Ukraine's General Staff says Russian forces attempted to advance near Pokrovsk 26 times on Sept. 26 — and were repelled every time, losing at least 61 personnel. ISW says Russia's push beyond the city has largely stalled.
Ukraine's frontline saw 175 combat engagements over the past day on Sept. 26, and some of the fiercest fighting was in the Pokrovsk sector of Donetsk Oblast, where the enemy tried to advance 26 times — without success on a single occasion.
Ukraine's General Staff said Russian forces attempted to push toward Dorozhnie, Hannivka, Novyi Donbas, Bilytske, Dobropillia and several other locations, but every attempt ran into organized defense. Preliminary estimates put enemy losses in this sector alone at 44 killed and 17 wounded — at least 61 casualties in a single day of fighting. Ukrainian units destroyed a tank, three vehicles, one artillery piece, six units of special equipment, 45 personnel shelters and one drone control post, and damaged a range of other equipment and positions.
The same night, Ukraine's defense forces struck a Russian P-18 "Terek" radar station in Donetsk Oblast — a key part of the occupiers' air-defense network that helped track incoming Ukrainian aircraft and missiles. Losing that station makes it harder for Russian forces to cover their positions near the front.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assesses that Russia's effort to advance beyond Pokrovsk itself, which Russian forces seized back in February 2026, has largely stalled in recent weeks. Analysts note that Ukrainian units are increasingly focusing not on immediately clearing every infiltrating group but on systematically targeting the reinforcements Russia tries to send in behind them — a tactic that wears the enemy down more effectively than piecemeal counterattacks. Against this backdrop of battlefield setbacks, the Kremlin, analysts say, is leaning more heavily on its long-range strike campaign against infrastructure, hoping to force Ukraine to capitulate this winter through attrition on the home front rather than a breakthrough at the front line.
Behind every number in the General Staff's daily report are specific soldiers who held a position that day, and specific families in the rear for whom that position means one more quiet day without occupation. NGO Volunteers Support Ukraine continues to help people affected by the war in whatever way its available resources allow — because resilience at the front and support in the rear rest on the same thing: not leaving people to face it alone.
