Putin Has Trapped Himself - And His Military Is Incapable Of Freeing Him

Despite all the blather about even more new threatening Russian offensives - as if the old ones ever ended in anything other than mass casualties and decimated equipment - expert assessments are that the Russian military lacks the force, speed and strategy - let alone operational capability - to make any significant gains in the near or far future. 

Putin is desperate to convince Trump that he is winning, however immaterial the 'gains,' and also knows that to hang on to his job as well as his life, he has to keep his army fighting or he will be overthrown by those who consider him weakened. Since there is little prospect of his military beating Ukraine as long as it is defending itself effectively, continuing to throw more live bodies after dead ones is his only 'solution.' JL 

Mick Ryan reports in Futura Doctrina:

Putin has painted himself into a corner (not the actions of a master strategist) and only sees one way out of the war - winning it. Which is very unlikely as long as Ukraine defends itself. The Russians are yet to demonstrate the ability for large gains in territory over a short period of time. Adding another 50,000 troops to a Kharkiv offensive is unlikely to change this. Declining force quality, the lack of any offensive concept that delivers breakthroughs, Ukraine’s strikes on Russian munitions depots and its Drone Wall all offer the prospect of more Russians being thrown into the meatgrinder for minimal gains. I see no prospect for a Russian offensive in Kharkiv delivering decisive battlefield outcomes for the Russians. Even on Russia’s main effort around Pokrovsk, they lack the speed to to break Ukraine's defences.

Putin has actually painted himself into a corner (not the actions of a master strategist) and probably only sees one way out of the war - winning it.

Which is very, very unlikely as long as Ukraine defends itself.

The massive number of casualties that Russia has suffered (the one million mark will be passed some time in June), the declining stocks of military vehicles and the small territorial gains he has made in the past year are not indicative of his military operations achieving Putin’s maximalist goals for the war.

This is why the ongoing ground offensive, which is bound to increase in tempo in the coming weeks, is so important to Putin. He really, really needs some kind of decisive outcome from the 2025 Russian offensive.

The Not So New 2025 Russian Kharkiv Offensive

Over the past few weeks, I have been examining some of the key elements of the ongoing Russian offensive in the east and north east of Ukraine. You can read some of these here, here and here.

In the past few weeks, there have been stories about the Russians concentrating forces for an offensive on Kharkiv. This isn’t the first time the Russians have tried this during their full-scale invasion since 2022.

The initial Russian thrusts into Ukraine included a significant advance into Kharkiv which saw the Russian’s seize large amounts of territory in the oblast. While Ukraine managed to liberate some of the captured territory, the Russians still occupied about 40% of Kharkiv at the end of August 2022 (see Map 1 below).

But then came the surpirse Ukrainian offensive of September 2022. This pushed the Russians out of Kharkiv entirely (see Maps 2 and 3 below). The Russians were kept out of Kharkiv until May 2024. Then the Russians began another offensive there.

Kharkiv situation: August - September 2022. Maps: ISW

In May 2024, the Russians commenced operations in the north of Kharkiv. This included cross-border shelling and the infiltration of troops across the border. This initially achieved tactical surprise in the region, the Russians were able to advance several kilometres into Kharkiv.

In the middle of 2024, the Russians also commenced their advance west from occupied Luhansk towards the Oskil River. While the Oskil may have been a tactical objective, the overal operational objective of this advance from Luhansk was probably the critical M-03 Highway that links Kharkiv and important cities like Izium and Kramatorsk. That objective is likely to be one of the desired outcomes of Russian ground operations in 2025.

By late October, the Russians had created a salient in eastern Kharkiv with Russian forces closing up on the Oskil River. By December, the Russians had reached the Oskil on two separate axes of advance. And as of this week, the Russians continue to slowly advance in eastern Kharkiv. Overall, since May 2024, the Russians have achieved advances of about 5-7 kilometres into northern Kharkiv, and of about 17 kilometres into eastern Kharkiv.

Kharkiv situation, May 2024 to May 2025. Source: DeepState maps

Assessment. The Russian forces that are concentrating in Belgorod actually have the advantage of interior lines. They might strike south into Kharkiv but might also strike west into Sumy. There is some potential for Russia’s current posturing about a Kharkiv offensive to be a deception plan for an advance by Russian troops on a different objective entirely.

We might expect too that the Russians undertake a slightly increased tempo of operations in southern Ukraine as a way to ensure Ukraine cannot redeploy forces from that area to assist in defending eastern Ukraine.

The eastern region of Kharkiv probably offers greater potential returns than an increased rate of effort and allocation of resources to the ongoing offensive in northern Kharkiv. However, if Russia was able to get back into artillery range of Kharkiv city, that would be a major political and military issues for Ukraine.

While Russia demonstrated significant gains in their 2022 offensive into Kharkiv, the battlefield environment was totally different then, as was the capacity and experience of the Ukrainians who were defending their homeland. It was an entirely different war, and 2022 cannot be used as indicative of the kinds of gains that Russia might make in any 2025 Kharkiv offensive.

The 2024-2025 Russian advances into Kharkiv in the north and east are probably more indicative of what is to come if the Russians do launch a larger series of operations in Kharkiv. The experience of Ukrainian defenders now is much greater, and while both sides have a far larger drone capability now, the Russians are yet to demonstrate the ability for large gains in territory over a short period of time. Adding another 50 thousand troops to a Kharkiv offensive is unlikely to change this.

Main Effort: A designated subordinate unit whose mission at a given point in time is most critical to overall mission success.

Kharkiv is also unlikely to be the main effort for the Russians.

As I discussed in my analysis of ground operations last week, Russian operations further to the south around Pokrovsk are very likely to remain the Russian main effort on the ground. The potential for Russian forces to capture an even larger proportion of Donetsk is likely to be a higher priority to Putin than more of Kharkiv (at least at present - eventually he wants everything).

As the result of a step up of Russian operations in Kharkiv and on its main effort in eastern Ukraine, It is likely that the Russians will suffer even greater average daily casualties in the coming months compared to the previous years. Their average casualty rate has been increasing each year, as shown by the graph below. I expect to see this confirmed by an uptick in average casualties from June onwards.

I see almost no prospect for a Russian offensive in Kharkiv delivering any decisive battlefield outcomes for the Russians.

Even on Russia’s main effort around Pokrovsk, they lack the speed to be able to break the Ukrainian operational defences.

Their declining force quality, the lack of any offensive concept that can deliver operational level breakthroughs, Ukraine’s strikes on Russian munitions depots and its increasingly effective Drone Wall all offer the prospect of more Russians being thrown into the meatgrinder around Kharkiv in the coming months for minimal gains in territory.

That is the most likely outcome of the coming months. But, as a recent RUSI report notes, there is also a possible worst case outcome of the 2025 Russian offensive as well:

There is a darker possible future, in which the summer offensive overpowers Ukrainian defences to take key towns in Donbas, after which Russia pivots to attacking Kharkiv in the autumn, while once again switching its deep strike campaign to degrade Ukrainian power generation and distribution ahead of the winter. Under such circumstances, the Russians hope that they can steadily convince Europe to pressure Ukraine to sue for peace, even on unacceptable terms. It is the belief that this trajectory is possible that is keeping the Kremlin prepared to plough on, despite the chronic underperformance of its arms. Ukraine and its partners must strip the Kremlin of its illusions.

We can never discount these worst case scenarios. Imagining such potential futures is a crucal part of military planning in general, and Ukraine’s military planning in particular. Most military planning processes develop ‘enemy most likely’ and ‘enemy most dangerous’ courses of action to test their plans.

However, while Ukraine still has challenges with its personnel and reinforcements for frontline units, nothing in the current correlation of Ukrainian and Russian forces indicates that such a catastrophic outcome is in the offing. The Russians, while able to continuously take small parcels of land, do not appear to have the new operating concepts or large quantity of quality leaders and units to drastically improve their military effectiveness. They can advance, but not at tempo that would overwhelm Ukrainian operational plans.