For months the discuss in Kyiv was of a much-anticipated Russian offensive that might goal to gobble up extra of Ukraine’s japanese areas. To date, it’s been underwhelming – however the Russians have made some beneficial properties and vastly strengthened their troop numbers in some areas.
Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to pursue territorial beneficial properties as ceasefire talks take a again seat. Final week he restated what has lengthy been certainly one of his key methods of justifying his unprovoked invasion.
“I contemplate the Russian and Ukrainian peoples to be one individuals,” he mentioned. “On this sense, all of Ukraine is ours.”
Even so, the Ukrainians have launched counterattacks in some areas and are quickly growing a home weapons business. And Russia’s wartime financial system is going through stronger headwinds.
Russian troops try to advance in a number of areas of the 1,200-kilometer (746-mile) frontline. Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi mentioned this week there at the moment are 111,000 Russian troops in a single a part of the frontline alone – close to the flashpoint metropolis of Pokrovsk in Donetsk, the place there are at the very least 50 clashes every single day. That compares to about 70,000 Russian troops within the space final December, based on the Ukrainian Normal Workers.
Syrskyi additionally claimed that the Russian infiltration of the northern area of Sumy had been halted. The Institute for the Research of Conflict – a Washington-based think-tank, says Ukrainian forces have regained some territory in Sumy and the tempo of Russian advances there has slowed.
“We are able to say that the wave of makes an attempt at a ‘summer season offensive’ launched by the enemy from Russian territory is truly fizzling out,” Syrskyi claimed.
Residents stroll at a avenue close to a constructing broken by Russian missile strikes, amid Russia’s assault on Ukraine, in Sumy, Ukraine June 13, 2025. – Sofiia Gatilova/Reuters
Nevertheless it’s a blended image. In latest days Russian infantry assaults have gained floor on the border of Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk areas. The Russian protection ministry claimed on Saturday that one other village, Zirka, had been taken.
DeepState, a Ukrainian open-source analyst, asserted that Ukrainian “defenses proceed to break down quickly, and the enemy is making important advances … with fixed assaults” in that space.
The Kremlin has lengthy insisted its marketing campaign will proceed till it holds the entire japanese Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson areas. (It already occupies all however a sliver of Luhansk).
On the present charge of progress that might take a few years. However with the Trump administration apparently much less dedicated to driving ceasefire negotiations, the battle appears prone to drag on by means of the tip of the 12 months and into 2026.
The three-dimensional battlefield is now an unlikely mixture of ingenious drone-led particular operations and really primary infantry assaults.
At one finish of the spectrum, Ukraine’s audacious assaults at first of June on Russian strategic bombers used drones operated from vehicles deep inside Russian territory – a mission that took out a few dozen plane used to launch missiles in opposition to Ukraine.
Ukraine’s Safety Service reported one other drone assault Saturday that it clamed had prompted in depth harm to a Russian airbase in Crimea.
Against this, Russian troopers on foot and motorbikes – generally in teams of a dozen or much less – push into deserted villages in japanese Ukraine, with drones for canopy however no armor in website. It’s an method that’s forcing a change in Ukrainian ways: to smaller fortified positions. Ukrainian Protection Minister Rustem Umerov mentioned final week that defenses have been being camouflaged to match the terrain and made smaller to keep away from detection.
The Drone Conflict
Whereas infantry defend or take territory, drones proceed to play a higher position in shaping the battle. The Russians are churning out low-cost, mass-produced drones designed to overwhelm air defenses and permit a few of their missiles to get by means of. The Russians have more and more used this tactic to hit Ukrainian cities, particularly Kyiv, which has sustained appreciable harm and better civilian casualties in latest weeks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky mentioned Sunday that in a single day “477 drones have been in our skies, most of them Russian-Iranian Shaheds, together with 60 missiles of assorted varieties. The Russians have been concentrating on all the things that sustains life.”
The Russians use “as much as 500 (Iranian designed) Shaheds per night time, combining them with ballistic and cruise missiles — aiming to exhaust our air defenses,” says Umerov.
A lady reacts on the website of an house constructing hit throughout Russian drone and missile strikes, amid Russia’s assault on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine June 23, 2025. – Thomas Peter/Reuters
Zelensky has reiterated pleas for extra Patriot missile batteries and different western programs, which Trump mentioned final week that the US “ought to contemplate” due to large-scale assaults on Ukrainian cities.
Zelensky has mentioned Ukraine is ready to purchase Patriots instantly or by means of the fund established by the US-Ukrainian minerals deal.
Either side are producing drones of every kind at an astonishing charge. Ukraine’s Safety Service reckons Russia is producing practically 200 Iranian-designed Shahed drones every single day, and has a listing of some 6,000, along with about 6,000 decoy drones. During the last week, the Russians have used greater than 23,000 small “kamikaze” drones on the frontlines, based on the Ukrainian army’s Normal Workers.
It’s a endless race in design and manufacturing. Syrskyi mentioned not too long ago that Russia had developed an edge in fiber-optic-controlled drones, that are harder to trace and intercept.
Drone warfare is a “fixed mental wrestle — the enemy repeatedly modified algorithms, and Ukraine tailored ways in response,” Umerov mentioned. “Options that confirmed excessive effectiveness at first of the battle have misplaced it over time because the enemy modified ways.”
For its half, Ukraine is stepping up manufacturing of the long-range drones it has used to assault Russian infrastructure, corresponding to airfields, refineries and transport. Umerov mentioned “tens of hundreds” can be produced, along with greater than 4 million battlefield drones this 12 months.
The long run
Either side proceed to construct protection industries that enable them to maintain preventing – even when the size of Russian manufacturing far outstrips that of Ukraine. Russia’s enormous army conglomerate Rostec is producing an estimated 80% of the tools used in opposition to Ukraine.
Its CEO Sergey Chemezov claimed at a gathering with Putin this month that Rostec’s manufacturing has grown tenfold since 2021, and its revenues rose final 12 months to an eye-watering $46 billion.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (R) attends a gathering with Russia’s state-owned defence company Rostec CEO Sergei Chemezov in Moscow on July 30, 2024. – Gavriil Grigorov/Pool/AFP/Getty Pictures
However there are darkening clouds on the horizon. Russia’s army funds is a few 40% of its whole public spending – greater than 6% of its GDP. That’s stoked inflation, and Putin acknowledged final week that development this 12 months can be “far more modest” to fight rising costs. He even urged that protection spending would decline subsequent 12 months.
One senior Russian official, Maksim Reshetnikov, who’s Financial Growth minister, mentioned that “based mostly on present enterprise sentiment, it appears to me we’re on the point of transitioning into recession.”
The top of Russia’s Central Financial institution, Elvira Nabiullina, disagreed with Reshetnikov however warned that monetary buffers just like the nationwide reserve fund are practically depleted.
“We should perceive that many of those assets have been used up,” she advised the St. Petersburg Worldwide Discussion board.
Putin himself acknowledged the chance, saying that whereas some specialists predicted stagnation, it ought to “not be allowed below any circumstances.”
Whereas the longer-term prognosis for Russia could also be gloomy – economically and demographically – it will probably proceed within the short-term to fund a military of greater than half-a-million males that’s in Ukraine or near its border, taking a couple of kilometers right here and there. Regardless of a whole lot of hundreds of casualties, the Russian army can nonetheless generate forces far higher than Ukraine.
His eye nonetheless very a lot on the prize, Putin mentioned final week: “We have now a saying … the place the foot of a Russian soldier steps, that’s ours.”
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