Ukraine strains as Russia ramps up offensives on 2 fronts

An emboldened Russia has ramped up military offensives on two fronts in Ukraine, scattering Kyiv’s precious reserve troops and threatening to expand the fighting to a new Ukrainian region as each side seeks an advantage before the fighting season wanes in the autumn.

Moscow aims to maximise its territorial gains before seriously considering a full ceasefire, analysts and military commanders have said. Ukraine wants to slow the Russian advance for as long as possible and extract heavy losses.

Kremlin forces were steadily gaining ground in the strategic eastern logistics hub of Pokrovsk, the capture of which would hand them a major battlefield victory and bring them closer to acquiring the entire Donetsk region. The fighting there has also brought combat to the border of the neighbouring Dnipropetrovsk region for the first time.

In an effort to prevent Moscow from bolstering those positions in the east, Ukrainian forces were trying to pin down some of Russia’s best and most battle-hardened troops hundreds of kilometres away, in the northeast Sumy region.

“The best-case scenario for Ukraine,” said Russian-British military historian Sergey Radchenko, “is that they’re able to stall or stop the Russian advance” in the Ukrainian industrial heartland known as Donbas, which includes the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Then Ukraine could “use that as the basis for a ceasefire agreement”.