With reference to Ukrainian intelligence data, the publication suggests that Konstantinovka and Pokrovsk of the Donetsk region will become the center of the summer offensive campaign of the invaders. It is also possible that they will put pressure on the north-eastern part of the Sumy region, where they allegedly concentrated 50 thousand military, slowly moving to the regional center. Military sources say that if Russians manage to create the so -called buffer zone, they switch attention to the Donbass and the Zaporizhzhya direction and continue the war.
Despite the fact that the front line for three years has not been shifted in favor of the aggressor country of strategically significant way, captured Russian officers informed The Economist interlocutors among the Ukrainian military, that the summer campaigns are served in the Russian Federation as a “last jerk” to break the morale of Ukraine.
The military note that the Kremlin continues to plan such operations, since it does not spare the lives of Russian soldiers, in the ranks of which it is more than 10-15 thousand more men than Ukraine. The Armed Forces of Ukraine notes that Russia’s promotion is never fast, while its losses are high. The invaders could not demonstrate their ability to break through the defense and, taking advantage of this, carry out quick or significant advancement. At the same time, some representatives of defense forces are more careful regarding the capabilities of the enemy, explaining to some weakening of the advantages of Ukraine in the war with the help of drones, which, in their opinion, are now disappearing due to sufficient staffing of individual units of the Russian Federation and military cooperation between the country of aggressor with China.
As notes The Economist, the probable result of the summer offensive does not imply a clear victory or defeat. But even a certain shift on the map can encourage Putin to continue the struggle. The window for diplomacy, according to the publication, will again become possible when the fighting “stabilize after the completion of the summer offensive.” But this may not happen due to “the ability of Russians to absorb losses.”
Context
Russia unleashed a war against Ukraine in 2014, occupying the Crimea and parts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. From the first days of a full -scale invasion in 2022, battles continue in the Donetsk region, the demarcation line takes place here.
The fact that the Russian Federation is preparing a new offensive in the summer, on May 14, was stated by the head of the Center for Combating Disinformation under the Council of National Security and Defense of Ukraine Andrei Kovalenko. The office of the President of Ukraine also warned that Russians could intensify actions at the front in May.
The speaker of the Kharkov operational and tactical department of the operational-strategic group of troops Khortitsa, the defense forces of Ukraine Pavel Shamshin on May 15 indicated that the new attack of the aggressor actually began.
On the same day, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russian invaders have been constantly coming on the Ukrainian front for several months.
In the morning report on May 24, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that 61 The attempt of the Russian Federation made the occurrence of the Russian Federation in the Pokrovsky direction, 30 – on Novopavlovsky (towards the Dnipropetrovsk region) and 21 – on Toretskoy. In the Kharkov region, defense forces reflected five assault on the invaders near Volchansky and near Kupyansk (near Kolesnikovka, Kruglyakovka and Obryzovaya), noted in the General Staff.
On May 24, Bild reported that in June Putin would try to advance to the sums, Kharkov and the Dnieper.
On May 29, The New York Times wrote that in May, Russian invaders captured about 14.2 km² of Ukrainian territories per day, which was not since November 2024. The greatest advance of the invaders was recorded in the Donetsk region. Also, as the media noted, they opened another front – in the north of Ukraine, in the Sumy region.
