MOSCOW — Russian forces will take every remaining fortified position held by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Donetsk People’s Republic, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said Saturday, framing Konstantinovka’s fall as the beginning of a decisive phase rather than an endpoint.
“Establishing control over such a key stronghold of the Ukrainian Armed Forces as Konstantinovka was an important stage in the liberation of the entire territory of the DPR,” Ushakov told reporters. “No matter how much the Kiev regime clings to the remaining fortified areas, our army will definitely take them.”
Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov had reported to Putin on Friday that Russian forces fully liberated Konstantinovka. Putin called it “the key to the liberation of the entire territory of the DPR,” adding that the capture opens a direct path of advance toward Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, the two cities that have served as the core of Ukraine’s military and civilian presence in Donetsk Oblast since the start of the Russian operation in 2022.
Konstantinovka sits south of Slavyansk and Kramatorsk. Its capture eliminates a Ukrainian logistics anchor in the center of Donetsk Oblast and, as Moscow describes it, creates a corridor through which an advance on those cities is now operationally viable. Putin described the Konstantinovka capture as the “first stage” in a stated drive to take full control of the entire Donetsk region, naming Kramatorsk and Slavyansk as the next objectives.
The Russian Defense Ministry proposed a six-hour ceasefire on July 6 to permit the handover of Ukrainian soldiers’ bodies, requiring Kyiv to respond by Saturday noon Moscow time. That offer, and its narrow deadline, reflects a pattern Moscow uses after significant territorial gains: the ceasefire frame signals consolidation, not negotiation.
Ukrainian military authorities have not issued a formal statement acknowledging Russian control of Konstantinovka. Independent confirmation of full Russian control has not been available from open-source reporting as of Saturday evening. Whether Ukrainian forces have begun new defensive preparations around Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, and what the operational front lines reflect versus what Moscow has declared, remains a gap the current reporting cannot close.
