Russia's Ministry of Defence said the army gained control of the settlement of Shevchenko, near the logistical centre of Pokrovsk, a key target in its advance through Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region. Ukraine has yet to acknowledge the loss of the town. Ukraine's General Staff of the Armed Forces said it repelled 46 of 56 Russian attacks around a dozen towns in the Pokrovsk sector and several clashes were ongoing. A Ukrainian drone hit one of Russia's largest oil refineries – in Taneko, Tatarstan – according to Russian Telegram channel ASTRA. Fuel oil that spilled from wrecked Russian tankers has spread into the Sea of Azov and reached the shores of Ukraine's partly Russian-occupied Zaporizhia region, a Moscow-installed official said.

At least 51 people were killed and 271 injured when two Russian ballistic missiles hit a military academy and a nearby hospital in Ukraine's central town of Poltava in the deadliest single attack in the war this year. The missiles hit shortly after the air raid alert sounded when many people were on their way to a bomb shelter, the Ministry of Defence said in a statement. A woman and her eight-year-old son were killed after the Zaporizhia region hotel where they were staying was hit in a Russian missile attack. Her husband and daughter were injured, Ukrainian authorities said. Ukraine's Ministry of Energy said three employees were injured in a Russian drone attack on a power facility in the northern region of Chernihiv.

Ukraine's energy ministry has said that overnight Russian drones and missiles have attacked the country's energy transmission systems in southern and western Ukraine. Two energy workers have been injured as a result of these attacks on Zaporizhia Oblast. Ukraine has said it was dispatching reinforcements to an embattled strategic hilltop town of Chasiv Yar in the eastern Donetsk region, a vital flashpoint whose capture could accelerate Russian advances deeper in the industrial territory. The Ukrainian military has launched a wave of drones that struck three oil refineries inside southern Russia overnight, a security official said on Friday. Russian regional authorities in the Krasnodar region said four people were injured, including oil refinery workers, as a result of drone strikes.

Russian and Ukrainian forces remained largely static on the battlefield in the 84th week of the war after a month of vigorous Ukrainian advances that saw Kyiv break through the first of three Russian lines of defence on the southern front. Still, Ukraine proved it could hold onto its gains against Russian counterattacks and even made a few advances. Russian forces appeared to have lost a kilometre-long (0.6-mile-long) trench west of Verbove, a village on the front line of the main Ukrainian thrust through Russian defences in the Zaporizhia region in southeastern Ukraine. Vladimir Rogov, an occupation official, said at least four companies of Ukrainian troops had launched an attack on the trench on September 26 supported by armoured fighting vehicles. Geolocated footage that Russian sources released the following day confirmed that Ukraine held the position it had stormed.

The United States says it has seen notable military progress by Ukraine's forces fighting in the Zaporizhia region over the last 72 hours. Ukrainian troops achieved "some success against that second line of Russian defences", White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said. A recent drone attack on an airport in northwestern Russia's Pskov region was carried out from within Russian territory, Ukraine's intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said. The Pskov regional governor said Russian air defence units had "neutralised an unidentified object" spotted flying over the region, just days after a wave of Ukrainian drones destroyed military planes parked at an airfield in the region. The United States says it has seen notable military progress by Ukraine's forces fighting in the Zaporizhia region over the last 72 hours.

Ukraine's forces advanced on the southern and eastern fronts during the 79th week of the country's war with Russia, reaching what experts believe to be the rear of Russia's first line of defence. But they also faced a Russian advance in the northeast that created a dilemma about where to field available troops. Ukrainian forces driving towards occupied Melitopol confirmed their recapture of Robotyne, an important Russian stronghold in western Zaporizhia, which they entered on August 20. Southern forces spokesman Oleksandr Shtupun said on August 28 that forces were busy demining the area, securing their positions and winning more territory southeast of the settlement. Geolocated footage placed them 5km (3.1 miles) southeast of Robotyne.

Russia has launched air attacks on targets in southern and eastern Ukraine using drones and possibly ballistic missiles, Ukraine's air force said. The southern port of Odesa and the Mykolaiv, Donetsk, Kherson, Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions were all under threat of Russian drone attacks, the air force said on the Telegram messaging app in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Russia may also be using ballistic weaponry to attack the regions of Poltava, Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Kirovohrad, the air force added. Oleh Kiper, the head of the Odesa region's military administration, said air defence systems there were engaged in repelling a Russian drone attack. "Several waves of attacks are likely," Kiper said on Telegram.