Russian ballistic attacks intensify as Kyiv claims Dnipropetrovsk advance

Ukraine has declared the successful end of an operation in which it recaptured 745 square kilometres (287 square miles) of its territory this year in its southern region of Dnipropetrovsk.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on Wednesday that the campaign was carried out “exactly as it was determined” and said almost 10,000 Russian soldiers were killed in the process.

The counteroffensive deprived Russia of almost all the territory it had gained in Dnipropetrovsk since entering that region in June 2025, and pushed it back over the regional borders of Donetsk and Zaporizhia.

But this good news for Ukrainians was overshadowed by intensified Russian missile strikes against their cities, which remain increasingly defenceless after the exhaustion of Patriot interceptors.

Combined strikes of drones and ballistic or hypersonic missiles hit Kyiv on August 8 and 11, plunged Odesa in darkness on August 9, and struck the city of Zaporizhzhia on August 11, killing at least nine people across all strikes.

Zelenskyy said the Dnipropetrovsk operation alone had liberated 26 settlements.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank that assesses territorial control using geolocated open-source information, conservatively assessed that Ukraine had clawed back at least 627sq km (242 square miles) in the area.

“This operation once again proved that the Ukrainian army is capable not only of steadfastly holding its defences, but also of launching offensives, seizing the initiative, and liberating Ukrainian land,” said former commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii, who planned it.