Russia is preparing to launch a new military offensive in Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed, even as the Kremlin suggests it is still open to peace talks.
After days of unprecedented Russian aerial attacks on Ukraine, involving more than 900 missiles and drones, Mr Zelensky claimed Kyiv had obtained intelligence suggesting Moscow was on the brink of a new push.
“We can see from the information obtained by intelligence and from open-source data that Vladimir Putin and his entourage do not plan to end the war,” the Ukrainian president said in his nightly address on Monday.
“There is currently no indication that they are seriously considering peace or diplomacy. On the contrary, there is ample evidence that they are preparing new offensive operations.”
Russian troops have increased their attacks in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region in recent weeks, targeting an area 30 miles long between the two cities of Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka, analysts tracking the front line have told The Independent.
Emil Kastehelmi, who runs the Black Bird Group, a Finnish open-source intelligence outfit that uses satellite imagery and social media to track the front line in Ukraine, says Russia’s rate of advance is the fastest it has been this year.
“And it will likely grow during the summer, as Russians should have reserves for larger offensive actions,” he said.
Mr Kastehelmi said the Russians were likely trying to achieve more decisive operational success this summer. “Even though they advanced relatively quickly last summer and fall, they still did not, for example, take any single region to fulfil their political goals. They didn’t even manage to capture any larger cities,” he said.
“It’s likely they want to change this now, as even though the security architecture of Europe isn’t solely decided by who owns the next 30 to 50km of Donbas (eastern Ukraine), successful military operations will affect the [peace] negotiations too.”
He added that they have witnessed additional attacks south of Pokrovsk towards the administrative border between Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk.
Future attacks are likely to focus on filling two salients between Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka, separated by a Russian advance beyond the town of Ocheretyne, analysts suggest.
Konrad Muzyka, a defence analyst and director of Rochan consulting, which also tracks the front line in Ukraine, said they observed Russian elements from two regiments penetrating Ukrainian defensive positions along the TO504 road linking Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka last week.
A former Ukrainian officer who writes under the name Tatarigami wrote on X (Twitter) that the advances, albeit still minor, are the result of months-long efforts by Russia to disrupt Ukrainian logistics lines to the front.
“Cutting off supply lines has made vehicle transport nearly impossible,” Tatarigami, who heads the Frontelligence Insight analysis group, wrote. “In some cases, individual soldiers must walk more than 10km at night to deliver basic supplies, an unsustainable way for supporting any sizeable unit, or even rotating troops.”
Both Mr Kastehelmi and Tatarigami said these issues have been compounded by Ukraine’s ongoing recruitment problems, with not enough new soldiers deploying and too many tired troops being unable to rotate out. That Russia hasn’t taken more territory in the current climate is a testament to the determination of Ukraine’s fatigued forces, they both said.
According to Western intelligence estimates, Russia’s current rate of recruitment is around 30,000 per month, more than six times that of Ukraine.
Mr Zelensky’s announcement comes after US president Donald Trump suggested Putin had “gone absolutely crazy” after the weekend of massive Russian aerial attacks on Ukraine.
Mr Trump suggested Putin was “needlessly killing” civilians – a fact that has been true for at least the entirety of Russia’s full-scale invasion – before warning Moscow against trying to conquer all of Ukraine.
Putin claims to be invested in agreeing to a ceasefire in Ukraine but has declined at every opportunity to alter his maximalist demands, which would amount to the effective end of Ukraine’s sovereignty, as a prerequisite to peace.
After a call with Mr Trump last week, Putin said that Moscow was ready to work with Ukraine on a memorandum about a future peace accord. He said the memorandum would define the principles of a possible settlement, the timing of a possible peace agreement and details about a possible ceasefire.
On Tuesday, foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said work was continuing on the Russian draft and that once the document was ready, it would be handed over to Ukraine.
