The open-source intelligence community DeepState has released new data on Russian offensive operations in Ukraine, showing a decline in the intensity of attacks during August compared with previous months.
According to the group, Russian forces conducted approximately 5,027 assault actions in August, a reduction from July, June, and May. The decrease was attributed primarily to unit rotations within the Russian military.
DeepState noted that four brigades and one marine regiment had been redeployed toward the Dobropillia area, while reinforcements were sent to the Zaporizhzhia front. At the same time, Russian forces were rotated in the Kramatorsk and Prydniprovsk sectors. Activity in the Kursk, or Sumy, direction dropped sharply, with only 126 assaults recorded after August 13.
The report highlighted that Russia’s most active offensive operations in June had been concentrated in the Pokrovsk sector, accounting for 33.3 percent of all attacks. Other heavily contested fronts included Lyman with 17.1 percent and Novopavlivka with 16.3 percent. Together with other areas, two-thirds of Russian assaults were concentrated on these sectors. By contrast, activity in the Kursk axis fell to 6.7 percent of total attacks, with Toretsk and Kupiansk accounting for 5.7 and 5.3 percent respectively.
DeepState reported that in August Russian occupation expanded by 464 square kilometers, a decrease of 18 percent compared with previous months. The group observed that Russian forces reached 19 percent of Ukrainian territory under occupation, a level not seen since October 3, 2022, before Ukraine’s counteroffensive in Kherson.
“Over the course of two years and eleven months, the overall gain in occupied territory is practically zero,” the community noted, pointing out that while Ukraine lost ground in the east, it had liberated an equivalent amount on the right bank of the Dnipro in Kherson.
DeepState also analyzed the correlation between the number of assaults and territorial changes. The Novopavlivka sector accounted for 38 percent of the territory lost in August, despite representing 16 percent of total assaults. Lyman accounted for 27 percent of losses from 17 percent of attacks, while Pokrovsk saw 19 percent of territorial losses from 33 percent of assaults. Toretsk recorded 9 percent of territory lost from 6 percent of assaults, and other sectors, including Siversk, Kramatorsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kupiansk, reported smaller losses. The Sumy direction saw no change in territory despite 7 percent of recorded attacks.
The analysis concluded that Russian operations in Pokrovsk and Sumy required more frequent assaults to achieve gains, while in Novopavlivka, smaller-scale actions yielded larger territorial results. The report also flagged problems in the Lyman sector, where Ukrainian forces lost a substantial part of the Serebrianskyi forest.
While the overall pace of Russian assaults slowed in August, the analysis underscores that localized sectors continue to pose difficult challenges for Ukrainian defenses.