As the days tick away on Putin’s Summer 2025 Offensive that boasts a force of 150,000 soldiers(not counting the N Koreans and Laotians?) it is increasingly clear that Putin’s dream just isn’t happening. After their success last summer in Avdiivka, the Russians became overconfident and pushed to areas where they are unable to advance or build strong defensive positions. And these positions are unfavorable for holding. Currently, 40% of all Russian combat activity across the front is focused on Pokrovsk. (But) they are trying to break through a ‘kill zone,’ Russia's 2025 offensive is under performing last year's, and by 2026, they'll lack the economic and military capacity for major offensives.
No defensive wall or structure is impregnable. History tells us so. From the biblical Walls of Jericho to Caesar at Alesia, to Ancient Roman Emperor Hadrian’s many imperial Limites (border walls)including the Limes Germanicus against the Germanic tribes, the Fossatum Africae in North Africa, Vallum Hadriani(Hadrian’s Wall in Northern England), the medieval mountain top citadel of Carcassonne in France and in our own American history, Ulysses S. Grant bringing down the confederate citadel high above the cliffs of the Mighty Mississippi river at Vicksburg.
But in this current Russo-Ukrainian war, both sides have had their dreams of rip roaring offensives come acropper against the well-prepared defensive structures built by the other side. Ukraine surely learned a very painful and expensive lesson in 2023 when it went straight into the teeth of the Russian “Surovikin Line” in Southern Zaporizhzhia. In the aftermath, Russia has succeeded in clawing back from Ukraine much of what Ukraine liberated in that offensive and is now threatening to take even more of the Zaporizhzhian countryside. The Ukrainian loss of manpower and materiél on the way down to the dusty hamlet of Robotyne now seems like a bad dream from long ago. It also cost the much lionized Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, his job.
Now as the days tick away on Putin and Russia’s latest vaunted Spring-Summer 2025 Offensive ... the one that supposedly boasts a massive force of 150,000 soldiers(not counting the N Koreans and the Laotians?) poised to deal a final crushing blow to Ukraine’s defensive lines, it is becoming increasingly clear that Putin’s dream just isn’t happening. Just as Ukraine’s own counteroffensive foundered on the Russian Surovikin Line. The Russians now also have to worry about something else … the onset of Eastern Ukraine’s Fall rains and accompanying Bezdorizhzhia(season of impassable soupy muddy roads) is only a few weeks away. They’d better hurry.
Of course, there’s always the possibility of a Ukrainian command mistake such as happened at Ocheretyne near Avdiivka which sprung the Russian 42 km(26 miles as the crow flies) blitzkrieg towards Pokrovsk. In between Avdiivka and Pokrovsk lies a lot of farm land and many Piatykhatkys(5 house villages). Russia made it a point to loudly proclaim the conquest of each of those settlements as well as the nearby abandoned industrial towns of Vuhledar, Selydove and Kurakhove. Failing that, perhaps Putin could possibly wish for a deus ex machina event where out of the blue the Ukrainian defenses fall of their own accord allowing Russian troops to stomp all the way to Kyiv unhindered. Yeah, right.
Russian attacks on the Ukrainian lines continue to be relentless. They are throwing everything including the proverbial kitchen sink at the Ukrainian defensive lines. At great cost, the Russians have gained a few more kilometers of Ukrainian countryside and a handful of totally destroyed Piatykhatkys but the general trend line, especially from the soldiers doing the fighting, says Russia is under performing even their last offensive in 2024. Ukraine’s defenses are going to hold:
No reason to believe Russia can break through front line — Ukrainian major
Russia's 2025 offensive is under performing last year's, and by 2026, they'll lack the economic and military capacity for major offensives
“It is not clear why Putin is confident that the Russians will be able to break through the front line. Sometimes, people start to believe in their own inventions. After all, Putin’s army hasn’t grown in numbers; on the contrary, it’s trending downward. In Russia, the number of people mobilized under contracts is now less than it was at the end of 2024 and the beginning of this year, while the occupiers’ losses remain about the same. One Western publication reports that 150,000 people were mobilized in Russia in the first half of the year, but I note that this is only 25,000 per month. At the end of last year, it was up to 40,000 per month. Of course, 150,000 is a large number, but it’s 10,000 less than it was six months ago,” commented Oleksii Hetman.
According to him, the Russians mobilize 25,000 troops but lose 35,000, resulting in a negative balance. The enemy also has a negative balance in heavy equipment. As for missiles of various types, the enemy has indeed accumulated almost 2,000, but it should be noted that at the time of the full-scale invasion, Russia had 4,150 of these missiles—twice as many.
The trend in the above quote, “the Russians mobilize 25,000 troops but lose 35,000, resulting in a negative balance” is highlighted in the headline of my fellow diarist quaoar’s diary today….”Russian stuff blowing up: Russia loses 31,000 troops in just two months”
Avdiivka fell to the Russians in mid February 2024. Prokovsk was supposed to quickly fall and become a shiny new show piece of Russian military conquest and a major notch on Putin’s wampum belt, as it were. Pokrovsk still stands and remains Ukraine… more than a year later … despite being the focus of a preponderant share of Russia’s military efforts in Ukraine. Try as they might the Russians are still out there on the outer edges of the Pokrovsk urban agglomeration probing here and there without success and in the process getting hammered big time for their trouble :
Russia concentrates over 40% of its combat activity on Pokrovsk axis – military expert
"If we assess the Ukrainian military command’s approach and what’s happening on the Pokrovsk axis, we can cautiously assume that the intent was to convince the enemy that this direction could be a success for them. In planning operations, Ukraine's General Staff is conducting a strategic defensive operation on this axis. The primary goal of Ukraine’s Defense Forces is to draw in the bulk of Russian combat units and gradually grind them down to prevent the enemy from achieving the objectives of its summer offensive campaign,"(emphasis mine) Riabykh explained.
The expert noted that after capturing Avdiivka, Russian forces advanced and reached positions where they now face serious challenges.
“We can now say this strategy is working. After their success last summer in taking Avdiivka, the Russians became overconfident and pushed forward to areas where they are unable to advance or establish strong defensive positions. These positions are unfavorable for holding the line. Currently, over 40% of all Russian combat activity across the front is focused on the Pokrovsk axis. They are trying to adapt their assault tactics to break through what we call a ‘kill zone,’” Riabykh said.
2 comments:
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As I was sitting on a subway train waiting for my stop in my red leather jacket and reading this post, I totally agreed! The downward trend in Russia’s offensive capabilities really is a highlight of how unsustainable their strategy has become. Ukraine’s main focus on drone warfare and flexible defenses is really paying off. Meanwhile, Russia’s reliance on poorly trained conscripts and outdated tactics under corrupt leadership is a recipe for their downfall, not victory. If this same pattern continues, 2026 could bring even greater losses for Russia with diminishing returns.
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