Ukraine braces for expected Russian summer offensive in the east

KYIV — Russia is expected to mount a major offensive this summer against Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, which it has been trying to conquer since the beginning of the war, Ukrainian military officials and analysts said.

The warnings over the offensive, which some analysts say has already begun, come as a U.S.-brokered peace process has limped along with inconclusive meetings and little concrete results. Russia has rejected repeated U.S. and European calls for an immediate ceasefire.

U.S. analysts have said Russian President Vladimir Putin appears confident that he can still win the war militarily, though sanctions and heavy casualties may be slowly eroding Russia’s war machine, and this summer could be its last chance for a major push.

Controlling the Donetsk region in its entirety has been a priority for Putin since he failed to capture Kyiv at the start of the war in 2022. In September of that year, Putin declared the whole of Donetsk, along with three other Ukrainian regions, to be part of the Russian Federation — despite not having completely conquered any of them.

The analysis that Russia is seeking to gain more territory comes as it insists it is interested in discussing peace but says that a cessation of hostilities can only come by addressing the “root causes” of the conflict. Following direct talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul on May 16, each side agreed to draw up a memorandum detailing its principles for any agreement.

In the meanwhile, Russia over the weekend launched some of its largest airstrikes against Ukraine since the invasion began.

Accompanying the main push into Donetsk, of which it controls about 70%, the Kremlin plans to carry out smaller attacks along the border of Ukraine’s northeast Sumy and Kharkiv regions, to put more pressure on Ukraine’s already overstretched front-line troops, analysts say.

Russia’s plan is to “try to pin down Ukrainian forces along the front line, including in Sumy and Kharkiv regions, but otherwise they will prioritize Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka,” said Mykola Bielieskov, a research fellow at Ukraine’s National Institute for Strategic Studies, speaking of the two Donetsk towns that Russia has been trying to capture for almost a year.

He added that though Kostiantynivka was not on the verge of being taken, it was a “promising” prospect for the Russians at present, as Russia was in a position to attack it from three different directions.

Analysts had predicted last summer that the two towns would fall by December; Russia’s difficulty in taking them reflects Ukraine’s massive effort to defend them. But Ukraine is still struggling with recruitment and firepower, meaning the coming months will be yet another challenge.

Russia, meanwhile, is exceeding its military recruitment targets, but it still lacks the numbers needed for multiple successful offensives, analysts and Ukrainian military officials say.

“I expect them to focus on Donetsk region. Everything else will be diversion and dispersion of Ukrainian resources and attention,” said Bielieskov, adding that prioritizing the Sumy or Kharkiv regions won’t give the Russians the chunk of territory they are looking for.

It took Russia 80,000 troops to take the small city of Avdiivka in Donetsk in February 2024 after a grueling siege. There are currently 125,000 Russian troops stationed on the border of the Sumy and Kharkiv regions — not nearly enough to take two regional capitals, according to figures shared by Ukraine’s military intelligence.

More likely, these troops will be used to occupy slivers of Ukrainian land along the border, said Andriy Cherniak, a representative of Ukraine’s military intelligence. Russia has already said it seeks to create “buffer zones” along the border to prevent further Ukrainian incursions into Russia’s Kursk or Belgorod regions.

According to Cherniak, however, they will use these new salients inside Ukraine to exert pressure on both regional capitals, particularly on Sumy city. Already, Russian forces have captured four villages along the border, Sumy Governor Oleh Hryhorov wrote on Facebook on Tuesday.

Without the men or matériel to carry out an offensive of its own, Ukraine will continue the defensive strategy it has employed since 2024 — holding the front lines and make it as costly as possible for Moscow’s forces to take any territory.

Key to that strategy will be the continued supply of foreign weapons — something that is not guaranteed from the United States. Europe, however, has been seeking to step up its contribution.

On Monday, German Chancellor Frederich Merz said all restrictions on the use of longer-range weapons by Ukraine had been removed — a statement seized on by the Kremlin to say that Europe is working against peace.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday claimed it explained President Donald Trump’s angry denunciation of the Russian airstrikes against Ukraine in which he called Putin “crazy,” saying it actually reflected Trump’s frustration with the Europeans.

“President Trump is a man who wants results. And when he sees that these efforts of his are sabotaged by a group of European representatives, pushing Ukraine to completely reckless actions, including drone attacks on Moscow, our other cities and on the helicopter of the president of the Russian Federation, of course he may have certain emotions,” Lavrov said.