As the U.S.-led peace initiative continues to falter, Ukraine’s unfolding summer election season promises to be one of the bloodiest of the war. In the coming months, Russia hopes to build on more than a year of incremental gains to make breakthroughs on the eastern front, while Ukraine seeks to demonstrate to its partners that it can stop Putin’s war machine and hold the line.
While the Kremlin insists it is prepared for peace, events on the battlefield suggest otherwise. Russia is stepping up its offensive operations and has suffered around 160,000 casualties in the first four months of this year, the highest figure for that period since the full-scale invasion began, according to the UK Ministry of Defence. If the trend continues in the coming fighting season, 2025 will be the deadliest year of the war in terms of Russian casualties.
Russia’s strategy still relies on costly frontal assaults, but the nature of these attacks has steadily changed. Russian troops are now increasingly using motorcycles and other improvised vehicles to advance in small groups and infiltrate Ukrainian defenses. These attacks are supported by attack drones, glide bombs, and artillery, making it difficult for Ukraine to reinforce hot spots or provide medical and engineering support. The ultimate goal is to force the Ukrainians to retreat and advance further.
Ukraine’s defensive strategy is primarily attritional. This includes remote mining to direct advancing Russian troops into kill zones, as well as extensive use of conventional artillery. Ukraine’s expanding drone force also plays a major role, allowing it to attack Russian units as deep as 15 kilometers behind the line of contact.
By increasing drone coverage along the front lines, Ukrainian commanders aim to complicate the logistics of an invasion by Putin’s forces and significantly reduce the potential for future Russian offensives. This approach is called the “drone wall,” and it may well play the biggest role in efforts to freeze the front lines. But Russia is also rapidly innovating to cope with Ukraine’s growing drone capabilities, leading to a cutthroat technological rivalry that runs parallel to the fighting on the battlefield.
With the Russian army currently holding the initiative and advancing at various points along the war's front lines, Putin's commanders have a number of potential locations to choose from as they try to determine the geographic priorities for their summer offensive.
Russia is currently expanding its foothold in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region after largely pushing Ukrainian forces out of Russia’s Kursk region. There have also been recent local Russian offensives in the Kharkiv region. However, the main thrust over the next few months is expected to come in eastern Ukraine, where Russia has concentrated forces in the Pokrovsk and Konstantinovka sectors. Success in these sectors could pave the way for the occupation of the entire Donetsk region, which remains Russia’s immediate political objective.
Although Putin is under no pressure on the domestic front, he will be eager to achieve some kind of significant breakthrough in the coming months to demonstrate to domestic and international audiences that the Russian military is capable of achieving victory in Ukraine. He recently declared that Russia has “enough forces and resources to bring the war in Ukraine to its logical conclusion,” but the fact remains that his army has failed to capture and hold a single Ukrainian regional capital in more than three years of brutal war.
For war-weary Ukraine, the coming summer campaign will be a serious test of endurance. If Ukrainian forces can prevent any significant Russian offensives despite the reduction in American military aid, it will serve as a powerful argument for pro-Ukrainian politicians in Europe and the United States. That will likely lead to increased support for the Ukrainian war effort and could help persuade skeptics in the Trump White House to take a tougher stance on Russia.
The Ukrainian government has already accepted the US offer of an unconditional 30-day ceasefire and remains committed to pursuing a sustainable peace settlement. But with Russia showing no signs of following suit, Ukraine faces another long summer of brutal fighting.
The Kremlin’s current negotiating position will leave a post-war Ukraine divided, isolated, and defenseless. Any peace on such terms would almost certainly mean the end of Ukrainian statehood. Instead, Ukraine must continue to defend itself, hoping that Russia’s ability to inflict heavy casualties declines faster than the West’s collective commitment to stopping Putin.
Nikolai Beleskov is a research fellow at the National Institute for Strategic Studies and a senior analyst at the Ukrainian public organization “Come Back Alive.” The opinions expressed in this article are the personal position of the author and do not reflect the opinions or views of NISS or “Come Back Alive.”
Source: Source
