Putin's final 'Hail Mary' meatgrinder assault: 160,000 Russian cannon fodder troops mass for advance in last chance to grab Ukrainian land before Trump's 50-day ultimatum ends

Daily Mail​

18-07-2025

Donald Trump 's sanctions ultimatum issued to Vladimir Putin earlier this week may only encourage his Russian counterpart to step up his forces' offensive on Ukraine and maximise Moscow 's recent gains on the battlefield.
The US President earlier this week announced he was 'very unhappy' with his opposite number in the Kremlin and would slap '100 per cent tariffs' on Russia - plus secondary sanctions on its trading partners - if a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine is not reached in 50 days.
But there is little evidence to suggest that Putin and Kremlin insiders will heed Trump's warning.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov immediately dismissed Trump's declaration on Tuesday, remarking: 'Fifty days... it used to be 24 hours, it used to be 100 days - we've been through all of this.'
Meanwhile, sources in the Kremlin told Reuters this week that Putin intends to simply seize more Ukrainian territory and believes his nation, which has thus far survived the toughest sanctions imposed by the West, can endure further economic hardship.
'Putin thinks no one has seriously engaged with him on the details of peace in Ukraine - including the Americans - so he will continue until he gets what he wants,' one source said.
Russian analysts have said Moscow's forces will aim to bleed Ukraine dry with a strategy of 'a thousand cuts,' using drones and meat grinder assaults to relentlessly pressure many sectors of the front while increasing long-range aerial attacks against key infrastructure.
CNN, citing Ukrainian officials, reported that up to 160,000 Russian troops are massing in preparation to pile into the front, but those numbers have not been verified.
British Army veteran Shaun Pinner, who signed up to fight for Ukraine and was captured by Russian forces on the frontlines in 2023 before being released as part of a prisoner exchange, described the approach as a 'Kremlin Hail Mary'.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his meeting with workers at the Marnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works MMK, July 16, 2025
Since spring, Russian troops have accelerated their land gains, capturing the most territory in eastern Ukraine since the opening stages of Moscow's full-scale invasion in 2022.
DeepState Map, a Ukrainian open-source live mapping service, suggests Putin's soldiers have managed to secure 1,415 square kilometres (546 square miles) of land in the past three months.
Now, they're closing in on the eastern strongholds of Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka in the Donetsk region, methodically capturing villages near both cities to try to cut key supply routes and envelop their defenders.
Capturing those strongholds would allow Russia to push toward Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, setting the stage for the seizure of the entire Donetsk region.
If Russian troops seize those last strongholds, it would open the way for them to forge westward to the Dnipropetrovsk region. The regional capital of Dnipro, a major industrial hub of nearly 1 million, is about 150 kilometres (90 miles) west of Russian positions.
Putin's troops are also already in control of the entire Luhansk region, along with more than 70% of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, and small parts of the Kharkiv region, where they are encircling Lyman and Kupiansk.
Russia's battlefield success of late is due in part to Ukraine's manpower and ammunition shortages after more than three years of brutal war, but can also be attributed in part to a refinement of frontline tactics, specifically the use of drones.
Petro, a senior sergeant with the 38th Marine Brigade fighting near Pokrovsk, told the Kyiv Independent that his unit is experiencing a 'huge problem' with Russia's use of drones and glide bombs.
Rather than relying on tanks and armoured vehicles to grind forward as they did earlier in the war, Russian forces are increasingly deploying swarms of first-person view (FPV) drones to bombard Ukrainian positions and limit the mobility of defenders.
Roman Pohorilyi, co-founder of DeepState Map, added that Shahed-type attack drones are also being used along the contact line, not just to launch attacks on infrastructure.
But groups of unfortunate foot soldiers are nonetheless forced to pile in behind them in a mad dash to overwhelm the defensive lines - a tactic Petro described as 'meat assaults in small groups'.
'Three (Russian soldiers) advance, two are killed, and one reaches the trench.'
Since Trump's return to the White House in January, the US and Russian leaders have shared several personal phone calls.
Trump also dispatched special envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow for a diplomatic visit, and the US has proposed an unconditional ceasefire - but these actions have yielded no results.
This is because there have not been any detailed discussions of the basis for a lasting peace plan - at least not one that takes into account Russian concerns, Kremlin sources told Reuters.
The Russian President has declared repeatedly that any peace deal should see Ukraine withdraw from the four regions that Russia illegally annexed in September 2022.
He also wants Ukraine to renounce its bid to join NATO and accept strict limits on its armed forces - demands Kyiv and its Western allies have rejected.
Moscow's escalating attacks on Ukraine have tested Trump's patience, and his temper boiled over earlier this week during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office.
'We are very, very unhappy with [Russia], and we're going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don't have a deal in 50 days, tariffs at about 100 per cent,' he threatened.
'I'm disappointed in President Putin. I thought we would've had a deal two months ago,' he went on, in reference to the US-proposed ceasefire that Kyiv accepted but was rejected by Moscow.
Perhaps more consequentially, Trump also threatened to levy secondary sanctions on buyers of Russian exports to discourage them from keeping funds flowing into the Kremlin's war chest.
Until now, the US and its European allies have declined to impose measures that would restrict Russia from exporting its oil and gas elsewhere.
Such a move would constitute a dramatic ramping up of Western efforts to back Ukraine as it would likely see Washington and the EU target countries such as China, India and NATO member Turkey, all of whom import huge quantities of Russian energy.
In response, leading Russian propagandist Igor Korotchenko said Moscow must use the 50-day period before sanctions are imposed to win the war by dramatically increasing the intensity of attacks across the border.
Korotchenko, a former colonel-turned-military analyst and editor-in-chief of National Defence magazine, told state-TV: 'Weakening the potential of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' rear support system will force Ukraine to accept Russia's terms.
'It is necessary to intensify Russian strikes… to the maximum extent possible. Scaling up this approach, we can achieve success.'
Trump earlier this week also struck a deal with NATO counterparts in Europe to send sophisticated weaponry, including sorely needed Patriot air defence missiles, to Ukraine - but insisted that the US would not foot the bill.
'We've made a deal today where we are going to be sending [Ukraine] weapons and [Europe] is going to be paying for them,' he stated.
'We - the United States - will not be having any payment made. We're not buying it, but we will manufacture it, and they're going to be paying for it.'
The workings of the deal struck between the White House and European nations to provide and finance the delivery of advanced weapons systems to Ukraine were not immediately clear.
Many European countries appeared to get on board with the announcement, though Trump's move to take credit for the additional weapons headed to Ukraine created some mild friction in Europe.
'If we pay for these weapons, it's our support,' said EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, speaking after the Brussels meeting, adding that she welcomed Trump's decision.
'So it's European support, and we are doing as much as we can to help Ukraine ... If you promise to give the weapons, but say that somebody else is going to pay for it, it's not really given by you, is it?'
Washington also retains some $3.85 billion worth of Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) left over from the Biden administration at its disposal to provide weapons to Ukraine.
The PDA allows the president to draw from US weapons stocks to help allies in an emergency.
Trump has not sent any weapons to Ukraine that were not previously approved under the Biden administration.