Putin will arrive at talks with Trump without a battlefield victory to bolster his leverage. Ukrainian forces have halted Russia’s summer offensive in the north of the country, recapturing land and underlining Moscow’s inability to put together decisive operations. Ukraine stemmed Moscow’s advance in part because it targeted Russian supplies and reinforcements with artillery and drones. Ukrainian forces destroyed whole roads to cut off Russia’s forward units. Ukrainian troops were also successful in getting behind enemy lines to attack Russian positions. The Sumy offensive is indicative of Russia’s inability to mount large operations and has struggled to put together combined infantry, armor, logistics and air power, which has also impeded its efforts at Pokrovsk and Chasiv Yar.Ukrainian forces have halted Russia’s summer offensive in the north of the country, recapturing some land and underlining Moscow’s inability to put together decisive operations in its three-and-a-half-year war.
While Ukraine has largely stopped Moscow’s move into Sumy province, in which Russian troops advanced as close as 12 miles from the regional capital, its own forces remain outgunned and might struggle to build on their momentum.
At the same time, Russia continues to make incremental gains in eastern Ukraine, but with high casualties. Moscow has failed to gain a decisive breakthrough with large-scale offensives.
On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to meet with President Trump, amid increased pressure from Washington through sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil.
Putin will arrive at the talks, which a Kremlin adviser said Thursday would take place in the coming days, without a decisive battlefield victory to bolster his leverage.
A year ago this week, Ukrainian troops surged into Russia’s Kursk province and quickly conquered a large slice of territory, in a rare breakout for a war which for the past two years has been one of gradual gains and losses. But Russia gradually pushed Ukraine back out of its territory and continued its march into the Sumy region this year. Russia largely stopped making gains there from mid-July—and in recent weeks, Ukraine has taken back some 4 to 6 square miles of land, and two villages, according to officers and analysts.
“The enemy is exhausted in the area,” said Maj. Oleh Shyriaiev, commander of the 225th Separate Assault Regiment that has been fighting in the region for a year.
“We caused them a lot of damage, and we continue to work toward liberating more areas,” he said.
UKRAINE
Area of
detail
Russia
Russian advances
as of Aug. 6
Sudzha
Russian advances
as of July 19
Ukraine
Sumy
10 miles
10 km
Russia, though, still has reserves of more than 50,000 troops in the area, Ukrainian officers said, leaving Ukrainian troops in the Sumy region concerned that the tide could turn once more.
“It is simply that there are more of them than us and they will keep pushing,” said a Ukrainian artillery-battery commander with the 43rd Brigade whose call sign is Bobcat.
On duty one night, Bobcat watched some 50 Russians advance on a Ukrainian position only to be killed by artillery and mortar fire. The next night, another 50 appeared and were also killed. The same happened on the third night. The disparity in manpower has been an issue throughout the war. On Wednesday, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskiy, Ukraine’s top military commander, said Russia is adding 9,000 armed-forces personnel every month and called on more Ukrainians to enlist.
Ukraine has only one soldier for every five Russians, said Shyriaiev, the regiment commander. Others estimate it is one to four.
Troops in the Sumy region talk of tactics that are familiar across the front line. Russians begin by bombarding Ukrainian positions and the tree lines they use for cover with guided aviation bombs, drones and artillery, then attack in small infantry groups, said Max, a machine gunner who had recently returned from a hospital after being injured by shrapnel from a drone explosion. There is almost no armor, such as tanks, in this fight, soldiers say.
Drone attacks are so prevalent that Ukraine is draping protective netting over 20-foot poles on the side of some roads heading to the front line, like a giant fishing net spreading out of the city.
It is the aviation bombs, or traditional high-explosive munitions fitted with cheap guidance kits, that are the most destructive, said Shyriaiev.
Still, Ukraine succeeded in stemming Moscow’s advance in part because it targeted Russian logistics, the transport bringing in supplies and reinforcements, with artillery and drones, a military-intelligence corporal said. In some cases, Ukrainian forces destroyed whole roads to cut off Russia’s forward positions, he said. Ukraine’s military-intelligence directorate, known as HUR, said Ukrainian troops were also successful in getting behind enemy lines to attack Russian positions.
Since then the tempo of Russia’s attack in the region has decreased, according to some soldiers stationed there.
“But they may be licking their wounds, ready to come back with more,” said Max, the machine gunner, who fights with a reconnaissance platoon.
Sumy isn’t Moscow’s main effort. That remains in the east, in particular around the cities of Pokrovsk and Chasiv Yar, where Russia continues to make incremental but costly gains, analysts and military officials say. Russia has taken 18 months and tens of thousands of casualties to capture about 1,500 square miles of Donetsk province, one of the four regions that Putin has declared as Russian territory, according to defense-intelligence company Janes. Roughly 2,500 square miles remain in Ukrainian hands, Janes said.
The Sumy offensive is indicative of Russia’s inability to mount large operations, analysts say. Russia has struggled to put together so-called combined operations, in which infantry, artillery, armor, logistics, air power and even naval assets, can be brought together for one push. That is something that North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces typically try to use in conflict.
Instead, Russia has come to rely on grinding out small gains of mere miles.
The tactic “is constantly sending troops to exhaust us, not to make a major push,” said Shyriaiev.
The conflict in Sumy has taken a toll on both soldiers and civilians.
In Sumy city itself, a 4-foot crater marks where an aviation bomb landed recently, blowing out all the windows of an apartment building. Nearby, a ballistic missile destroyed the wing of a local university. Several drone attacks have closed Sumy’s city hall in recent days. Outside city hall, a woman mourned at a temporary memorial for her soldier husband, one of hundreds of memorials erected there. She was visiting on the 30th anniversary of their wedding and sobbed uncontrollably.
Natalia Mukha said that even if Russia did advance again toward the city, she won’t leave because it contains her husband’s grave and the apartment they shared.
“The attacks have been going on for so long now you get used to them,” she said.
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