Russia asserts control over three Ukrainian territories, claiming capture of several villages
As mid-July 2025 approaches, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine continues to be a major source of concern, with significant ongoing combat and territory shifts.
Russian forces currently occupy approximately 18.9% of Ukraine's territory, a slight increase over recent months. In the past month alone, they have gained roughly 212 square miles (550 square kilometers) of Ukrainian territory, equivalent to the size of Greater Manchester. However, Russian troops face severe challenges in capturing fortified towns and cities, with no significant urban area seized in months, despite prolonged attempts such as nearly a year-long failed effort to capture Pokrovsk.
Ukraine claims to completely control Luhansk and significant portions (60-75%) of Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions. Russian gains are mostly incremental and costly.
The casualties of the conflict are staggering. Estimates of Russian servicemen killed or wounded range from around 750,000 to over 1,000,000, including roughly 250,000 killed and 700,000 injured. NATO's Secretary General announced approximately 100,000 Russian soldiers died in 2025 alone. The U.K. Defense Ministry stated that this year alone Russia has suffered about 240,000 casualties, while total Russian military losses (killed or wounded) have surpassed a million.
Ukraine continues offensive operations, including strikes on Russian military targets within Russia. A sophisticated Ukrainian operation named "Spider Web, Madame Deputy Speaker" inflicted severe damage to Putin’s forces. Ukraine’s new government is fully engaged in war efforts.
Russia has escalated the use of attack drones, with thousands launched in July alone. The largest aerial drone strike of the war occurred on July 9, 2025, involving over 700 attack drones in a single night.
Despite an ultimatum given by former U.S. President Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin on Monday to end the conflict, the Russian army has been continuing its offensive and aerial strikes in Ukraine. The repatriation of military bodies and the exchange of prisoners of war are the few areas where the two countries have cooperated since the start of Russia's large-scale offensive in Ukraine in February 2022.
However, efforts to reach a breakthrough to end the conflict have been unsuccessful. The two countries agreed to release hundreds of prisoners from each side and return the remains of combatants during the May and June talks in Istanbul, Turkey, but no significant progress was made.
The conflict has taken a toll on civilians as well. Overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, a woman was killed and a man injured by a Ukrainian drone strike in the Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine. In the Donetsk region, three people were killed and 27 injured in a strike that occurred the day before in a shopping area in the town of Dobropillia. One person was killed and five others were injured in the city of Dnipro, Ukraine, as a result of a new nighttime barrage of Russian drones. Three adolescents were injured in the Voronezh region (Southwest), bordering Ukraine, by fragments of a drone shot down above a building.
In a concerning development, Vladimir Medinsky, head of the Russian delegation that attended the talks in Istanbul, posted photos showing people in white medical gowns placing body bags into refrigerated trucks. Russia has returned the bodies of 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed to Ukraine, receiving in return the remains of 19 of its own soldiers.
The conflict in Ukraine remains a complex and intense situation, with heavy Russian losses, limited but persistent Russian territorial gains, strong Ukrainian resistance and targeted counterattacks, and ongoing high-intensity warfare without decisive breakthroughs as of mid-July 2025.
- The ongoing war-and-conflicts between Russia and Ukraine have significant impacts on general-news, with politics heavily involved due to international efforts to resolve the situation.
- Crime-and-justice issues are prevalent in the region, as evidenced by the sizable number of casualties on both sides, with numerous reports of accidents such as drone strikes causing civilian harm.
- The war in Ukraine is a source of ongoing concern in the realm of crime-and-justice, as humanitarian violations, such as the use of attack drones, continue unabated, affecting both military personnel and civilians alike.
