Vladimir Putin was sure that the Russian offensive of this summer turned to the balance of forces in the front of Ukraine and allowed him to reach a possible table of negotiations with the best letters. Nevertheless, the latest reports about military analysts agree that the Russian advance stagnated in recent days. Now, being in the north -east, in the Ukrainian Sumi region, the Volodimir Zelenski troops managed to stop Russian soldiers in the east, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk, Moscow troops are advancing significantly. Meanwhile, the professional leader of Lugansk is 100% controlled by the region.
Meanwhile, Putin openly told Trump on the phone this Thursday that “Russia will not deviate from its goals” in the war. After the conversation, the American confirmed that no progress was achieved. “I am not satisfied with this,” he said. In the afternoon, Trump talked with Zelensky, and, according to Ukraine, both agreed to start meetings to increase the defense of heaven, despite the fact that shortly before the United States announced the suspension of sending certain weapons to the nod as a result of a shortage in the arsenal of the United States.
After Putin’s army managed to expel the soldiers of Kyiv from all over the Russian region of Kursk, at the end of April the Kremlin began to accumulate men in the Ukrainian border region of Sumi. About 50,000, according to the chief commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksander Sirski. The purpose of Moscow was double: to remove enemy artillery from Russian territory and force Zelensky to concentrate resources there.
To this end, the Russian army doubled its attacks on Sumi during the spring, but the offensive seems to have reached a dead point. So much so that last Thursday the Ukrainian chief commander said that the contact line was “stabilized”.
Russian troops are found about twenty kilometers from the city of Sumi, and, according to Wall Street Journal, Ukrainian soldiers fighting on this front, Russian troops exceed them to a share of 3 to 1. Another commander explains the same newspaper that “the enemy loses from 300 to 400 people a day around the region, but can support this level of victims and continue to make reservations.”
Of the military quoted Wall Street Journal, a certain discontent is also disconnected from the low defensive training of the Ukrainian military dome. They regret that, although they won the seizure of Kursk, no one dug trenches on Sumi, the air defense system did not work with drones or areas where Russian troops are now moving.
Part of Ukrainian success, when it comes to enemy soldiers, is due to the fact that the army sent an elite command there by its military intelligence, which contributed to the maintenance of Russian lines. “A special protective group was formed to increase Sumi safety,” Sirskiy admitted last Thursday.
Even Russian military correspondents complain of an offensive brake. “Without significant reinforcements here or abandoning enemy units to another part of the front, we will not be able to push the defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (back) to the Sumi city line, he recently wrote one of the most popular bloggers“ Z ”, Yuri Podolyak, on his telegram.
Donetsk, priority goal
This accumulation of forces in the north allowed that in the east, in Donetsk, the Russian army united a high rhythm of conquest. From the data on the deep -sea Ukrainian military project, the Russian independent average agent of the average agent came to the conclusion that during June, Moscow troops entered this territory about 140 square kilometers, more than on any other.
The deep head warns that “protection (Ukrainian) continues to collapse quickly, and the enemy achieves significant progress.” Kirill Midzhalov, a team of analysts of intelligence conflicts, a Russian organization, which is also devoted to evaluating progress in front, admits the agency that “there are almost no other areas where the situation is so critical.”
The Russian army is trying to capture the city of painting, the vital enclave of Donetsk, since it connects the front with the West, with Dnipro and KiV, and is important for the transportation of troops, the evacuation of the wounded and supplying weapons. According to the chief commander of the Ukrainian language, Russia besieged the city (which before the war had about 60,000 inhabitants) with more than 110,000 soldiers.
The loss of this city would be a heavy blow to Zelensky, because it will lay the way to the Kremlin’s troops to the last Ukrainian bastions of Donetsk: Slovansk and Kramor.
To complete these efforts, the Moscow strategy also penetrates the region, which limits the West to Donetsk, Dinpropetrovsk. The deep state confirmed on Monday on its interactive map that the Russian army proclaimed for several weeks: its entry into this territory for the first time since the start of the war.
This is still a “gray zone”, that is, in a dispute. Despite this, the analyst Midzhalov warns that the supply lines of Ukrainian units will be affected in the direction of painting if the Russian troops continue to advance, that the fence on Donetsk is narrowing. PRORUSO politician Vladimir Rogov wrote Telegram in his channel that Russian troops managed to occupy the first city of Dnipropetrovsk, Dahno, without recognition of Ukraine, and Russian bloggers, such as Ribar, claim that they have images that confirm this.
Lugansk
Also on Monday, the leader of the self -proclaimed popular Republic of Lugansk Leonid Pasenik announced on the 1st channel of Russian television of general control over this region the troops of Moscow. Nevertheless, neither the Kremlin hung a medal, and Kyiv did not give him the truth and did not report on military analysts.
Putin did not confirm that their soldiers dominated 99% of this area of Donbas, whose capital is only 20 kilometers from the Russian border. Already in July 2022, Russia completely controlled the Lugansk region. The then Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, said this to the Russian president, but a few weeks later Ukrainian opposition forced part of the territory to return in accordance with the Kyiv administration.
If his conquest was confirmed, this would be a symbolic success for the Kremlin, simultaneously revealing difficulties in promoting the target of the invasion of at least Ukrainian provinces that were annexed in the Constitution: Lugansk, Donetsk, Jerson and the constant. In addition, this will be the first region, fully occupied by the Russian army, except Crimea.
Doubts about the Russian potential
Despite this positive news for Putin, some military experts reduce the expectations of the Russian offensive. Jan Matveev, an analyst at the Aleks of the Aleks of Anti -Corruption, Alex Navalni, predicts that “this will not lead to radical advancement,” but can serve Moscow to “win several thousand square kilometers.” In the statements of the Washington Post, he claims that “the Russian army cannot perform complex operations in Ukraine from the shortcomings, lack of corruption, logistics failures and poor formation.”
“This is only a continuation of what they did in the spring,” he explains in the article in The Telegraph Angelica Evans, a specialist Institute for the Study of War (ISW). “Since the first months of the war, they have not shown that they can move as quickly and in a generalized form as they need to win in these cities,” he adds.
Even the most radical sectors of Russian nationalism were predicted a few weeks ago discrete results of the Kremlin’s offensive. From prison, Colonel Igor Girkin, convicted of Putin’s criticism, wrote that the advance on Sumi will be “surrounded” in the next “two or three weeks” and progress in the same rhythm of the snail as in Donbas. ” According to the military, there are only two options: “Autumn with the same positions (or slightly improved) or with worsened positions.”
Doctrine of the boots of a Russian soldier
In any case, there are no signs that, whatever the results of this offensive, Putin is ready to raise the accelerator leg. Rather, on the contrary. At the recent economic forum of St. Petersburg, the Kremlin leader made it clear to understand his doctrine in Ukraine. “Where he steps on the boot of a Russian soldier is ours,” the president said. “I believe that Russian and Ukrainian peoples are the same people. In this sense, everything belongs to us. ”
According to ISW in one of his last messages, “statements about the high positions of the Kremlin, including Putin, continue to demonstrate the largest territorial ambitions of Russia in Ukraine outside the Crimea and four regions that were illegally annexed.”
This applies, among other things, to the words of the head of the Russian delegation in negotiations with Ukraine in Istanbul, Vladimir Medinski, who hinted at the “historical homeland” on Monday, which supposedly corresponds to Russia and Ukraine, and “old Russian lands on one side and the other Refrey, girlfriend and Kria”. This potentially includes, in addition to the four partially occupied regions, other territories that the Russian army did not even come, such as Nikolyaev or Odessa.
Last Friday, the mayor of clothing Gunadi Trukhanov denied that the city that ruled the Russians, and the representative of the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, replied that the history of Odessa “is inextricably linked with the history of Russia.” A few days before that Peskov said: “We have a strategic advantage above the ground. Why should we lose it? We will not lose it, we will go further. We are moving forward, and we will continue to advance. ”
Another comment from Peskov caused the outrage of the special messenger of North America for Ukraine, General Kate Kellogg. The press secretary of the President of Russia announced the state television of Belarusians that most of the success of peaceful negotiations depends on the “position of the Kyiv regime” and the “effectiveness of the intermediary efforts of Washington.”
Kellogg replied to X that he “unreasonably” confirms that it is Ukraine and the United States that “adhere” to conversations. Russia, came to the conclusion, “cannot continue to win in the bombing of civilian goals in Ukraine.” To which the Kremlin representative again reacted on Monday denying that they were interested in lengthening the war.
The reality is that in June, Moscow launched the largest number of drones with long borders against Ukraine for a month since the beginning of the invasion. According to the AFP study, during June Russia sent 37% more unmanned devices than in May, a total of 5438. On the night of Sunday, June 29, the Russian army also fulfilled the largest air bombing of the entire war, overcoming 500 missiles and drones, in particular, 537, as notable Ukrainian armed forces.
