For years Russian troops probed the Ukrainian garrison at Mykolaivka in the Donetsk region, sending small groups of infiltrators to find where the line gives. On 29 July they stopped probing. The assault from the east began.

Mykolaivka lies eight kilometres east of Sloviansk - one of only two large cities in the Donetsk region Russia has not yet taken. The cartographer Clement Molin calls it "the eastern gateway to Sloviansk". Whoever holds the gate holds the siege. Russian assault groups are already hitting the residential blocks on the town's eastern edge.

Sloviansk and neighbouring Kramatorsk still have almost 100,000 residents between them, even though hundreds of thousands of others left long ago. These are not empty dots on a map. These are people waiting for someone to tell them whether to stay.

The figure worth more than any headline

In July Russian troops took 106 square kilometres, according to data from the Blackbird group - the fastest advance since January. It sounds frightening until you place it next to a second figure: that is a fifth of what they took in the same month last year. In June they lost nine square kilometres. Blackbird reads that as evidence Russia has largely exhausted its offensive capacity.

An average across the whole 1,200-kilometre grey zone hides much faster movement in a few sectors. East of Sloviansk is one of them. A war that looks frozen on a map is burning in three or four places on the ground - and that is the difference between following a line and following a home.

One brigade, that's all

Mykolaivka is defended by the 81st airborne brigade. For years the 54th mechanised brigade stood on its right flank - which, according to a military observer known as Torkil, was completely withdrawn from the front sometime between June and July 2024 and sent deep into the rear. It still appears on many maps. On the ground, all that is left of it is "the drone group". Maps are updated more slowly than cemeteries.

Geography is merciful to nobody. The Donets canal, which fences Mykolaivka off to the west, according to Molin "helps the Ukrainian defence as much as it eases the Russian offensive". To reinforce the brigade, Ukrainian soldiers have to cross the canal under Russian fire. If the Russians get through the town, they will have the same problem in the opposite direction.

Molin believes the battle for Sloviansk probably won't begin this year, in part because the fighting in Mykolaivka will be long. Long. That is the word that in military analysis means months, and in the life of a family means another winter without windows.