When will Ukraine break through in Zaporizhzhia or send troops across the Dnipro river?
Ukraine’s counteroffensive is now into its fourth month. Kyiv’s forces, bolstered by Western tanks and weapons, are putting pressure on Russian positions but have yet to achieve a major breakthrough.
But all across Ukraine, there is a sense that things could change very quickly. A section of defences could collapse, and fortunes could turn.
Sky News spoke to military expert Sean Bell about the different parts of the frontline and how each could be a flashpoint, from crossing the Dnipro in the west to the push to liberate Bakhmut in the east.
We’ve zeroed in on five locations and ask, is this where the war could be decided?
Can Ukraine break through in Zaporizhzhia?
The southern battle-zone in the Zaporizhzhia region is perhaps the most talked about part of the war at the moment.
Bell says this so-called land bridge between Crimea and the Donbas is “the least hard place” for Ukrainians to liberate the most territory.
Ukrainian forces are slowly but steadily pushing south but are coming up against defensive emplacements that Russia has spent months building.
Ukrainian soldiers near the frontline in Zaporizhzhia region
The Surovikin line, named after a Russian general, extends through the area, a triple layer of defences comprising an anti-tank ditch, dragons’ teeth obstacles and then defensive positions in trenches.
If Ukrainian forces are able to pierce through in Zaporizhzhia and reach the coast of the Sea of Azov – or at least get close enough to hit the remaining territory with artillery – it would effectively cut Russian forces in half.
“If they can break through all those defences then suddenly there could be a rout of Russian forces in that land bridge,” Bell says.
There has been evidence so far during the counteroffensive that Ukraine has been keeping much of its Western tanks and best-trained troops in reserve, waiting for a breakthrough somewhere along the line.
Now, it seems, some of these tanks are being sent in to fight in the battle for Zaporizhzhia.
“You are never sure what will be the chink that will break the dam, you will never know until the crack emerges and the floodgates open.
“The question is whether the Ukrainians then have the stamina and the morale and the equipment to take advantage of it.”
Encircling a ruined city – and pinning down Russian forces
The city held out for so long. Waves and waves of Russian soldiers – many of them conscripts and former prisoners – were sent against Ukrainian defences and again and again Bakhmut held.
It was a controversial decision to keep defending the city, and there were many in the West who argued it was a mistake, but in the end it allowed Ukraine to inflict huge casualties on Russia and allow Kyiv time to get hold of Western tanks.
Russian forces, in particular Wagner Group mercenaries who are no longer involved, took the city at great cost.
The ruins of Bakhmut
Bakhmut does not exist as a city in the way it did before. Months of constant shelling by Russian forces have raised it to the ground.
It has little strategic value, but as a propaganda piece it is huge for Vladimir Putin.
Now, Ukraine is gaining ground around it. Could Bakhmut be liberated?
Bell says: “Bakhmut is one of those iconic places and Russia made a big thing of taking it, lost tens of thousands of lives taking it and will not want to lose it again.
“Most of the reports are the Ukrainian progress rather than Russian, but it doesn’t feel like there’s any momentum at the moment.
“Ukrainian pressure there is all designed to fix Russian forces in place.”
Is Russia pushing back in Kharkiv?
One of the main efforts of Russian forces – apart from holding back Ukrainian advances – is trying to take territory in the northeast, near Kharkiv.
Ukraine had great success in that arena last year, carrying out stunning advances around Kharkiv city.
Not only did they buy valuable breathing space for the ‘Hero City’, they liberated swathes of territory, including Kupyansk and Izium.
Now Russian troops are seeking to reverse some of those gains.
“The lines of communication there are very short for the Russian forces,” Bell says.
This is because of how close things are to the Russian border. Unlike in other parts of Ukraine, it’s much easier for Russia to resupply and communicate with its troops in the Kharkiv region.
In recent weeks they have claimed to have made advances, and fighting has been fierce and bloody.
Bell adds: “Russia has not been effective at conducting offensive operations since the start of the war – and that was when they had mercenary support with the Wagner Group.
“So it’s no great surprise that the Russian military are struggling to make progress.”
Crossing the Dnipro while Russia is busy elsewhere
One of the least talked about areas of the frontline is the River Dnipro, near the city of Kherson.
When Ukrainian forces swept through the region and liberated the city last year, the water became the new boundary between them and Russian forces.
This, Bell says, is why Russia blew up the Nova Kakhovka dam in June this year, sending torrents of water over the landscape.
Water flows over the collapsed Nova Kakhovka dam. Pic: AP
“By blowing the Kakhovka dam that basically said ‘right Ukraine you are not going to be able to cross the Dnipro and we are going to leave it relatively unprotected’.”
That may have been true a few months ago, but the land is starting to dry out, presenting an opportunity for Ukraine.
“It’s a lot more accessible now and almost certainly isn’t the Russians’ main focus,” Bell says.
“It leaves them vulnerable down that flank.”
There are even reports that Ukraine has managed to land troops on the other side of the Dnipro.
But while that is progress for Kyiv, it’s not the same as establishing a beachhead from which they can deploy tanks and heavy weapons.
Bell compared it to D-Day, when the Allies managed to establish control over a chunk of French beach in June 1944 and held it until they could get armour on the ground and push outwards.
But he added that the more Ukraine puts pressure on Russian forces there, the more Kremlin commanders will have to reckon with a difficult choice: weaken their forces elsewhere to shore up the Dnipro, or risk a breakthrough across the water…
Drones, explosives and raids on Crimea
While it’s not on the frontline, Ukraine has certainly brought the war to Crimea in recent months.
Wave after wave of maritime drones are harassing Russian ships in the area, the Kerch Bridge has been hit multiple times and Ukrainian special forces have reportedly struck on the peninsula itself.
Crimea is home to Vladimir Putin’s prized Black Sea Fleet and is of huge strategic value due to its location on the Black Sea.
It has been in Russian hands since it was annexed in 2014 but Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vowed to return it to Ukraine.
Ukrainian sea drones have been used in Black Sea attacks
Still, it’s very heavily fortified and will be very difficult to capture by force. Indeed, in the Second World War the Axis forces led by Nazi Germany lost 30,000 men in pursuit of Crimea.
So why is Ukraine attacking it? Because putting aside the prospect of seizing the territory, it helps their forces elsewhere.
Bell says “Ukraine has made clear its intent to take it, and what that does is it forces Russia to keep forces back to protect it.”
Russia might have 150,000 soldiers in Ukraine, but if it puts them all on the frontline then there is no one to defend Crimea if Kyiv’s forces make a breakthrough.
“The more that Ukraine threatens Crimea, the more Russia has to protect it and take its forces away from the frontline.”
A teddy sits on a bed in a bright hospital room. Beside it is a small fridge stocked with bottled water and Coca-Cola.
While the bear might make you think a child is about to arrive, this room will soon be welcoming one of the 20 Israeli hostages believed to be alive in Gaza.
With phase one of Donald Trump’s peace plan now under way, an entire nation is holding its breath for the return of the hostages, not least the medical teams preparing to receive them.
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Sky News was given special access to one of the teams in the Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva, a city north-east of Tel Aviv.
It was sobering and emotional, but also inspiring, talking to its doctors and nurses as they showed us around what one calls the “homecoming unit”.
A welcome sign and Israeli flag greet the returning hostages
Director of Nursing Dr Michal Steinman took us into the light airy rooms where hostages will be allowed to recover at their own speed in private, choosing when and for how long they emerge, slowly reengaging with a world they’ve not known for two years.
She explained that each of the hostages – who are all men – will be given their own private room, where a gift basket filled with thoughtful items such as a teddy, a blanket, slippers and a phone charger awaits them.
The teddy is there to help bring comfort to the freed captives.
“Our research says each one of us has a child inside,” Dr Steinman told me. “We need something to pet and feel soft, and reassure them after the lack of senses for such a long time.”
Phones, she said, will be provided by the army.
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The bear is one of many small touches added to bring the hostages comfort in the coming days
The families will also bring items from home to make the area feel more familiar to their loved ones as they slowly adjust to freedom.
The men will also have access to other areas, including a private living space where they can spend time with loved ones or greet any visiting dignitaries. Their families will also be provided with rooms to stay in, as well as an area for the children of the hostages when they visit.
Medical equipment is kept in dedicated treatment rooms as part of an effort to make the rooms feel more like accommodation than a hospital.
One of the areas where family members can wait for their loved ones who have been in captivity to arrive
While the unit is pristine and ready for the new arrivals, it has previously been used to house other hostages released by Hamas.
Staff shared anecdotes revealing what may lie ahead. Dr Steinman told us of one released hostage who had had trouble not with sleeping, but with waking up.
“When I opened my eyes,” they had told her, “I was thinking that I’m still in a dream because there’s no way that I opened my eyes and I’m not in the tunnel. I thought, ‘it’s a dream inside a dream’.”
The hostages, she said, “can’t believe for the first moments they’re not in other place.”
A living space for the men and their families to relax in
Dr Steinman found another freed captive “stuck” and standing still after opening the refrigerator.
“I told him, ‘It’s hard for you to choose?’,” she explained. “And he said, ‘I’m just amazed at the colours. All I’ve seen for 100 days is black, white and brown’.”
The professor reinventing ‘hostage medicine’
For the head of the centre, Professor Noa Eliakim-Raz, and her team, the return of the hostages will be the culmination of two years of painstaking work.
They have effectively reinvented what they call ‘hostage medicine’, learning from the treatment of groups of hostages received during this war.
Professor Noa Eliakim-Raz tells me she has been ready for this moment for a long time
She is a serious and dedicated clinician. With professional precision, she told me of the challenges ahead, including the life-threatening risks of mistreating malnourished hostages held for so long underground.
Then she gave us a glimpse into the human side of their work.
“All the team, we’ve prepared for so long, I mean really, we’ve been in this for two years and all the time, we’re preparing and ready,” she said. “This ward that you saw is ready every day.”
How does she feel as the hostages’ arrival draws near?
“I feel very grateful, and I think that’s the strongest emotion, to be part of this,” she said.
Clearly moved, Professor Noa had to pause and collect her emotions, her eyes welling up when asked what she’d be thankful for most.
“I think being part of a small step,” she began, before pausing again. “A small step of making them feel hugged again and trusting the system.”
It will, she said, be a big relief when it’s over.
Professor Noa is writing a first-of-its-kind multi-disciplinary protocol for treating long-term hostages, literally rewriting the book on how to return them to normality.
Her department did not exist before October 7. In the two years since its inception, it has pioneered a form of treatment involving many different disciplines to maximise the chances of recovery.
The Rabin Medical Center’s staff believe the lessons they’ve learned will benefit doctors around the world in future.
But they hope never to have to use them on Israelis again.
Drones have been a common sight in Gaza for a long time, but they have always been military.
The whine of a drone is enough to trigger fear in many within the enclave.
But now, drones are delivering something different – long, lingering footage of the devastation that has been wreaked on Gaza. And the images are quite staggering.
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Whole city blocks reduced to rubble. Streets destroyed. Towns where the landscape has been wholly redesigned.
Whole city blocks reduced to rubble
Decapitated tower blocks and whole areas turned into black and white photographs, where there is no colour but only a palette of greys – from the dark hues of scorched walls to the lightest grey of the dust that floats through the air.
And everywhere, the indistinct dull grey of rubble – the debris of things that are no longer there.
Gaza is full of people returning to their homes
The joy that met the ceasefire has now changed into degrees of anxiety and shock.
Gaza is full of people who are returning to their homes and hoping for good news. For a lucky few, fortune is kind, but for most, the news is bad.
Umm Firas has been displaced from her home in Khan Younis for the past five months. She returned today to the district she knew so well. And what she found was nothing.
Umm Firas returned to find nothing
“This morning we returned to our land, to see our homes, the neighbourhoods where we once lived,” she says.
“But we found no trace of any houses, no streets, no neighbourhoods, no trees. Even the crops, even the trees – all of them had been bulldozed. The entire area has been destroyed.
“There used to be more than 1,750 houses in the block where we lived, but now not a single one remains standing. Every neighbourhood is destroyed, every home is destroyed, every school is destroyed, every tree is destroyed. The area is unliveable.
“There’s no infrastructure, no place where we can even set up a tent to sit in. Our area, in downtown Khan Younis used to be densely populated. Our homes were built right next to each other. Now there is literally nowhere to go.
“Where can we go? We can’t even find an empty spot to pitch our tent over the ruins of our own homes. So we are going to have to stay homeless and displaced.”
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It is a story that comes up again and again. One man says that he cannot even reach his house because it is still too near the Israeli military officers stationed in the area.
Another, an older man whose bright pink glasses obscure weary eyes, says there is “nothing left” of his home “so we are leaving it to God”.
“I’m glad we survived and are in good health,” he says, “and now we can return there even if it means we need to eat sand!”
A man says there is ‘nothing left’
A bulldozer moves rubble
The bulldozers have already started work across the strip, trying to clear roads and allow access. Debris is being piled into huge piles, but this is a tiny sticking plaster on a huge wound.
The more you see of Gaza, the more impossible the task seems of rebuilding this place. The devastation is so utterly overwhelming.
Bodies are being found in the rubble while towns are full of buildings that have been so badly damaged they will have to be pulled down.
Humanitarian aid is needed urgently, but, for the moment, the entry points remain closed. Charities are pleading for access.
It is, of course, better for people to live without war than with it. Peace in Gaza gifts the ability to sleep a little better and worry a little less. But when people do wake up, what they see is an apocalyptic landscape of catastrophic destruction.
An Irish start-up is hoping to have the UK’s first food drone delivery pilot scheme operating in 2026, subject to regulatory approval.
With a fleet of specially designed 23kg quadcopters, Manna Aero has carried out more than 200,000 food delivery flights in west Dublin, Espoo in Finland and Texas.
As the company aims to expand, its CEO Bobby Healy said the UK “would be our most important market in Europe. It’s by far the biggest delivery market today. We think our product maps really well onto the UK high street, particularly”.
The company operates in west Dublin, Finland and Texas. Pic: Manna Aero
A local group is protesting against the drones
“We’re actively in dialogue with both the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and with NATS (National Air Traffic Services), the airspace manager for the country. And we expect to be there next year,” Mr Healy added.
Manna has completed up to 50,000 deliveries in the D15 postcode of west Dublin since its trial started a year and a half ago.
The drones, which are almost fully autonomous, dart overhead at a cruising altitude of 262ft (80m), carrying everything from burgers and chips to fresh meat from a local butcher’s shop.
Coffee is the most popular order, Mr Healy said, but “we were really surprised that we deliver a lot of fresh eggs. I think people are trying to deliberately test us to see if we can deliver something as delicate as eggs, but it’s not a problem”.
Customers must ensure a landing zone – usually a back garden – is clear of obstacles.
This is checked by a human drone operator using a downward-facing camera, before the food is released. The packages descend on a biodegradable string, which is then severed.
“The average flight time is about three minutes. The advantage is that it’s quieter, it’s safer, it’s greener, and it’s better for business generally than the road-based alternative.”
But not everyone in the suburbs of west Dublin is so enthused about their new service.
Mark Hammond, from Blanchardstown, said the noise the drones make “is very stressful, absolutely it is. When it’s constant, you can’t relax. This is across the estate, it’s not just me and [wife] Florence, there’s a lot of concern about it”.
As the fourth quadcopter in an hour flew over their back garden, Florence said they “sound like helicopters”.
Another resident, Michael Dooley, is part of Drone Action Dublin 15.
Pic: Manna Aero
Manna Aero CEO Bobby Healy hopes to expand into the UK
He described the noise of the drone flights as “very, very bothersome. The drone, when it flies, has a very tonal, sharp, pulsing, intrusive noise. You’ll hear it coming from afar”.
When hovering at their lowest height, to release their cargo, Michael said the sound “is intolerable”.
Pointing to a study from Trinity College that found relatively low decibel levels, Mr Healy said: “We know from the science that we’re far less noisy than just general background urban noise. And we’re continually investing. We have new technology coming in, and propulsion and propellers.
“So I don’t think noise is the issue; I think perception is, like any new technology. We had this problem with cars, with steam engines, we had it with every disruptive technology – AI, 5G, you name it. There’s a natural concern to be understood. And I think over time it will be generally accepted.”
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The packages are lowered to the ground using biodegradable string. Pic: Manna Aero
The Drone Action Dublin 15 group disputes the methodology of the Trinity College study.
Local TD [member of parliament] Emer Currie said that with worries about “a new M50 [motorway] in the sky”, it’s a balancing act in the area.
“We do have to be realistic about this. Yes, this is innovation and things are moving forward. But there are realities of the impact on a residential community that have to be taken into consideration. Innovation is important, but so is regulation.”
The Irish government recently brought in a drone policy framework, but critics say actual regulations and legislation remain sorely lacking.
Manna acknowledges the EU’s regulatory environment is more drone-friendly than in other parts of the world, including the UK and the US.
But should negotiations with British regulators prove fruitful, the company is determined to bring its service to UK consumers in 2026.
Companies like Amazon have started planning for drone deliveries in the UK. The company is one of six chosen by the Civil Aviation Authority to take part in new trials to expand the use of drones.
But Ireland’s regulatory framework is friendlier to drone companies.
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