Is Russia's "One Last Push" In Sumy Really Its Ukraine Endgame?

Captured Russian soldiers are telling Ukrainian troops that the planned Sumy offensive is being presented to them as 'one last push.' Certainly nothing else has worked since the capture of Mariupol in 2022 and it may be that even Putin is being forced to concede that unless he can win a dramatic victory somewhere, it may be time to face reality. 

But the looming question is whether than push means a breakthrough - or just enough of an advance to justify continuing the war. A prudent assessment based on the record to date - and on the perceived threat to Putin if he cannot demonstrate something significant - is that he will call any sort of advance a 'victory' and use that to claim imminent triumph, however illusory that may be. JL

The Economist reports:

The front lines have not shifted in Russia’s favour in any strategically significant way for three years. But Ukrainian sources claim that captured Russian officers tell them the summer campaign is being presented as “one last push”, to break Ukraine’s morale.  But it has still not been able to break through defences and then exploit the gap by making rapid or significant advances. “Russia’s last big offensive ended in May 2022 [after the fall of Mariupol]. They haven’t been able to take Kostiantynivka in over three years. How can you even begin talking about their strategy?” Ukraine believes it will avoid a collapse of its front lines. 

AFTER WEEKS of nebulous ceasefire talks at the urging of a semi-engaged President Donald Trump, the war between Russia and Ukraine is intensifying again in savage style and with escalating stakes. In the last two weeks there have been record-breaking Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian cities and spectacular Ukrainian drone raids on Russia’s strategic bomber force, deep inside its borders. But all this is merely a prelude to the main event: a large-scale summer offensive by Russia that aims to break Ukrainian morale and deliver president Vladimir Putin a symbolic victory at almost any cost.

Many Ukrainian cities and soldiers are bracing for a final reckoning. Kostiantynivka has been on the edge of war since 2014. Now the writing is on the wall for the eastern town, which Russia has identified as the logistics hub for Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region, and a gateway to open up the last strongholds there. Up to 25 guided bombs rain down every day. The remaining 8,500 civilians mostly leave the city each day by a 3pm curfew. Russian troops are tightening the noose from the south, east, and west. Dmitry Kirdayapkin, the police chief, morbidly calls the coming assault an “arc of Russian love”. He knows the Russian drill well by now: death, demolish, repeat. He saw it in 2014 as an officer in Horlivka, a town that saw fighting in an initially deniable war; and then during the siege of Mariupol in 2022. Today his officers and paramedics in Kostiantynivka work from basements and race along drone-stalked streets in caged vans that resemble massive barbecues.

Map: The Economist

Ukrainian intelligence believe that Kostiantynivka and neighbouring Pokrovsk will be the centre of Russia’s summer campaign. There are concerns about the north-eastern province of Sumy too. Russia has massed 50,000 troops there, and is advancing slowly towards the provincial capital in a mirror of Ukraine’s own cross-border operation last year. For the first time since the war began, Russia is gaining nearly as much ground there in the north as it is in the main Donbas theatre, largely because it is making light work of fortifications unsuited to drone warfare. Border towns and villages have been evacuated, with locals reporting swarms of cheap drones that often detonate mid-air. Military sources say they still expect that once Russia establishes a so-called buffer zone it will shift focus to the Donbas and Zaporizhia fronts to the south—continuing the attritional warfare that has turned the region into a pockmarked wasteland

The front lines have not shifted in Russia’s favour in any strategically significant way for three years. But Ukrainian sources claim that captured Russian officers tell them the summer campaign is being presented as “one last push”, to break Ukraine’s morale. Mykhailo Kmetiuk, the commander of Typhoon, an elite unmanned-systems unit operating near Pokrovsk, says the Russians continue to plan such operations only because commanders do not spare the lives of their soldiers. Eight out of any ten of the new recruits are eventually killed on the battlefield, he claims, yet there is no realistic end to the waves of Russians. Russia is consistently recruiting 10,000-15,000 more men per month than Ukraine, and doing it by offering big sign-on bonuses rather than relying on the conscription that is proving so divisive in Ukraine.

Some Ukrainians are sceptical that Russia can ever break through. The nature of the fighting—in small dismounted groups to mitigate the risk from drones—means that Russian progress is never quick, and losses are high. The invader has still not been able to demonstrate that it can break through defences and then exploit the gap by making rapid or significant advances. “Russia’s last big offensive ended in May 2022 [after the fall of Mariupol],” says Roman Kostenko, a special forces officer, an MP and the secretary of parliament’s defence and security committee. “They haven’t been able to take Kostiantynivka in over three years. How can you even begin talking about their strategy?”

But other soldiers are more cautious. A key part of Ukraine’s resilience has been its early edge in drone warfare, but that advantage is now eroding. Eduard, an officer in the 93rd brigade, says Russia has even pulled ahead in what he calls the “front-line drone marathon”. A new Russian unit called Rubikon is causing particular trouble around the Kostiantynivka-Pokrovsk sections, chopping up Ukrainian supply lines up to 40km to the rear. First seen near Kursk in 2024, Rubikon reports directly to the Ministry of Defence and is seen as well-resourced and tightly organised.

Rubikon strikes deep by using large “mothership” drones that deploy smaller ones controlled by fibre-optic cables, along with wireless drones that operate on hard-to-intercept frequencies. Growing co-operation with China has also become obvious to those fighting it on the frontlines, especially when it comes to reconnaissance drones, the eyes of the battlefield. China is declining to sell them to Ukraine while, says President Volodymyr Zelensky, it is facilitating drone production in Russia. It is not all one-way traffic. Ukraine recently hit a tank hidden in a hangar 42km away. But the newest generation of jamming-resistant drones often fly so high they can only be neutralised by short-range surface-to-air systems—like American-made Hawks and Soviet-era Buks—and here Ukraine has acute shortages.

Three years and four months into the full-scale war Ukraine still believes it will avoid a collapse of its front lines. Yet between collapse and the front remaining stable, plenty of sub-optimal outcomes are possible. The probable result of Russia’s summer offensive remains uncomfortable: no clear victory or defeat, but with Mr Putin able to point to some shift in the map that may be enough to encourage him to keep fighting. Once the fighting stabilises after the summer offensive is over, a window of diplomacy might become possible again. But it might not. “The problem with the Russians is that they are able to absorb losses,” says Mr Kirdyapkin. “Our losses may be a lot less, but we feel them much more.”