Moscow’s campaign to break into more Ukrainian territory falters just weeks after starting

Russia spent the winter months building its manpower and resources and is using them to break into new ground in Ukraine Credit: Roman Pilipey/AFP

Kieran Kelly.  James Rushton in Kyiv. Meike Eijsberg

29 June 2025

Russia’s summer offensive in Ukraine is faltering just weeks after it began, despite a record number of attacks across multiple fronts

Data analysis by The Telegraph shows Moscow is on track to break its own record, which was set last month, for offensive operations in June. Yet the sheer volume of assaults has not translated into meaningful breakthroughs on the battlefield.

The offensive – launched in May but planned over the winter – stretches from the northern border regions of Sumy and Kharkiv to the front lines in Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk, into which Russian forces are attempting to break for the first time.

Moscow spent the winter months building up manpower, refining tactics and improving the co-ordination of missile and drone strikes. At first, there were signs it was paying off.

In May, Russian forces advanced at the fastest pace seen since last November, gaining an average of 5.5 square miles a day – double the rate of April, according to DeepState, a Ukrainian open-source intelligence project that tracks territorial changes.

Steady gains were made in the Donetsk region, especially between Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka, two of Moscow’s key targets. But several weeks into the campaign, momentum is slipping.

“The capacity to start something new and distinct really isn’t there for the Russians right now. The summer offensive is just going to be the continuation of what they’ve been doing in spring,” Angelica Evans, a Russia analyst at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), told The Telegraph.

In Sumy, Russian forces appear to have stalled entirely. Having re-entered the region in January and intensified their push this spring, Moscow’s troops have failed to make further gains. Instead, Ukraine has recaptured some territory.

Pavlo Narozhny, a Ukrainian military analyst from Sumy, told The Telegraph that Russia’s main target in the region has been Yunakivka, which lies directly on the road that connects Russia to the centre of Sumy.

Should Russia manage to take the town, it would then move on to nearby villages on the edge of a large forest. This, Mr Narozhny said, would be a “disaster” for Ukraine, adding: “The forest leads right up to Sumy city, so if they manage to bring in artillery to Yunakivka and into the forest, they can reach Sumy city with artillery.”

Despite heavy fighting, Ukraine has managed to slow down Russia’s advances in the region, according to the ISW, which said Russia was sending out thousands of poorly-trained soldiers to lead the advance – a pattern seen across the front line.

“The Russian offensive has broadly stalled … They have the advantage in manpower and drones but their infantry is very poorly trained, if at all,” a senior Ukrainian NCO, who is fighting in the Kupiansk direction in Donetsk, told The Telegraph.

The campaign in Sumy is part of a wider Russian effort to establish a buffer zone along the border, aimed at deterring Ukrainian drones and cross-border raids. Kyiv used the region as a launchpad for its 2024 incursion into Russia’s neighbouring Kursk region.

Though the stated aim was to secure the border, Vladimir Putin hinted last week he may be aiming higher.

“The city of Sumy is next, the regional centre. We don’t have a task to take Sumy, but I don’t rule it out,” he said at the St Petersburg economic forum, renewing fears of a wider offensive.

Ukraine’s top general said on Thursday that Russian progress in Sumy had been stopped altogether.

“The Russian advance in the Sumy border zone has been stopped as of this week, and the front line has been stabilised,” said Oleksandr Syrsky.

Yet while Sumy is a symbolic and strategic target, it is only one part of the summer offensive. Ukrainian officials have said Russia is also trying to breach the border of the Dnipropetrovsk region and continue its push to secure the entire Donbas in the east.

“Russia has really been focused on what we call the Ukrainian fortress belt, which includes Kramatorsk, Kostiantynivka and Sloviansk,” said Ms Evans. “But they haven’t really shown since the first few months of the war to make very rapid and widespread advances they would need to take these cities.”

In Donetsk, if Russian forces were able to take Kostiantynivka, a critical Ukrainian logistics hub, it would then pave the way for attacks on Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, taking Putin one step closer to controlling the entire Donbas region.

But given the current pace of Russia’s assault and the poor training of their men, this is unlikely.

“To take Kramatorsk they would need an additional 100,000 men,” the Ukrainian NCO said. “They needed 40,000 to take Avdiivka, 70,000 to take Bakhmut, and that included some very well-trained and capable Wagner mercenaries.”

Indeed, despite an apparent manpower advantage of up to 20 to one in some sectors, Ukrainian troops defending Kostiantynivka have held their ground.

“Our task is to block their actions,” Captain Filatov told The New York Times, claiming up to 15 Russian assaults are taking place every week.

“The Russians are in a tricky position given the level of attrition they’re taking,” said Nick Reynolds, a battlefield expert at the Royal United Services Institute.

“They’ve been unable to sustain that pressure, due to their stock of refurbishable weapons, specifically artillery and armoured vehicles.”

Troops have made some progress north of Toretsk, but urban fighting around the city has slowed the advance. In Pokrovsk, meanwhile, the tempo of attacks remains high but the results are inconclusive. On Thursday, more than a quarter of Ukraine’s reported front-line battles took place around the city but no progress was made.

“The Russians haven’t taken a city for sometime. They celebrate like Soviet-era wins over these small towns and villages, which don’t have any real strategic value,” said Prof Michael Clarke, a security and defence analyst.

And with Russia attempting to open up new major fronts in Sumy and Kharkiv, while also trying to push into Dnipropetrovsk, “any benefit they would have in Donetsk is lost because their forces are overstretched,” he added.

Spreading forces thin is a key aspect of Russia’s approach, particularly as they fear the style of successful counter-offensives launched by Ukraine in 2022.

“The Russians are risk averse,” said Ms Evans, “which whittles its way down from Putin.”

Stretching their forces around Ukraine also forms part of Russia’s “operational theory of victory” – to achieve the “systematic collapse” of the Ukrainian army by imposing intense pressure, rather than pushing for a major breakthrough, said Mr Reynolds, adding: “The Russian forces seem to have accepted that this is just the way that warfare is, even though it’s not true.”

Despite a general lack of momentum, Russian forces this week have notched one notable success – the seizure of a valuable lithium deposit in western Donetsk. The mine, just outside Shevchenko village, was taken in recent days, according to geolocated footage.

Though only 100 acres in size, it is one of Ukraine’s richest known lithium reserves. Its loss will be a blow to Kyiv’s long-term development goals, especially as it courts Western investment in post-war reconstruction.

And while battlefield gains have been slow, Russia has launched a number of devastating attacks on civilians in recent weeks. At least nine people were killed in a Russian missile and drone attack in Kyiv on Monday, while 28 people were killed in a similarly devastating attack on June 17.

Meanwhile, Russia launched a deadly missile attack on Dnipro on Tuesday, killing at least 19 people and injuring 300 more, and on Saturday morning a married couple were killed and 17 other people injured in a strike on a residential building in Odesa.

Like Russia’s tactical decision to spread its forces across Ukraine, rather than in one region, these attacks show that Russia’s long-term aim is to take the whole country – not just the four regions it illegally annexed in 2022.

“We have seen a marked intensification of strikes since January 2025 and it’s only got worse over the last six months. It’s an effort to convince people to leave and to make it easier in the future to seize these cities,” said Ms Evans. “What eventually we will see is a return to an acknowledgement to take all of Ukraine.”