Ukraine Conflict Monitor
Update
Ukraine war situation update | 18 – 24 October 2025
Overview of political violence and conflict events in Ukraine from 18 to 24 October 2025
Key stats
1,405 political violence events
8% decrease compared to last week
98 incidents of violence targeting civilians
13% decrease to the previous week
At least 59 fatalities from civilian targeting
34% increase compared to last week
Key events
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19 Oct.
Donetsk — Russian troops infiltrating Pokrovsk fatally shoot three civilians near the railway station
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20 Oct.
Donetsk — Russian servicemen shoot six civilians sheltering in Zvanivka, killing five
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24 Oct.
Odesa — The Russian air force targets the Odesa region with guided glide bombs for the first time
Key trends
- Russian forces occupied a total of seven settlements in or near the Donetsk region: four west of Velyka Novosilka, one east of Dobropillia, one east of Pokrovsk, and another northwest of Siversk.
- Ukrainian forces reclaimed three settlements east of Pokrovsk, Dobropillia, and Lyman in the Donetsk region, as well as two settlements northwest of Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region.
- Russian forces launched at least 42 long-range missile and drone attacks, including on the Kirovohrad, Odesa, and Poltava regions, as well as the city and region of Kyiv.
- Russian strikes killed at least 36 civilians in the Chernihiv, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Sumy, and Zaporizhia regions, as well as in Kyiv city and region. Ukrainian strikes reportedly killed 10 civilians in the Russia-occupied parts of the Donetsk and Kherson regions.
Spotlight: The Russian infantry infiltrates Pokrovsk
Since 18 October, reports have been trickling in of an ongoing Russian attempt to overrun Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region with small groups of infantry moving past Ukrainian defenders. The town is critical for the defense of about a third of the Donetsk region still under Ukrainian control, as it lies at a crossroads to supply routes from the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region. A similar attempt to infiltrate the southern part of Pokrovsk failed in July. Drone footage released on 19 October of three civilians killed and one injured, allegedly by Russian gunfire,1 revealed that Russian forces reached the railway station in central Pokrovsk.
Since reaching the outskirts of Pokrovsk in September 2024, Russia has been slow to mount a head-on assault on the town as Ukrainian forces have put up fierce resistance. Instead, Russian forces had largely focused on enveloping the town by occupying smaller settlements surrounding it. With the likely aim of stretching the understaffed Ukrainian military, Russian forces also occupied about 80 settlements at the nearby junction of the Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, and Zaporizhia regions in the first 10 months of 2025. Since June, Russian forces have been gaining ground in the area of Myrnohrad, immediately northeast of Pokrovsk. Both cities are now semi-encircled.
If Russia succeeds in pushing Ukrainian forces out of the salient, it will gain a staging ground for further offensives into the Dnipropetrovsk region and toward the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk urban agglomeration in the northern part of the Donetsk region — a probable target of Russia’s offensive in 2026 with the goal of claiming the entire region.
Explore the ACLED Conflict Exposure Calculator to assess the numbers of people affected by armed violence, disaggregated by locations, time period, and actors involved.
