What the days before 25 August 2025 showed about the war
A look back at the reported events in the week leading up to 25 August 2025, from prisoner swaps to large-scale strikes and sanctions.
What was the picture in the days leading up to 25 August 2025? Reports from that week described a war fought through mass drone and missile attacks, a prisoner exchange, and a widening effort to enforce sanctions.
On 24 August 2025, Russia and Ukraine swapped 146 prisoners each after mediation by the United Arab Emirates. It was the most recent reported exchange before the covered date.
The exchange followed a heavy bombardment. On 21 August, Russian forces launched at least 570 drones and 40 hypersonic, ballistic and cruise missiles across Ukraine overnight. Two cruise missiles hit an American electronics factory in Mukachevo, in Zakarpattia Oblast, injuring more than a dozen people. Two days earlier, on 19 August, Russia sent 270 drones and ten missiles against critical infrastructure in Poltava and Chernihiv Oblasts.
The war also reached beyond Ukraine's borders. Shortly after midnight on 20 August, a Russian military drone exploded after crashing in Osiny, in Puławy County, Poland.
On 22 August, a naval drone operated by Ukrainian military intelligence exploded in Novorossiysk, in Russia's Krasnodar Krai, after Russian military divers seized it. Five of the divers were killed.
Sanctions and a pipeline arrest
On 20 August, the United Kingdom imposed sanctions on eight individuals and entities accused of helping Russia evade Western sanctions through financial and cryptocurrency networks. They included Kyrgyz firms linked to the ruble-pegged stablecoin A7A5. Kyrgyz president Sadyr Japarov appealed to the UK over the measures.
On 21 August, Italian police arrested a Ukrainian man suspected of coordinating the attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the months after the Russian invasion.
Taken together, the reports from 19 to 24 August 2025 show military, diplomatic and legal developments running in parallel in the days before the covered date.
