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Kyiv denies Russian claim of Kostiantynivka capture
Summary
A look back at the dispute over control of a Donetsk Oblast city, as Ukrainian officials rejected Moscow's announcement.
Who controlled Kostiantynivka on 5 July 2026? Russia said it had taken the Donetsk Oblast city. Ukraine said it had not.
The day before, on 4 July, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces denied Russia's claim that its forces had captured the city on 3 July. They said Ukrainian troops still held Kostiantynivka and were continuing defensive operations there.
The competing accounts were part of the Battle of Kostiantynivka, a military engagement in the Russo-Ukrainian war between the Russian Armed Forces and the Armed Forces of Ukraine for control of the city.
The Ukrainian position, as reported at the time, was simple: the fighting was not over and the city had not fallen. No independent confirmation of either side's version was cited in the reporting from those days.
