The Russian military has gobbled up more territory in Ukraine's east, and is clearly ramping up the pressure - making rapid gains - just on the eve of the highly anticipated Trump-Putin summit in Alaska set for Friday. The week started off with international reports saying the Ukrainians evacuated ten settlements and villages along the front lines - notably among them Bilozerske - as Russian forces move in. This trend continued in the days that followed.
The AFP is now documenting more: "Ukraine on Thursday ordered more evacuations in the east, from a town close to where Russia's army recently made a swift breakthrough, as Moscow steps up pressure ahead of the U.S.-Russia summit," the report says.
A regional military Ukrainian official who oversees Donetsk region additionally confirmed, "We began the mandatory evacuation of families with children from the town of Druzhkivka."
He described that four more villages near the town were also evacuated, and detailed that in total 1,879 children were remaining in the settlements.
Russa on Wednesday into Thursday declared its forces had captured the village of Iskra and the small town of Shcherbynivka the Donetsk region. With these developments, AFP offered the following conclusion:
Russian forces had on Tuesday swiftly advanced by up to 10 kilometers (six miles) in a narrow section of the front line near the towns of Dobropillia and Druzhkivka.
This was their biggest gain for a 24-hour period in over a year, according to an AFP analysis of data from the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
According to more based on the ISW study:
The Russian army took or claimed 110 square kilometers (42.5 square miles) on August 12 compared to the previous day, according to AFP analysis of battlefield data from the Institute for the Study of War.
It was the biggest advance since late May 2024.
In recent months, Moscow has typically taken five or six days to progress at such a pace, although Russian advances have accelerated in recent weeks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said this is a clear indication that Putin doesn't actually want to end the war, after earlier this week accusing him of "bluffing" when he talks about the prospect of ceasefire.
"We see that the Russian army is not preparing to end the war. On the contrary, they are making movements that indicate preparations for new offensive operations," Zelensky said in a fresh statement.
Putin knows he is clearly in the driver's seat on the eve of the Alaska summit. Trump would have to offer something very big indeed - in the form of territorial concessions and a pledge of no NATO membership for Kiev. However, Ukraine has also said it would accept no decisions from the summit, give it doesn't have any input or participation. They are 'dead' on arrival, the Zelensky government has made clear.
Currently, the US and Ukraine seem to have the idea of a 'freeze' on the table - which would allow for Russian troops to stay in their current positions in the Donbass - but without giving permanent political recognition of Russian sovereignty.
Putin may not accept this, as he likely feels he's in a position to settle the issue once and for all on the battlefield, and political recognition would be a forced reality the West would have to eventually deal with. But it's also possible that he could see in such a ceasefire an opportunity to regroup and rest his forces, in order to then later expand operations even more rapidly, and solidify total control over the whole of the Donbas region.