Russia tightens its stranglehold on Ukraine battlefield as Trump gifts Putin 50-day window
Russia is thought to be days or weeks away from surging into a heightened summer offensive, perhaps using the 160,000 troops Ukrainian officials have said are amassing near their front lines. But in the past two weeks, Russia has also made small but vital advances, placing its forces in a better position to cut off Ukrainian troops in three key towns – Pokrovsk, Kostyantynivka and Kupiansk – on the eastern front line.
The Kremlin appeared unperturbed by the new Trump deadline, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying on Tuesday: 'Fifty days – it used to be 24 hours; it used to be 100 days; we've been through all of this.'
Analysts said the new time frame boded well for Russian President Vladimir Putin's goals. Keir Giles from Chatham House wrote Tuesday that it also provided space for Moscow on the diplomatic stage. 'The deadline of 50 days gives Russia plenty of time to concoct its own alternative plan, and once again outmanoeuvre Washington through a diplomatic ploy which Trump may well accept willingly… Trump's latest extension of his notional deadlines for Putin extends Ukraine's suffering for the same arbitrary period.'
John Lough, head of foreign policy at the New Eurasian Strategies Centre think tank, said the summer offensive had likely been underway for several months already, and that 'the Russians are undoubtedly intensifying their efforts, both on the ground and in the air.' He said the recent aerial onslaught against Ukraine's cities was perhaps a reflection of Moscow's slow progress on the front lines, and aimed 'to demoralize the population and zap its will to fight.'
'Putin has sounded for a few months now quite confident about the progress of this campaign, recognizing that the Ukrainians are short of manpower, (and) short of certain weapons systems,' Lough said, adding that Moscow was hoping to spread the Ukrainian defence too thin. 'We're going to see a continuation of that over the next at least 50 days.'
The incremental advances Moscow has made around these three towns have come at a significant cost. But mapping of the front line by DeepState, a Ukrainian monitoring service, and reports from the region show Russian progress in a bid to flank all three.
In the past 72 hours, Russian forces have edged closer to Rodynske, a key settlement to the northeast of Pokrovsk, a main Ukrainian military hub besieged by Moscow for months.
This advance is matched to Pokrovsk's west, where Russian troops are now moving to encircle the village of Udachne, enabling them to challenge supply routes into Pokrovsk with greater efficiency.
A Ukrainian commander, who goes by the call sign Musician and leads a drone company in the 38th marine brigade, has served near Pokrovsk since October. He told CNN the Russian offensive had been underway for some time. 'It has probably not reached its peak yet,' he said, 'but they have been advancing for some time and are doing so quite successfully.'
Musician said the defense of Rodynske was key. 'The enemy understands this and is counting on it. If they advance from Rodynske, the situation will be critical. There are one or two roads there that they can take control of, and logistics will be cut off. It's a logical move on the part of the enemy.'
He said reinforcements were urgently needed there, or they would risk a repeat of the encircling and retreat seen in early 2024 around the town of Avdiivka – to Pokrovsk's east. Ukrainian troops held on in Avdiivka for months, until they lacked the numbers and resources to maintain their grip on the town, in a defeat that came to symbolise both Kyiv's tenacity and Moscow's relentless tolerance for high casualties to take territory.
Ukrainian military blogger Bohdan Miroshnikov wrote that if Rodynske is 'captured, this will complete the encirclement of our entire left flank' around Pokrovsk, adding similarly pessimistic assessments of the right flank and south. 'If things continue like this, there will be few options left… either our garrison will be forced to retreat under threat of encirclement, or there will be fierce fighting in a semi-encirclement with unclear prospects.'
The Russian military Telegram channel 'Voennaya Khronika,' which translates to 'military chronicle,' said the ambition was for Pokrovsk to fall like Avdiivka and Bakhmut before it, with 'successive flank isolation, pressure on supply lines and frontal stagnation after strategic exhaustion.'
DeepState's mapping also shows advances towards Kostyantynivka – another key hub in the east – which Russia has swiftly approached in the past two weeks from the southeast and southwest, and which is now relentlessly hit by attack drones.
Ukrainian blogger and serviceman Stanislav Buniatov, who goes by the call sign Osman, wrote that the advances bring Moscow's forces further into the Dnipropetrovsk region, an area not originally part of Putin's territorial goals. The daily clashes leave '70-90% of the enemy's personnel and equipment destroyed, but the enemy is advancing, and everyone understands why,' Osman wrote.
Misleading reports from Ukrainian commanders to their superiors were hampering their defense, DeepState posted on Wednesday. 'A big part of the enemy's success is the lies in reports from the field about the real state of affairs, which makes it hard to assess risks and respond to changes in the situation from above… this is a huge problem that has catastrophic consequences. Lies will destroy us all.' The post highlighted the area to the south of Pokrovsk as particularly vulnerable to this internal, Ukrainian failing.
Russian advances are slighter to the north of Kupiansk but present another challenge to Kyiv's often over-stretched forces. Moscow's advance since June 23 from Holubivka has left it now in control of a key access road to the north of Kupiansk, by the settlement of Radkivka.
Kupiansk is one of the main towns to the east of Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv, and control over it helps secure the city of an estimated million people.
Svitlana Vlasova reported from Kyiv and Nick Paton Walsh and Lauren Kent from London.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNBC
10 minutes ago
- CNBC
U.S. firms scramble to secure rare-earth magnets — imports from China surge 660%
China's exports of rare-earth magnets to the United States in June surged more than seven times from the prior month, as American firms clamor to get hold of the critical elements following a preliminary Sino-U.S. trade deal. In April, Beijing placed restrictions on several critical magnets, used in advanced tech such as electric vehicles, wind turbines and MRI machines, requiring firms to receive licenses for export. The move was seen as retaliation against U.S. President Donald Trump's steep tariffs on China. Beijing has a stranglehold on the production of rare-earth magnets, with an estimated 90% of the market, as well as a similar hold on the refining of rare-earth elements, which are used to make magnets. The U.S. received about 353 metric tons of rare-earth permanent magnets in June, up 660% from the previous month, data released by the General Administration of Customs showed, though the exports were about half that from June last year. The U.S. was the second-largest destination for China's rare-earth magnets, behind Germany, as it relies heavily on their imports for its large manufacturing sector, particularly in automotive, electronics, and renewable energy. In total, China exported 3,188 metric tons of rare earth permanent magnets globally last month, up nearly 160% from May, but 38% lower compared with the same period last year. The growth in exports came after Washington and Beijing agreed last month on a trade framework that included easing controls on Chinese rare-earth exports as well as a rollback of some American tech restrictions for shipments to China. AI behemoth Nvidia said last week it was planning to resume shipments of its H20 AI chips to China, after the exports were restricted in April. Last month, controls on American AI chip software companies' business in China had also been rolled back. Chinese rare-earth magnet producers started announcing the approval of export licenses last month. If exports continue to increase, it will be of great benefit to companies that have been suffering from shortages of magnets due to the lengthy time required to secure export licenses. For example, several European auto-parts suppliers were forced to halt production in recent months. The magnet shortages had also hit emerging industries such as humanoid robotics. In April, Elon Musk said production of Tesla's Optimus humanoid robots had been disrupted. China's controls on its rare-earths sector have prompted some global governments to reexamine their rare-earth supply chains and search for ways to support domestic mining of the minerals. However, experts say that setting up alternatives to China's rare-earth magnet supply chain could take years, as it requires an intricate process of rare-earth element refining and separation. "The separation process is quite complex, and China has a lot of advantages in this after putting in decades of research into the processes," Yue Wang, a senior consultant of rare earths at Wood Mackenzie, told CNBC last month. One way that the U.S. has been trying to compensate for lack of rare-earth magnets is through increased recycling. Apple and miner MP Materials announced a $500 million deal last week for the development of a recycling facility that will reinforce the iPhone maker's U.S. magnet supply chain. Peter Alexander from financial consultancy Z-ben Advisors said that Washington's latest concessions on tech restrictions were a reflection of just how much leverage China has in its trade relationship with the United States, speaking on CNBC's "China Connection" on Monday.
Business Insider
10 minutes ago
- Business Insider
Russia's high military recruitment bonuses are straining its economy
Russia's high recruitment bonuses to sustain its war effort in Ukraine are straining the country's economy, according to a recent report from the Institute for the Study of War. Costs have ballooned for the bonuses and the labor expansion in the defense industry, Last July, Putin signed a decree more than doubling the standard enlistment bonus from 195,000 rubles to 400,000 rubles — nearly five times the country's average monthly wage. The head count drive has placed the military in direct competition with civilian industries for labor, driving up wages and prices, particularly in services, while Russia continues to pour funds into its war effort. "Russia cannot indefinitely replace its forces at the current casualty rate without an involuntary reserve mobilization, which Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown great reluctance to order, nor can it sustain increasingly high payments to recruits, which the Russian economy cannot afford," wrote the ISW analysts. Russia has suffered over 950,000 injuries and deaths in the war, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in June. The ISW analysts warned that Moscow is "burning the candle at both ends" by loosening monetary policy to prop up growth and expanding wartime spending. The combination, they said, risks further destabilizing the economy. Russia's "unsustainably high" payments to soldiers are likely to erode consumer purchasing power, weaken the ruble over time, and deepen macroeconomic instability, the ISW analysts wrote. The cost of Russia's war-driven economic boom Putin's administration beat its recruitment goals last year, largely by offering lucrative bonuses. Some regional governments even offered bonuses on par with the US military's sign-on payments. That approach helped fuel short-term growth. Economists at Bruegel, a Brussels-based think tank, wrotethat military spending and bonus-driven consumption were key drivers of Russia's GDP growth in 2023 and 2024. As the economy shifted toward war, the defense sector and wartime consumption benefited most. But by mid-2023, the economy began overheating, prompting the central bank to raise interest rates repeatedly. "Still, with much lending occurring at subsidised rates and the military-industrial complex shielded by public procurement, the rate hikes primarily impacted non-war-related sectors," the Bruegel economists added. Even the military-industrial sector showed signs of stagnation by late 2024. "The economy had butted up against its supply-side constraints," they wrote. With the Bank of Russia directing credit to military-linked sectors, other parts of the economy are increasingly being squeezed. Meanwhile, structural weaknesses in Russia's war economy persist even if it has appeared to be resilient so far, thanks to the influx of war-related spending. "Russia has lost major export markets for its defence products, faces rising costs from sanctions evasion and suffers from weak labour and migration policies — all of which compound its structural challenges," the Bruegel economists wrote.
Bloomberg
10 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Ukraine Anti-Corruption Officials Raided by Security Services
Ukraine's anti-graft office said on Monday some of its investigators had been raided by the security service and officials from the prosecutor-general's office. The searches are being executed without court orders, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau said on Telegram.
