through the city is "lethally dangerous."

Iryna Rybakova, press officer for Ukraine's 93rd mechanized brigade based in Kramatorsk, told CNN the attacks now happen "dozens of times a day," destroying cars, utility buildings, homes and garages. She said residents carry rifles even for routine errands because drone strikes can happen without warning.

The fortress belt, city by city

Slovyansk, Kramatorsk and Kostyantynivka form the core of what's known as Ukraine's fortress belt, a defensive line built over more than a decade in the Donbas. The BBC reports Kostyantynivka now has only a limited Ukrainian troop presence, while Russia claims full control of the city, a discrepancy neither side has resolved. Russia already controls nearly all of Luhansk region and roughly 80% of Donetsk, according to the BBC's assessment of the front line.

CNN's Donbas coverage, citing Institute for the Study of War analyst Jennie Olmsted, describes Russian forces conducting slow infiltration operations toward Slovyansk and Kramatorsk and advancing in Kostyantynivka, though "at a really slow pace." ISW calculated Russia advanced or infiltrated about 124 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in August, roughly a quarter of the ground it took in the same month a year earlier. At that rate, ISW estimated Russia would not take all of Donetsk until 2032, if it can seize the region at all.

Western intelligence services estimate Russia is losing about 40,000 troops a month in the war, according to CNN, a casualty rate the outlet calculates at roughly 340 losses for every square kilometer gained.

Putin's position after the Kushner-Witkoff visit

The battlefield numbers contrast with Moscow's public posture. Russian presidential aide Yuriy Ushakov said Vladimir Putin told U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and former White House senior adviser Jared Kushner on September 5 that Russia remains committed to achieving all of its war aims through military force, according to the Institute for the Study of War's September 6 assessment. Putin's long-standing demands, first laid out in June 2024, call for full Ukrainian withdrawal from Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts, including territory Russian forces don't currently hold, along with a change of government in Kyiv and a permanent bar on Ukrainian NATO membership.

ISW assessed that Ushakov's claim of Russian "significant advances" along the front does not match the situation on the ground. Russia's own military command structure has a pattern of providing Putin with exaggerated reports, which the group's analysts say may be reinforcing his confidence that Russian forces can take all of Donetsk by the end of 2026. Whether that confidence reflects genuine battlefield assessments inside the Kremlin, or a deliberate negotiating posture, is not established by any source reviewed here.

CNN reported that the Witkoff-Kushner visit to Kyiv on Sunday, September 7, produced no breakthrough, and Ukrainian officials increasingly describe themselves as on the back foot compared to the spring, when Kyiv was gaining ground.

Ukraine hits back deep inside Russia

Ukraine answered with its own long-range campaign. President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian forces struck Novy Urengoy, a city in Russia's Yamalo-Nenets region that produces roughly 80% of the country's natural gas, according to the Interfax news agency figures cited by the Associated Press. Fire Point, the Ukrainian drone and missile manufacturer, said on X that the strike traveled more than 3,300 kilometers, without detailing the target further. The independent Russian outlet Meduza said it was Ukraine's first attack on the city, according to the Associated Press.

Zelensky said Ukrainian forces also struck Novorossiysk, a Black Sea port in Krasnodar region, hitting a naval base, an oil-loading terminal, military port facilities and warships carrying cruise missiles. Zelensky has framed the long-range campaign as a direct response to Moscow's own daily strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure, and said he intends to keep broadening the range of Russian targets Kyiv can reach.

ISW's arithmetic suggests Russia is paying an enormous manpower cost for territorial gains measured in tens of square kilometers a month, while Putin's public statements to Witkoff and Kushner show no sign that cost is changing his demands. No further peace talks have been scheduled as of this week, according to the sources reviewed.