
Russia steps up offensive operations across the front line in Ukraine, in apparent defiance of Trump. What does it mean for the war?
Offensive operations by Russia's army have increased across the front line, according to social media posts by Ukrainian officers, an analysis of information from the General Staff in Kyiv and soldiers speaking to CNN.
It is not yet clear if this is the start of a major spring offensive by Vladimir Putin's forces, of which Ukraine has been warning for some time. However, it appears to suggest the Russian leader is unconcerned about upsetting US President Donald Trump, who will make up his mind 'in a matter of weeks' if the Kremlin is serious about peace, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, said last week.
For several months, some of the fiercest fighting has been taking place to the south of the town of Pokrovsk – a one-time key logistics hub for Ukraine's armed forces in the Donetsk region.
Ukraine's army has achieved several small tactical successes since the start of the year, pushing back some of the Russian advance towards Pokrovsk, which had bought it to within just a few kilometers of the town center.
But a Ukrainian reconnaissance officer deployed in the area told CNN that, over the last 10 days, Russia's armed forces became more active again and were bringing forward further manpower and vehicles for future assaults.
'We see it on the drone footage, and we hear them talking about it on the radio intercepts,' said the officer, who CNN is not naming.
But with Pokrovsk itself heavily defended and the military supplies previously situated there largely relocated, Russia's main effort in the area could be to push westward, rather than north.
Social media posts by Ukrainian soldiers in the last few days describe fears of possible encirclement in one location and breach of a defensive line in another.
'The frontline in this area has entered an active phase. The Russians will not stop,' one Ukrainian with the call-sign Muchnoi wrote on Telegram.
The aim of the advance is a town called Novopavlivka, he said.
'They will enter the Dnipropetrovsk region - this is one of the key tasks set by the Russian command.'
Moving into Dnipropetrovsk would be a significant moment because it would be the first time Russian troops have set foot there. Indeed, it would be the first new Ukrainian region to come under part-Russian occupation since the earlyweeks of the full-scale invasion more than three years ago.
The Ukrainian mapping service DeepState puts Putin's forces just six kilometers (3.7 miles) away from the region while people living along the border are already being evacuated, Dnipropetrovsk officials say.
For Putin – and quite possibly American negotiators as well – any Russian control over a part of Dnipropetrovsk could be seen as a useful bargaining chip in a future negotiation.
Luhansk is Ukraine's easternmost region and the one where Putin's forces have most control – just a few pockets remain in Ukrainian hands. Here, too, Russian troops have made steady gains in recent weeks, particularly the north of the town of Lyman, a railway hub and rear support base for Ukraine's troops.
'It's hard, we need to work on stabilizing the front and methodically knocking out the enemy, otherwise the gangrene will spread,' one Ukrainian officer wrote on Telegram.
Data analysis by CNN of the combat engagements recorded by Ukraine's General Staff shows an increase in Russian activity over the last two weeks along all parts of the front line. While CNN cannot confirm the numbers, and they are unlikely to be definitive, the data provides clear evidence of an upward shift from March 23 onwards.
Before that date, the average number of daily clashes in March had been around 140 (excluding an outlier on March 11). Since then, while tallies have fluctuated, the average has been around 180 clashes per day, an increase of about 30%.
The data includes the Kursk region in Russia, where Ukraine is now holding on to just a few villages along the border, after a slow but successful Russian rollback of Kyiv's surprise gains last summer. The ground advances are also seeing Russia make inroads into Ukraine's neighbouring Sumy region, creating small grey zones where neither side is in complete control.
Further complicating the picture along the northern border is Ukraine's incursion into a slither of Russia's Belgorod region, confirmed by Kyiv for the first time on Monday.
Ukrainian soldiers report a variety of Russian tactics in recent weeks.
In the south of Donetsk region, a Ukrainian officer with the call sign Alex described Russian troops moving forward in columns consisting of both armored and soft-skin vehicles– about four to five infantry fighting vehicles and tanks, while 'the rest are trucks, cars and golf carts.'
He did not hide his scepticism at the prospects for major Russian advances if current maneuvers reveal a real shortage of armor.
'Yes, they have a lot of manpower, several times more than we do, but whatever one says, in a war in the 21st century, it is impossible to build on any successes and launch a rapid offensive without mechanized means of delivering and supporting infantry,' Alex wrote on Telegram.
Also writing on Telegram, Ukrainian commander Stanislav Buniatov said Russian forces there were suffering heavy losses but continued undeterred. 'One unit in this area loses ten to 50 Russians per day,' he said.
Further west, close to the Dnipro River, where Russian forces last week gained control of the small settlement of Lobkove, a Ukrainian commander with a strike drone squad told CNN he was observing a build-up of manpower between 10-15 kilometers (6-9 miles) behind the line of contact.
'The Russians are operating in small tactical groups of five to seven men, maximum 10 people. As soon as it's foggy or rainy, they start advancing using bad weather as cover from our drones.'
As spring progresses and the weather turns drier, tactics will change, the drone commander says.
'They can't use heavy vehicles at the moment. It's too wet, they will get stuck. As soon as the land dries up, they will make a move; it's not in doubt, they will charge for sure.'
Despite the downbeat assessments, it is important to keep some perspective. The amount of territory Russia is capturing remains small. For instance, its forces southwest of Pokrovsk, bearing down on Dnipropetrovsk region, are only about 45 kilometers (28 miles) further advanced than they were one year ago.
In fact, Britain's Ministry of Defence, in common with other analysts, assesses Russia's rate of advance to have been in steady decline for six months, from about 730 square kilometers captured in November last year to just 143 last month.
Part of this may well be down to the challenges of warfighting in winter, though the US military's senior commander in Europe, Gen. Christopher Cavoli, in an upbeat testimony to Congress last week, said Kyiv's forces had 'assumed very strong defensive positions,' and were 'well dug in.'
'It is very hard to envision Ukraine collapsing and losing that conflict,' Cavoli concluded.
Even so, land warfare analyst Nick Reynolds, of the Royal United Services Institute in London, cautions against thinking that because Russia has not taken much territory, it is not achieving anything.
Russia's territorial claims, he says, will not be achieved through military advance, tree line by tree line, village by village.
'The aim is attrition, and the goal is not immediate. The goal is to kill people, to destroy equipment, to suck in resources, to bankrupt the Ukrainian state and to break its will to fight.'
Even weak Russian offensives, he says, need some defense by Ukraine, which in turn allows for better mapping of Ukrainian defensive positions, providing targets for artillery or glide bomb attacks.
Even in a best-case scenario, Europe's stepped-up efforts to re-arm Ukraine, amid doubts over US military support, will likely take a few years to come to fruition. While Ukraine's own defense industry has made great strides, it remains more economically dependent on its allies than Russia's, analysts say.
Under pressure from Washington, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky remains publicly committed to an end to the war, as long as any peace agreement is just and secure and does not allow Russia to resume fighting later.
For its part, the Kremlin says it wants peace too, but only if the 'root causes' of the conflict are addressed, which in essence means Ukraine must fall back unequivocally into Moscow's sphere of influence.
But Putin's announcement last week of the largest conscription round in more than 10 years, and his stated ambition to build an army with 1.5 million active servicemen, along with an aerial onslaught that shows no signs of slowing, point more to a campaign of attrition than any intention to stop.
For fighters on the front lines, even high-ranking officers, peace talks mean little.
'Trust me, in my experience, when you are sitting there at the front, you don't think about them. There is an order to follow and there is a desire to survive,' one told CNN.
Victoria Butenko contributed reporting.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

Wall Street Journal
20 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
Reagan's Diplomacy Returns
President Donald Trump's Middle East trip represents a fundamental break with the 'liberal internationalism' of his recent predecessors and returns the U.S. to the pragmatic foreign policy practiced by Ronald Reagan ('The Trump Doctrine of the Deal,' Review & Outlook, May 17). While the president may not use Reagan's idealistic language, his approach is similar to that outlined by Reagan's first U.N. ambassador, Jeane Kirkpatrick, who advocated cooperation with regimes that shared Washington's core interests regardless of their internal governance. Mr. Trump, a firm believer in peace through strength, is marrying restored deterrence, realistic strategic objectives and a commitment to commercial diplomacy to restore America's global standing after 25 years of overstretch and strategic missteps. His speech in Riyadh is a fitting antidote to President George W. Bush's 2005 inaugural address, which promised to 'end tyranny in our world' and diverted American attention from the rising threat of China and the return of great-power competition. Alexander B. Gray


CNN
24 minutes ago
- CNN
Hear from Australian journalist shot by rubber bullet during LA protests
CNN affiliate Nine News interviewed their journalist Lauren Tomasi after reporting on the Los Angeles protests in California. The Australian journalist spoke about the moment she was shot with a rubber bullet during the immigration protests.


Fox News
26 minutes ago
- Fox News
Non-citizen LA rioters could be deported under new House bill
FIRST ON FOX: Some House Republicans are now considering whether non-citizens who are found to have participated in violent anti-law enforcement riots have a right to stay in the United States. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, is leading a bill that would make non-U.S. citizens convicted of "actual or attempted assault, battery, or use of force" against any law enforcement officer eligible for deportation. Any immigrants deported under the legislation, if enacted, would be permanently barred from the United States. "The thing about breaking the law is, there's effectively a waiving of your constitutional rights that's sort of inherent in our system, right? When you go to prison, you're losing your liberty," Crenshaw told Fox News Digital in an interview Tuesday. "So this is a very normal thing, and in the case of say, people who are here legally, but then committing acts of violence – in this case, we're being really specific, during a national emergency, committing assaults against police officers, and destruction of property – that should have an effect and be on the list of things that allows for revocation of your status." Early bill text obtained by Fox News Digital shows the bill would apply to legal permanent residents, people here illegally, and beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy. It would go into effect when presidents, governors or local leaders make emergency or major disaster declarations. It comes amid continued tensions in Los Angeles, where protests against Immigrations and Customs Enforcement operations turned violent across the city this weekend. Rioters were seen burning American flags and cars stood on the street in flames, while police used pepper spray and rubber bullets on crowds outside federal buildings. President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard despite the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and ordered 700 U.S. Marines to Los Angeles as well. Those Marines will be training in Seal Beach for a few more days before deployment, a U.S. defense official told Fox News. Democrats have accused the Trump administration of escalating violence in Los Angeles, while Republicans argue that federal action is necessary based on the state's handling of the situation. Crenshaw said his legislation would help the administration restore order during such times. "What it would do is, it would give the administration the option to say, yeah we've rounded all these people up, half of them are U.S. citizens, okay, you're going to jail for rioting. Maybe another quarter are illegals, well that's easy you can deport them," he said. "But what about the other quarter? You know, that might be…a number of legal aliens here rioting against America for enforcing our immigration laws. In our minds, you've violated that sort of social contract with the United States at that point." Crenshaw said he spoke with the White House and that officials there were "excited" about the bill. The White House said it would not get in front of the president on legislative matters when reached for comment by Fox News Digital. Currently, legal U.S. residents, including green card holders, can have their status revoked by an immigration judge if they are found guilty of certain crimes or are found to have fraudulently misrepresented themselves in their application for residence. Crimes that would make legal U.S. visa holders and green card holders eligible for deportation currently include murder, drug trafficking and rape.