Ukraine war situation update: 10 – 16 May 2025

Key trends

• In the Donetsk region, Russian forces continued to advance around Pokrovsk, seizing a village east of the city. Russian forces also made advances south and southwest of Kostiantynivka and west of Velyka Novosilka. 
• Russian forces made gains north of Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region and near the international border with Russia in the Sumy region. 
• ACLED records at least 23 Russian long-range missile and drone strikes, including in Kyiv city and the Kyiv region, as well as the western regions of Rivne, Ternopil, and Ivano-Frankivsk. 
• Russian shelling, missiles, aerial bombs, and drones killed at least 18 civilians in the Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, and Sumy regions. Ukrainian shelling and drone strikes reportedly killed 13 civilians in the Russian-occupied parts of the Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia regions. 

Spotlight: Russia demands recognition of occupied territory in talks with Ukraine

On 16 May, direct peace talks between Ukraine and Russia took place in Istanbul, Turkey, for the first time since 2022. Despite Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyi’s proposal that he and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin hold a personal meeting, Russia sent a delegation headed by presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky.¹ Russia also appeared to show no interest in an unconditional 30-day ceasefire, previously proposed by the US and agreed to by Ukraine. Russia has reportedly hinged its agreement to a ceasefire on Ukraine’s acceptance of extensive demands for a peace settlement.² These reportedly include cutting Ukraine off from Western military aid; scaling back its armed forces;³ withdrawing its troops from the entire Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson regions, as well as international recognition of these regions and the Crimean peninsula as Russian; neutral status of Ukraine; and no war reparations.⁴ Ukraine’s delegation referred to these demands as “non-starters”⁵ that would significantly compromise Ukraine’s future security and sovereignty. Despite the lack of progress, the delegations agreed to swap 1,000 prisoners of war each in the coming weeks.⁶ To increase pressure on Russia to accept a ceasefire, the European Union began working on a new package of sanctions against Russia, targeting the Nord Stream pipelines, banking sector, and Russia’s “shadow fleet” vessels used to bypass oil sanctions.⁷

Explore the ACLED Conflict Exposure tool to assess the numbers of people affected by armed violence, disaggregated by locations, time period, and actors involved.