Russia says its forces advance in eastern Ukraine, strike military airfields

Ukraine says Russia targets Ukraine with a record 728 drones hours after Trump pledged to send more defensive weapons to Kyiv

An artilleryman of the 93rd Kholodnyi Yar Separate Mechanised Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces fires a M109 Paladin self-propelled howitzer towards Russian troops, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, near the city of Kostiantynivka in Donetsk region, Ukraine Jul 5, 2025. REUTERS/Viacheslav Ratynskyi

Russian forces advanced at key points along the front in eastern Ukraine, defeating Ukrainian units in at least six different regions, and used missiles and drones to strike ammunition depots and airfields, the defence ministry said.

Russia, which controls a chunk of Ukraine bigger than the US state of Virginia, took 1,112 square km (430 square miles) of Ukrainian territory in the past two months, according to the Deep State pro-Ukrainian map.

Russia controls nearly a fifth of what is internationally recognised to be Ukraine, including all of Crimea and Luhansk, over 70 percent of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and slivers of the Kharkiv, Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

Russia's defence ministry said Russian forces had defeated Ukrainian units the Donetsk, Sumy, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and the Dnipropetrovsk regions, and captured the village of Tolstoi, in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region.

"We are advancing," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow.

Ukraine said that Russia targeted Ukraine with a record 728 drones overnight, hours after US President Donald Trump pledged to send more defensive weapons to Kyiv and aimed unusually sharp criticism at Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation launched a group strike with high-precision long-range air-launched weapons, including Kinzhal hypersonic ballistic missiles and long-range unmanned aerial vehicles against the infrastructure of military airfields," Russia's defence ministry said.

Russia said the targets had all been hit. Kyiv's military said it downed almost all the Russian drones.