ISW's August 3 campaign note said Russian forces are copying the Summer-Fall 2025 battlefield air interdiction that prepared late-2025 advances near Pokrovsk and Huliaipole. The new target is the Fortress Belt's northern tip: Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. [1]

The method is rear strikes — drones, missiles, glide bombs — on roads, rail, vehicles, and now bridges. Footage posted August 2 showed heavy damage to the Cherivkovsky Bridge over the Kazennyi Torets in eastern Sloviansk, a link toward the H-20 and Kramatorsk. [1]

ISW does not forecast a quick seizure. The 2025 campaigns took months. Russian infiltrators have not taken Kostiantynivka. They have not been shown inside Lyman. The point of the air war is to isolate the belt before a later ground push. [1]

X compresses Huliaipole into a countdown. The institute's sentence is slower: same playbook, different city pair, no confirmed advance on August 3. The August 1 staff note still listed six Huliaipole-direction attacks. [1][2]

ISW said Russia may be leaning harder on glide bombs because Ukrainian jamming has cut the old drone volume. Night logistics into the twin cities are already hard. [1]

A reader who only watches the map pin misses the logistics cut. The bridge is the story.

-- KATYA VOLKOV, Moscow