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Kostiantynivka falls
Russia said it captured the eastern Ukrainian city of Kostjantyniwka, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov telling journalists, "Kostjantyniwka is completely captured. The city is now fully under our control," and adding that President Vladimir Putin spoke with the army about it.
DIE WELT reported that Putin ordered the immediate evacuation of all civilians remaining in Kostjantyniwka later that evening, and said the industrial city had 78,000 inhabitants before the war.
The fighting around the city was described as continuing in Kostiantynivka, with Vtchasno noting that "We can no longer speak of infiltration," and with the city described as part of the "fortress belt" of western Donbas on par with Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Druzhkivka.
Courrier international said Kostiantynivka had about 67,000 inhabitants before the war and that today only 2,500 people remain, living in a real field of ruins.
The same Courrier international account said the fall of the city would fit a "repetition of the Pokrovsk scenario" and framed Kostiantynivka as fortified by the Ukrainian army as part of that belt.
Competing narratives
From the Russian side, TRT World said Peskov announced that "Kostyantynivka has been completely taken. The city is now entirely under our control," and it quoted Putin thanking Russian soldiers in uniform on television.
TRT World also cited a Russian commander, Anton Grunis, saying the army was engaged in "search and elimination operations against isolated soldiers of the Ukrainian armed forces who are trying to hide in buildings, cellars and ruins."
On the Ukrainian side, the BBC-linked Vietnam.vn account quoted a Ukrainian pilot of drones saying, "Si infiltrano in aree di cui non siamo assolutamente a conoscenza e, in un contesto urbano, respingerli è estremamente difficile," describing a situation in which Russian forces entered a "zona grigia" not under anyone’s control.
Vietnam.vn also quoted Ukrainian leadership through a BBC-reported general of brigade Oleksandr Bakulin, who said, "la situazione rimane sotto controllo" and that "il nemico non ha ottenuto alcun successo," while acknowledging that about 130 Russian soldiers were still inside the city.
The New Voice of Ukraine said the Institute for the Study of War wrote on June 30 that the Kremlin’s deadlines to fully capture Donetsk Oblast were unrealistic, and it quoted Zelenskyy saying Moscow had set deadlines to capture the Donbas 15 times, failing every single one.
What comes next
The New Voice of Ukraine reported that the Kremlin has tasked its forces with capturing Donetsk Oblast by Dec. 31, 2026, and said ISW considers this deadline, like earlier ones, entirely unrealistic.
It added that ISW calculated Russian forces still need to capture approximately 5,305 square kilometers of Donetsk Oblast territory, and it contrasted June 2026’s average advance of 3.79 square kilometers per day with August 2025’s 16.65 square kilometers per day.
In the same reporting thread, Russia Matters’ July 1, 2026 war report card used DeepState OSINT group data to say Russian forces made a net gain of 31 square miles of Ukrainian territory in the past four weeks (June 2–30, 2026), while ISW data showed a net gain of 11 square miles for the same period.
Russia Matters also said that in the period of June 2–June 30, 2026, Russian forces saw a net gain of 31 square miles, and it contrasted that with the previous four-week period (May 5–June 2, 2026) when Russia gained a net of 3 square miles according to DeepState’s data.
Courrier international framed the strategic stakes by describing Kostiantynivka as part of a fortified belt and by saying that if Pokrovsk were to fall, Putin would be a step from the conquest of the Donbass, the enormous mining and industrial basin he has declared as a territorial priority.
