Russia tightens its stranglehold on Ukraine battlefield as Trump gifts Putin 50-day window

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - KYIV — US President Donald Trump’s 50-day pause ahead of possible secondary sanctions on Russia gifts the Kremlin a window to exploit the incremental gains of recent weeks, which analysts say increasingly put key Ukrainian strongholds in the east in peril.

Russia is thought to be days or weeks away from surging into a heightened summer offensive, perhaps using the 160,000 troops Ukrainian officials have said are amassing near their front lines. But in the past two weeks, Russia has also made small but vital advances, placing its forces in a better position to cut off Ukrainian troops in three key towns – Pokrovsk, Kostyantynivka and Kupiansk – on the eastern front line.

The Kremlin appeared unperturbed by the new Trump deadline, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying on Tuesday: “Fifty days – it used to be 24 hours; it used to be 100 days; we’ve been through all of this.”

Analysts said the new time frame boded well for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s goals. Keir Giles from Chatham House wrote Tuesday that it also provided space for Moscow on the diplomatic stage. “The deadline of 50 days gives Russia plenty of time to concoct its own alternative plan, and once again outmanoeuvre Washington through a diplomatic ploy which Trump may well accept willingly... Trump’s latest extension of his notional deadlines for Putin extends Ukraine’s suffering for the same arbitrary period.”

John Lough, head of foreign policy at the New Eurasian Strategies Centre think tank, said the summer offensive had likely been underway for several months already, and that “the Russians are undoubtedly intensifying their efforts, both on the ground and in the air.” He said the recent aerial onslaught against Ukraine’s cities was perhaps a reflection of Moscow’s slow progress on the front lines, and aimed “to demoralize the population and zap its will to fight.”

“Putin has sounded for a few months now quite confident about the progress of this campaign, recognizing that the Ukrainians are short of manpower, (and) short of certain weapons systems,” Lough said, adding that Moscow was hoping to spread the Ukrainian defence too thin. “We’re going to see a continuation of that over the next at least 50 days.”

The incremental advances Moscow has made around these three towns have come at a significant cost. But mapping of the front line by DeepState, a Ukrainian monitoring service, and reports from the region show Russian progress in a bid to flank all three.

In the past 72 hours, Russian forces have edged closer to Rodynske, a key settlement to the northeast of Pokrovsk, a main Ukrainian military hub besieged by Moscow for months.

This advance is matched to Pokrovsk’s west, where Russian troops are now moving to encircle the village of Udachne, enabling them to challenge supply routes into Pokrovsk with greater efficiency.

A Ukrainian commander, who goes by the call sign Musician and leads a drone company in the 38th marine brigade, has served near Pokrovsk since October. He told CNN the Russian offensive had been underway for some time. “It has probably not reached its peak yet,” he said, “but they have been advancing for some time and are doing so quite successfully.”

Musician said the defense of Rodynske was key. “The enemy understands this and is counting on it. If they advance from Rodynske, the situation will be critical. There are one or two roads there that they can take control of, and logistics will be cut off. It’s a logical move on the part of the enemy.”

He said reinforcements were urgently needed there, or they would risk a repeat of the encircling and retreat seen in early 2024 around the town of Avdiivka – to Pokrovsk’s east. Ukrainian troops held on in Avdiivka for months, until they lacked the numbers and resources to maintain their grip on the town, in a defeat that came to symbolise both Kyiv’s tenacity and Moscow’s relentless tolerance for high casualties to take territory.

Ukrainian military blogger Bohdan Miroshnikov wrote that if Rodynske is “captured, this will complete the encirclement of our entire left flank” around Pokrovsk, adding similarly pessimistic assessments of the right flank and south. “If things continue like this, there will be few options left... either our garrison will be forced to retreat under threat of encirclement, or there will be fierce fighting in a semi-encirclement with unclear prospects.”

The Russian military Telegram channel “Voennaya Khronika,” which translates to “military chronicle,” said the ambition was for Pokrovsk to fall like Avdiivka and Bakhmut before it, with “successive flank isolation, pressure on supply lines and frontal stagnation after strategic exhaustion.”

DeepState’s mapping also shows advances towards Kostyantynivka – another key hub in the east – which Russia has swiftly approached in the past two weeks from the southeast and southwest, and which is now relentlessly hit by attack drones.

Ukrainian blogger and serviceman Stanislav Buniatov, who goes by the call sign Osman, wrote that the advances bring Moscow’s forces further into the Dnipropetrovsk region, an area not originally part of Putin’s territorial goals. The daily clashes leave “70-90% of the enemy’s personnel and equipment destroyed, but the enemy is advancing, and everyone understands why,” Osman wrote.

Misleading reports from Ukrainian commanders to their superiors were hampering their defense, DeepState posted on Wednesday. “A big part of the enemy’s success is the lies in reports from the field about the real state of affairs, which makes it hard to assess risks and respond to changes in the situation from above... this is a huge problem that has catastrophic consequences. Lies will destroy us all.” The post highlighted the area to the south of Pokrovsk as particularly vulnerable to this internal, Ukrainian failing.

Russian advances are slighter to the north of Kupiansk but present another challenge to Kyiv’s often over-stretched forces. Moscow’s advance since June 23 from Holubivka has left it now in control of a key access road to the north of Kupiansk, by the settlement of Radkivka.

Kupiansk is one of the main towns to the east of Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, and control over it helps secure the city of an estimated million people. — CNN